TLDR: Doubt can eat you up. How do we deal with it when it is the core of our identity? Anonymous shares his experience in a non-Buddhist family and how it led him to the Dhamma.
Editor’s note: Talking about conversion can be a touchy subject. At HOL, we believe that one should be free to choose whatever faith you choose to pursue. There are various challenges on our religious journey and we are glad anonymous shared his struggles openly as it is not easy to do so.
Introduction
Hi there, my name is Anonymous and I am currently a practising Buddhist. As the title goes, this was not initially the case, and I would like to share more about that here.
Being born in a family of ardent believers of a monotheistic faith naturally made me fairly religious for the first 18 years of my life. Hence, to get to my faith in Buddhism, I had to go through the tedious process of:
1) struggling with the truth of the religion that I was born into (let’s call this my inherited religion or “IR”),
2) dropping my IR,
3) exploring the alternatives out there; and finally
4) ending up with Buddhism.
If that sounds interesting to you, do stay with me! Note that ‘Divine’ is used interchangeably with the concept of a supreme, all-powerful, deity (aka God). In addition, this article is meant to document my journey into the Dhamma and should not be taken as an ‘absolute’ comparison against monotheistic religions. Everyone is free to follow the faith that aligns most with them and brings them contentment.
1.Faith and Doubt
It was pretty challenging to practise my IR as you have to pray frequently each day. This was especially tough when I was in school, having to find time during breaks to fulfil my obligations. Regardless, I tried.
As much as I was fervent in the belief, the more I tried to understand the faith, the more questions I had. I studied the history of my IR, learnt its language, and memorised the scriptures in a formalised institution.
In my attempt to understand the religion, I noted internal inconsistencies in the holy book and encountered teachings which didn’t sit well with my personal ethics. I struggled with accepting things without understanding their rationale.
The issue with that was that my IR demanded full surrender and belief.
The more I tried to learn about my IR, the more the distance of doubt grew for me to have faith. Ironic, isn’t it?
What is faith to you? In my simplistic definition, faith is the acceptance of a claim without sufficient evidence. I felt that it was intellectually dishonest to accept something despite a lack of evidence. I would reason (with my God-given intellect) that it is unethical to do that to yourself, as it equates to self-deception.
Self-deception is unethical because it equates to wilful recklessness in dedicating the scarce resource we call “life” to potential non-truths.
With the doubts that I had, I simply could not believe it. The two values of intellectual honesty and faith clashed. Think about it:
1) Value #1 is faith, the acceptance of a claim regardless of evidence. Faith in that claim implies that I did not consider the validity of the evidence.
2) Value #2 is intellectual honesty, the acceptance of a claim only when sufficient evidence is presented. Non-acceptance (not rejection) of the claim occurs when there is insufficient evidence.
I started to value intellectual honesty more as the debates continued in my mind.
2.Accepting doubt
Mind you, disbelief in my IR was punishable by an afterlife of hell. It would make my current life hell, too, given the level of pressure in the community and in my family.
By the time I was 17, the doubts that I’ve shared earlier would serve as my one-way ticket to eternal torment. It was therefore important for me to save my soul.
My last-ditch attempt at salvation was to will myself towards belief. I tried to suppress my doubts, much like preventing the escape of steam from a boiling kettle. I wished and prayed for those doubts to go away in the hopes that the divine would reveal himself. The pressure of doubt continued to build up the more I fought against it.
In the midst of my efforts sprang a realisation—I was literally trying to trade my piety, reverence, and mortal life for a better afterlife. Those drives which were previously subtle became clear as day. I reached a point where following this belief was more of a transaction than a religion.
Although I had no choice but to doubt, I do have a say in whether I would acknowledge it, or wilfully ignore it. So I chose the truth, accepting that I didn’t believe it. In choosing myself, I left the Divine behind.
Wise steps
Acknowledging any doubts that we have can be challenging but it is self-affirmative. The process does not end there. Investigate them!
3.Exploring truths
And so, I left the decades-long conditioning in a finger-snap. Apostasy was instantaneous upon that realisation, but it was also the culmination of a gradual struggle with doubt. The remainder of my hopes for the truth of my IR was dropped. A sense of loss followed, perhaps insecurity or guilt arising from tasting the sacrilegious freedom of self-acceptance.
Despite that, I could see that those were residual emotions which did not connect with the insight gleaned. Those emotions gradually ceased, and life and death were no longer relegated to an “almighty” concept in the great everywhere.
“Now is my chance”, I said to myself. I decided to redesign my life, hitting the “f5” on the keyboard of my being, erasing any inherited indoctrination by questioning my own ethics, worldview, and how I lived my life.
What an uncomfortable process! It felt like I was literally killing parts of a personality which I had built all my life—but alas, parts which were never “me” to begin with. (That is probably a topic for another day, however.)
In that journey of apostasy and agnosticism, I explored the religions of the world. If there is a Truth out there, let me find it. If it is true, it will not be hidden for long. A sincere God will not forsake a sincere seeker, would he (or she)? This aspiration grew in the newfound field of freedom.
Wise steps
Introspection is key to living an authentic life. In ensuring that the views we hold are aligned with our values, it may bring insight to reflect on the following;
What are some of your unquestioned beliefs contributing to your core worldview which you hold to be true?
Do they align with your values?
If that belief is untested, and not aligned with your values, how does it feel to drop them? – Investigate further if there is resistance.
4.Finding the practice
I explored Abrahamic and Indic religions and, as you may have guessed, Buddhism. While some of those teachings, being new to me, had their own charm, Buddhism was compelling to me as it encouraged one to question and test any claims brought forth.
– When you know for yourselves that ‘these qualities are skilful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ —
– then you should enter & remain in them.
In short, it does not encourage blind faith but empowers authentic acceptance through experiencing the truth. It is intellectually honest.
The Buddha was known to actively encourage enthusiastic followers to first inquire before converting to Buddhism.
“Householder, you should act after careful consideration. It’s good for well-known people such as yourself to act after careful consideration.” – MN 56, Upali Sutta
I tested the teachings and applied, and learnt and applied, iteratively.
The mutually supportive practices of cultivating kindness and awareness were making a clear change in my life. Being kind was a nice thing—to simply care for others and enjoy the naturally arising warmth in a smile, what a joy!
What of morality? It is expressed as a life of morality that is not just lived because the divine says it is right. It is not a demand, but a gift to see it for yourself!
When we live ethically, people around us are at ease, and consequently, we are gladdened. When we do no harm, our conscience is clear, and we are at ease—with ourselves (this is observable when I meditate, where I am my only company). Living ethically is a gift from me to others, and to myself.
Heaven used to be a subtle expectation, where my kindness and good behaviour came with terms and conditions attached—but no more. This way of life is pleasant. Each step on the path yields fruit to be tasted almost instantaneously, inviting one to take the next step. The more I enjoyed the process, the deeper down the Dhamma rabbit hole I went.
I gradually “became” a Buddhist, without even realising it.
Now, if you have tolerated me this far, I must come clean that I do have unresolved questions relating to the doctrine. However, taking the guidance of the Kalamas and the exhortation of the Simsapa Sutta (which this page is inspired by), I hold the handful of truths that have been tried and tested.
In this journey, it seems to me that having faith is more like falling in love. It is an invitation which calls you on. You do not beckon it. And in the gradual calling, I grew to notice momentary suffering, saw its attachments, and sometimes, if luck would have it, its dissolution.
Thanks for joining me in this journey from doubt to tested faith. 🙂
Editor’s note: This article is adapted from PJ’s website. Do check out his past articles on tackling the workplace over here, here, and here.
On 19th October 2022, I flew back to Singapore after spending three months at my teacher Ajahn Brahm‘s retreat centre Jhana Grove and monastery in Serpentine, Western Australia.
Since then, I’ve been asked quite frequently about what I learned and “gained”, which I’ll attempt to summarize here. Below are the 11 things I’ve learnt.
(Graphic image warning: Please note that learning point 8 has a few graphic pictures of a decaying dead kangaroo. You may quickly jump to point 9 if you are easily affected.)
1. A much clearer & experiential understanding of how suffering works.
Expectations, wanting, hopes, plans, etc. are a huge barrier, because of the Second Noble Truth: wanting causes suffering. During this retreat, I think I’ve let go more of the expectations & wanting to re-experience the life-changing yo-yo-jhana in 2010, which I’ve written about here and here . And if I wanted anything, whether it was the beautiful breath, or silence in the mind, or nimittas, or jhanas, that wanting always led to suffering.
So towards the end, I was deliberately cultivating the mantra of “Good enough”. Heavy rain while walking to the monastery? Good enough. Restless mind while sitting in the morning cold? That’s more than good enough!
And that really helped and worked: there was a lot less suffering when I was developing this mindset of being “contented and easily satisfied”, instead of striving with strong wants.
It’s not all perfect: there were definitely days when it felt like walking into a perfect storm. The lowest point I experienced was towards the end, on a Monday. For the whole of Monday, I struggled with a very, very restless mind: I could barely sit. It was, as Ajahn Chah (Ajahn Brahm’s teacher) described, “you can’t move forward, you can’t go backwards, you can’t stay where you are”.
I’m experienced enough to know that restlessness is the mind being discontented with the present moment experience. So I tried to make peace with the present moment experience and tried to be unconditionally kind and gentle to my own mind. That caused my mind to kinda go into a kind of split, where a less-critical, more-loving PJ was having a dialogue with a very fault-finding, very discontented PJ:
Loving PJ: There there! It’s ok to be discontented. You’re not enlightened yet!
Fault-Finding PJ: Of course it’s easy to say that!
Loving PJ: Remember Ajahn Brahm’s instructions? Just make peace with the suffering, be kind, be gentle…
Fault-Finding PJ: Of course it’s easy for Ajahn to say that! He’s the MOZART of meditation, whereas you are still playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars! You can’t even watch your stupid beautiful breath, for goodness sake!
It just spiralled downwards from there, into outright fear and despair. I was reminded of the episode in the Buddha’s passing, when his attendant Ananda cried out of despair. I understood what he felt because I felt this deep fear of what will happen when Ajahn Brahm dies? Who else can I have as a teacher I am dependent on?
And there was despair because I was nowhere close to the jhanas, which are needed to really remove the defilements. And I had so many defilements … it felt like I was tasked with using a single box of matchsticks to melt an entire iceberg or glacier.
The fear and despair was very, very real, and very, very bad: I sobbed and cried my eyes out in the shower. I don’t think I have cried like this ever since my colleague Parathy died… after I finished crying, I asked my mind what it wanted to do, and went to sit and meditate, before going to sleep. The next morning, I went to ask Ajahn for advice on how to deal with such days.
Ajahn was so kind and compassionate… he kept saying “trust. you are so close“, and also talked about how, often, progress on the Path isn’t about more effort, but about finding the right place to perpendicularly cross the river. “And when you’re over, you’ll then realize how stupid you’ve been all this while, because you’ll look back and say ‘wait, that was it? That’s all it took?’ ” And that was all it took for me to gain back the trust, confidence, and patience to carry on.
2. A more experiential understanding of non-self”
The other learning is a more experiential understanding of non-self. Basically, I don’t really control my body or my mind: it is heavily influenced by the environment around me. The body is out of control, and the mind is out of control because they are all complex processes which have no single source of self, and where effects become causes for further effects. It’s all about putting the right causes in place, I.e. Right Motivation (Samma sankappa). A few episodes really highlighted this to me.
No matter how much I tried, I could not change the fact that my body is made in Singapore, and that I struggle with the cold. Cold makes my mind restless, as I am really not made for this climate. It’s quite funny because whenever it’s cold, there is automatically a soundtrack playing in my mind (for the first two months, it was the soundtrack of Crash Landing On You, because my wife and I re-watched it before I left…). But what was even more interesting was the short spell of warm weather in late September and early October: the soundtrack playing stopped in my mind, with no choice nor force at all! So it was really caused by the cold.
Physically with my body, there were a few incidents (suspect Covid; my twitching eye; body pains from sitting meditation) which drove home the point of non-self. From the Buddha’s second-ever discourse (Anattalakkhanasutta SN 22.59):
“(this body is not) fit to be regarded thus: ‘This is mine, this I am, this is my self’”, because “…if…(this body) were (my) self, this (body) would not lead to affliction, and it would be possible to have it of (this body): ‘let my (body) be thus; let my (body) not be thus’. But because (this body) is nonself, (this body) leads to affliction, and it is not possible to have it of (this body): ‘let my (body) be thus; let my (body) not be thus’. “
Basically, if your body was you or your self, then you would be able to compel it and control it to be well, not be sick, and to take on any shape or form you wish. Which you can’t.
3. Reduce the drivers of negative emotions
Much of Ajahn Brahm’s teachings are really about undermining and reducing the drivers for negative emotions, especially the overthinking mind that tenses up, comments, interferes, fault-finds, strives and tries, is ruthless, and seeks to control everything (especially due to fear).
If we do the exact opposite to the above verbs, those are the causes for future deep meditation and eventual liberation. So we should:
Relax to the Max
Disengage from commentary
Don’t interfere or do anything, because it is all none-of-your-business
Let the mind decide what it wants to do, rather than tell and control it
Cultivate contentment: “good enough”
Not try
And be kind, unconditionally.
4. Cultivating the opposite of fault-finding
Ajahn Brahm once wrote that “cultivating the opposite of fault-finding is 90% of the Buddhist practice”, and this was something I realised from the three months.
It is so easy to lapse into fault-finding and criticism of everything: I could be sitting for 45 mins, watching the breath for 44 mins, and daydreaming in the last minute, and that is often enough for me to say “that was not peaceful”! This is crazy, if you think about it, because I wasn’t really looking realistically at the whole session, but only picking out the bad parts to smear the whole thing.
I think this fault-finding is due to social conditioning: it seems “smarter” to seem pessimistic, cynical, and negative (as shared in Psychology of Money: see point 7 in the original article here). This mindset is especially prevalent in Singapore, I think.
5. Systems, Not Goals
Scott Adams’ “system vs goals” came up in my mind during the retreat, and I started wondering what was my “system”, vs the “goal” of enlightenment. My system is to keep precepts, learn Dhamma, create the supporting environment for practice around me, and meditate daily. I’ll let the results take care of themselves. Some specifics that I picked up during the Rains:
If the meditation was me largely “letting go, being kind and gentle”, then the meditation was a success, regardless of the results!
I started debriefing myself after each meditation, as part of my “system”. I ask myself these questions:
What suffering was absent? How much peace, calm & stillness was generated from the sit?
Was there letting go, kindness and gentleness in the meditation, between me and the meditation object?
Which defilements were gone? Usually for me, there’s no ill will, sloth and torpor, and doubt. The usual suspects are Kama canda, and restlessness and remorse.
7. Meditation is like taking a shit
Meditation is a lot like taking a shit: there are a lot of parallels between the two.
Both are non-self: in both processes, there is no single part you can point to, and say that’s me, mine, a self. There are also none of the accumulations of a self in any part of the processes e.g. ego, pride, expectations, will, etc.
Both are natural causal processes, where willpower & expectations are NOT necessary causal factors & are often counterproductive:
If you’re blocked in meditation, often you need more mindfulness and kindness, to unblock yourself. If you’re blocked in shitting, often you need more fibre and water to unblock yourself.
Using willpower in both cases causes haemorrhoids in your mind and in your a**
Expectations in both cases are major blockers.
Both processes are about clearing their “containers” of defilements and debris: one is clearing the mind, the other is clearing the digestive system.
Last but not least, the best sits and the best shits are effortless and joyful, and very healthy.
7. Keeping Precepts is Critical
Keeping precepts is critical for progress on the Path. This is often overlooked, especially in western meditation instructions. But this importance becomes very clear when meditation deepens, and when your mind starts to reflect the spottiness of your ethical behaviour by body, speech and mind. Let me share a story about someone, whom I’ll call PJ2. Imagine that PJ2 is single, and that he once had a very, very deep meditation experience a few years ago.
At the start of the Rains Retreat, I was discussing nimittas and jhanas with PJ2. However, as the retreat progressed, PJ2’s past caught up with him: he had not kept his precepts fully, and that caused him to feel this overwhelming sense of guilt that triggered panic attacks.
This lasted until PJ2 left, and it was very eye-opening for everyone to see how important keeping precepts are, for deeper meditation and for one’s practice.
8. Death is everywhere
Death and dying is everywhere, in the most unexpected places. In September, as a few of us returned from visiting Kusala Hermitage, it turned out that two kangaroos had been hit by vehicles just outside Jhana Grove. One of them was more decayed, while the other one was quite intact. It was very eye-opening to see the decaying and decomposition process over the weeks, which I captured by taking multiple videos and photos.
What videos and photos do not capture is the smell: that nauseating odour of death and decay, which reminds me of the very first time I smelled that odour, as a teenager helping my father clear the drowned rat stuck under our driveway.
But what the photos and videos do convey are the charnel ground descriptions in the suttas, especially the Satipatthana sutta (** CONTACT ALERT: Pics of dead things**)
The dead adult kangaroo just outside Jhana Grove
…And it had been dead for one, two, or three days, bloated, livid, and festering. They’d compare it with their own body: ‘This body is also of that same nature, that same kind, and cannot go beyond that.’ 15.1
The dead adult kangaroo had moved due to heavy rain and had decayed
Then:
…a corpse discarded in a charnel ground being devoured by crows, hawks, vultures, herons, dogs, tigers, leopards, jackals, and many kinds of little creatures. 16.2They’d compare it with their own body: 16.3‘This body is also of that same nature, that same kind, and cannot go beyond that.’ 17.1
Same dead kangaroo, much more decayed. Note how the skull has gone missing, and the skeleton has changed color.
Then:
Bones rid of sinews scattered in every direction. Here a hand-bone, there a foot-bone, here a shin-bone, there a thigh-bone, here a hip-bone, there a rib-bone, here a back-bone, there an arm-bone, here a neck-bone, there a jaw-bone, here a tooth, there the skull …
A finger fragment of the dead kangaroo by the roadside marking
Then:
Bones rotted and crumbled to powder. 30.2They’d compare it with their own body: 30.3‘This body is also of that same nature, that same kind, and cannot go beyond that.’
It is extremely sobering, especially since an adult male kangaroo is about the same size as me, to reflect that my body is truly “of that same nature, that same kind, and cannot go beyond that.”
The Sangha at Bodhinyana Monastery paying respects to the Triple Gem
9. The monastic practice is the Buddha’s Training Programme
The monastic practice set by the Buddha is THE way to get to Nibbana. Before this Rains, I had doubts about this: what’s stopping me as a lay person from being able to practice towards liberation? But after three months, there is no longer any doubt in my mind that the Training Programme decided by the Buddha is the best bet to Enlightenment.
However, my conditions in life are such that, it has to be lay life for me, at least for a while: as a married man, I have to take care of my wife, but also have to take care of my parents and parents-in-law as they age.
10. Some observations of my fellow retreatants:
My “alms bowl” for three months, filled with food generously given by lay supporters of the monastery. Those lay supporters drove 1 hr each way to feed the monks and lay retreatants every day, for 3 months!
The generosity of people is astounding. For three months, I was fed by other people. Also, this group of Rains Retreatants really were very generous with helping each other out. For example, Becky would serve Ajahn tea, but also do a lot of acts of loving kindness to others. And in turn, I saw others helping her: a number of retreatants were talking to her to give her an introduction to the suttas, just before her silent retreat. Everyone was helping each other out like one big family (e.g. Gayathri making soup for Piotr, our Polish retreatant, when he fell sick a second time), which the Jhana Grove staff observed was quite unusual to our group.
There seems to be a bit of PTSD from past experiences with SN Goenka vipassana meditation: a couple of retreatants mentioned to me something along the lines of “I can’t watch the breath, because I end up trying to control it from my vipassana experience” and “I can’t watch the breath with pleasure, because my vipassana conditioning kicks in”. Which is a real pity, because the breath can be a lovely meditation object.
Dhamma vitakka (thoughts of the Dhamma) as a subtle hindrance was something that came up in a sutta class taught by Ajahn Brahm, but it seems to have been rejected by a number of retreatants. This hindrance was something I saw in my own mind: at some point, I realised that reading the suttas was actually complicating my own meditation practice, because I ended up generating a lot of questions (“Am I doing X right, like in the sutta?”) which disturbed the peace of mind. So towards the end, I deliberately cut down on my reading of the suttas, and reduced my thinking on aspects of the Dhamma.
11. The Practice isn’t just about meditation
While on a day outing with Ajahn Santutthi, abbot of Kusala Hermitage, I asked Ajahn about advice on the practice, especially since I felt stuck and stagnating in my meditation depth. He gave very good advice: “the practice doesn’t end after three months”, “the practice isn’t just about meditation”, and “just develop contentment and peace.” Which is perhaps the main takeaway I got from my three months.
Monks from Kusala Hermitage walking in a botanical garden bed of tulips
The content is extracted from the Dhamma sharing by Venerable Thubten Chodron on “A Guide To the Bodhisattva Way Of Life” Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agm106n9zX8
Verse 87. In an empty hut, at the foot of a tree, or in a cave, one remains as long as one desires, and casting off the suffering of guarding one’s possessions, one lives light-heartedly, without care.
Wholesome Wednesdays (WW): Bringing you curated positive content on Wednesdays to uplift your hump day.
How can we bring impact in this world? Is being a good spiritual guide the most important thing? Here are two stories to ponder over as we try our best to be a force of good in this world
1. How to make an impact? Light your own candle
2. It is not important to be a good fighter or a good spiritual guide. Here’s what is most important.
How to Make an Impact? Light your own candle
Snapshot from the video
What’s going on here & Why we like it
Venerable Nick, a Thai monk living in USA, shares about a recent Dhamma event they did on lighting candles. He shares about how we have to slowly work on ourselves to be more peaceful and kind before we try to change the world. When we can model that as a person we can shift the whole world. We like it because he beautifully explains a common ritual of lighting candles and how it ties to the practice and world peace!
“Take this concept, be very patient, and again whatever you want to help to fix the world with, try to fix yourself first”
Wise Steps
For those of us trying to change the world to be more peaceful and kind, this video gives us a good pause to look at ourselves and see where we can grow as people.
It is not important to be a good fighter or a good spiritual guide. Here’s what is most important.
Shaolin Temple
What’s going on here & why we like it
Shi Heng Yi, headmaster of a Shaolin Temple, shares on what is important for us as we walk the path and to live a pleasant life. We like this video as it is short and powerful. It resets our take on what is truly important.
“If you don’t this way of reducing the suffering of your surrounding, your suffering won’t stop.”
Wise Steps
We are impacted by our surroundings. No matter which culture, family, or religion we are in. Finding ways to relieve the suffering of our surrounding friends, family, and workplace will help us become better and happier.
TLDR: Having a set of goals to work towards gives us a sense of direction in life. Our society prizes this go-get-it attitude as a self-improvement hack; many of us strive for this mindset. However, there could be a risk of doing something just for the sake of it and we may end up beating ourselves for getting lost in the pursuit of excellence.
Many of us have been conditioned to chase something, consciously or unconsciously. We race with others to prove our worth, ever since birth – to be the first to crawl/walk/run, the top rank in class, the one to get into a famous university, the first to be office management level, the one who found ‘the one’ and have family……The list continues.
The neverending chase has been fuelled by the comparison trap we adopt from our parents, society and ourselves.
Have we ever pondered what is the source of our chasing mindset?
I was so used to the chase that I rushed from one achievement to another, not sparing time to truly soak in whatever I was doing and its outcome. After landing my first job as an accountant, I quickly enrolled on a professional certified course.
Upon completion, I thought, ‘what’s next?’. Before long, I was looking to register for a postgraduate degree.
I must admit those learnings were not in vain. I gained something out of them – both technical skills and soft skills like time-management, relational skills, self-organisation. These skills have been helpful to me in my personal and professional life. But whether or not I could use the effort on a more targeted outcome, that’s another question altogether.
To outsiders, I may look like someone with a thirst for knowledge (or paper certificate, for that matter).
Little did I know this chase was masked as self-improvement; there would always be a better thing to go for next if I don’t consciously define the outcome that I want to achieve.
This deceptive ‘self-improvement’ is not limited only to the worldly chase – I realised that I wanted to keep improving myself spiritually too. While spiritual advancement may be a sensible goal, my underlying intention was warped, at least initially.
I kept myself immersed in spiritual talks one after another. I sat meditating even when the heart refused to – just to prove that I, too, can evolve in my spiritual practice.
This spiritual chase resulted in resistance between the mind and the heart, not to mention the sense of dejection when I didn’t see the improvement I expected. Definitely not a fun experience!
The source of my chasing mindset was a sense of lacking self-worth. I wanted to prove myself a deserving human being by reaching the level that is deemed ‘good enough’. And we know that ‘good enough’ is a subjective measurement and may not serve as a good gauge.
Comparing myself today with who I was 3 years ago, for example, I can honestly say I have grown into a different and (hopefully) a better, more mature person. This is probably a better use of the comparison mind for improvement measurement.
Be kind to ourselves and others
I chanced upon an apt Dhamma talk by Venerable Ajahn Brahm on how we often hold on to ‘I need to be better’ thoughts just because everyone else thinks or expects so. Ajahn Brahm further taught that this ‘I’m not good enough’ mindset is neither kind nor helpful to ourselves.
Of course, we need to carefully distinguish between accepting ourselves with kindness and not growing out of unconstructive habits.
There could be a risk of not improving the mind under the false pretence of self-acceptance. Learn to be at peace with what we already have, then improvement would flow naturally.
Many of us may be performing good deeds and consciously express kindness to others. Doing so not only keeps the mind at peace but also elicits joy during and after the act. I identify with this definition of living a blessed life in the spirit of Mangala Sutta, when I can share and contribute what I have with others. However, with the chasing mentality, I might have forgotten about the one person who would benefit from such good deeds as well – myself.
How many times do we speak harsh words inside our head when we act less than ‘perfect’?
‘Why did you do that silly thing?’
‘How could you forget about that important event?’
‘What is wrong with you?’
I probably would not say such things to my close friends or even strangers, so why do I say them to myself? Am I unworthy of the same kindness I have so freely and joyfully shared with others?
Nowadays, I decide to contemplate my pursuits with an objective mind, even if it seems like an improvement on the surface:
‘Does this course/workshop feel aligned with the heart or is there another reason why I want to join?’
‘Do I feel joyful in learning or is it another medal on my chest to show the world?’
Suffering arises when we don’t get what we want and when we get what we don’t want
I recently read separate teaching from Venerable Ajahn Chah1 on “wanting with right understanding”. The teaching explained that desire towards and away from something can arise from us as worldly beings. I find resonance to this gentle outlook towards self and am aware that setting goals can start off my self-improvement actions – but blindly chasing and grasping the desire tightly is not right either. Instead, taking action accompanied by gradual and reflective practice would be more helpful.
For example, I started this article with the intention to write about chasing struggles. It has developed into deeper contemplation of my underlying beliefs and expanded thoughts that I am sharing now.
Trying to be mindful of my wanting and not-wanting, I do my best at the moment and allow the outcome to unfold.
I realise that telling myself to let go of expectation, is an expectation by itself – another debacle to untangle!
Rather, it is much more peaceful to put in my best effort for the situation; watch the result arise and take the next step from there.
When a learning experience concludes as expected or not, I try to take time to settle down and truly embrace the event. When another learning opportunity comes, I will then be able to jump in wholeheartedly. Even if I failed, I could learn from it. Failure is just another piece of feedback! With this outlook, I hopefully lessen the suffering created for myself.
I conclude that having a goal is necessary, especially for myself and many others who are just entering the ‘real’ life of the professional and social world.
Clarity of true motivation is essential as we take on the path, paired with conscious kindness towards ourselves when the comparison mind takes a negative turn. The next time I look at others and start to put them on the pedestal with an unreasonable expectation of myself, I will remind myself: ‘remember how far you have gone’ and ‘we all have our own path to take’.
Pair working on goals with a mindful review of underlying reason in choosing these goals, it could provide clarity on the true nature of our motivation
When harsh reprimand arises within, ask if these are the words we will give to others
Refrain from punishing ourselves when we could not let go immediately. Be still, the conditions for letting go will arise.
