Eating A Whole Chocolate Bar

Eating A Candy Bar

A Dharma Story

Dad comes home from work just before dinner to hear Mom yelling at their 14-year old son for eating a chocolate bar when it’s half an hour before dinner. The mother is enraged; the father doesn’t see a problem.

What this story tells us is that eating a chocolate bar isn’t good or bad. It isn’t a right or wrong thing to do. Why? Because eating a chocolate bar doesn’t have any intrinsic meaning. If it did, it would always be the same to everyone, regardless of the conditions. But that is not the case; otherwise the couple would be in agreement: they would both see the incident as bad, leaving them both infuriated, or they would both see it as good, leaving them patient and calm.

What the dharma tells us is that eating a candy bar can be either good or bad because eating a candy bar isn’t intrinsically anything, it is “empty.” When the dharma says something is empty, it isn’t denying that it is real. It is simply saying it is meaningless until we assign it a value. So in this example, it wasn’t good or bad until the parents imposed their ideas on it. And they could only impose their ideas on it because it was empty.

A further look at the incident reveals that the boy was hungry as dinnertime approached and so snacked on a chocolate bar. He was tired and worn down after basketball practice that afternoon; he saw eating the chocolate as a good choice. Mom became infuriated because she had spent an hour that afternoon shopping for dinner, another hour preparing a “healthy” meal for the family, and there was her son, ruining his appetite on a bar of sugar and fat. It was bad, wrong, disrespectful, unhealthy, and so on. Dad comes in the door, having had a great day at the office, and can’t see anything to get angry about: it’s just a chocolate bar.

What makes something right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust, fair or unfair, is simply whether we define it as something we like or don’t like. Things we feel an affinity for are right, good, just and fair; things feel an aversion toward are wrong, bad, unjust and unfair. Once those feelings arise in us, we fabricate “stories” to explain and justify the feelings. Then we take ownership of the stories and identify ourselves by them: “I’m the kind of mother who becomes angry when the boy misbehaves and her husband is unsupportive.” And that’s the problem.

It is always our “stories,” our skewed relationship with what’s happening not what’s happening, that causes our suffering–never the people, places, things or events that are happening.

This is a key understanding of the dharma, that everything is empty and that we are the source of our own suffering.

What this means is that if we stop telling stories we will end our suffering. It is that simple. The great way is easy; just stop the stories as Sengcan tells us. Unfortunately, we are great storytellers and we love our stories. It’s hard to see that giving them up will make us happy and even harder to give them up. But storytelling is the source of all suffering.

Do you love your wife?

The Great Way Is All About Love

Whether we choose call it The Great Way, or the Tao, or Grace, or Universal Love, or Merging with the Divine, or Surrendering to Allah, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we understand and practice with The Great Way and its implications, both for everyday and for ultimate meaning.

The Great Way tells us to be here, now, present and observing; to be here, now, wholeheartedly, with judging, without preferences, without expectations, without opinions, without speculating or supposing or surmising. Not without discerning, but without preferring things to be other than what they are.

The Great Way is a process, a becoming, and it asks us to be in its becoming. No easy task.

When we are approaching The Way; when we are with The Way, or when we are The Way, we are observers, witnesses without karmic impediment or thrust, of whatever is in front of us. There is no desire for it to be anything other than what it is.

Do you love your spouse with wanting them to be anything other than what they are, in this moment and in every moment? The Great Way suggests if you do anything else, you don't love them. Do you love your spouse for exactly who they are in each and every moment, without judgment, without expectations, with hesitation? The Great Way suggests anything else would not be loving them. No easy matter.

GO FOR THE GOLD

Candy or Gold, You’re Choice

What we call happiness in everyday parlance is only “happiness” because we’re not seeing it clearly. What we call “happiness” is, in fact, nothing more or less than being excited about getting what we want. In dharma terms, that’s greed, not happiness.

True happiness doesn’t come from getting what we want and it isn’t dependent on externals. Externals, as we know from meditation, are impermanent and always changing. To hang our happiness on something that is about to disappear isn’t real happiness. Real happiness comes from within, from letting go of our delusions, from being our Buddhanature, being our original untarnished self.

If we want to reach true happiness, we must be dedicated, disciplined, and above all, honest with ourselves. And we must be willing to give up the illusion of happiness that comes from getting our way in order to be happiness.

We act more like kids than adults in making this choice. We tell ourselves we want it both ways. We’re not willing to give up our candy for gold. We tell ourselves we can keep the candy and get the gold too, building one delusion on top of another. It doesn’t work that way. And even though we realize that it doesn’t work that way–after all, if it did we would be happy by now–we continue to tell ourselves we’re right and that we should be attached to the stuff we like and want.

Until we are willing to rearrange our priorities and commit to living a disciplined, meditation- and wisdom-informed life, all we will do is increase our unhappiness, our stress and anxiety. We know this, of course, if we look at what’s happening around things we say make us happy.

Take a closer look: What do most people say at the end of a cruise: WOW, this was great, we should do it again next year. Instead of enjoying the end of the cruise, we’re trying to get more of it and our idea of it. This is greed. This is protecting and defending our feeling about how great the trip was by buying another. This is fertilizing the seeds that say, “If a little is good, a lot is better” thinking that “a lot” will finally make us r-e-a-l-l-y happy.

Again, this excitement at getting what we want; it is not real happiness

We spend so much time working on our desires and attachments, strengthening them and increasing them, that we aren’t present with the things we tell ourselves are so wonderful and such a source of our happiness. We’d rather talk about how good it will be next year than to actually be on the cruise.

This is the candy in our life, and we hold onto it tenaciously. Ironically, it is exactly that tenacity that prevents us from moving along the path to real happiness, the gold.

Question is, do you want occasional moments when you delude yourself into thinking you’re happy or do you want to be happy all the time. Are you willing to trade the “happiness” that comes from getting externals for the happiness that comes from within, from a settled mind that is clear and at ease, even under the most difficult circumstances? The happiness that comes from spiritual well-being and a disciplined mind can survive even sickness, aging and death, so why is it that we are so willing to forego it for momentary “pleasures.”

When we let go of the candy, when we are willing to sacrifice external pleasures, we become free of the mental burdens, the stress and anxiety, that they entail and that binds us to our suffering.

External pleasures are our addictions to eye-candy, ear-candy, nose-candy, tongue-candy, body-candy, and mind-candy. They foster the three poison: greed, anger, and delusion, and they actively block the qualities we need to achieve inner peace. Even if we had all the time and energy of a million lives, the pursuit of these pleasures would only lead us further and further away from the goal.

So do we relish our passions or renounce them? Do we follow the path or only give it lip service?

GO FOR THE GOLD!

Compassion Comes in Stages

The Three Stages of Compassion

Compassion is the essence of our practice. And practicing with compassion is a three-step process, as Chandrakirti explains at the very beginning of his Entering the Middle Way. Understanding this process tells us where to start and guides us as we become more and more capital-B-Bodhisattva-like.

We can all start here, now, by practicing with the first of the three types of compassion, compassion for the suffering of others. As we become more aware, we can move to practicing with the second type of compassion, compassion that arises from the suffering caused by delusion. Finally, when our practice deepens sufficiently, we practice the third type of compassion, compassion that arises from an awareness of emptiness.

Where we are on our path determines the type of compassion we practice, but knowing the direction in which our compassion will grow allows us to aspire toward deeper and deeper levels of compassion and to be open to an ever-increasingly profound practice.

Here is Chandrakirti’s triad:

1. Compassion with reference to beings.

This arises when our practice allows us to clearly perceive the pain and suffering of others. It is the first kind of compassion to arise and it causes us to strive to do what we can to help those who suffer.

This form of compassion is marked by our no longer being able to remain unmoved by the suffering of beings and by aspiring to do everything possible to help alleviate their suffering. It is often random and is not necessarily directed by wisdom. It is where we all begin as we dabble out toe in the stream.

2. Compassion with reference to reality.

This arises when we genuinely perceive how, through ignorance and delusion, beings create their own suffering. This compassion arises when we see deeply how, in striving to alleviate their suffering, beings are in fact causing themselves more suffering. Blinded by their ignorance of how things really are (impermanence and non-self), they continue to deepen their suffering thinking they are working to eliminate it.

Through understanding the illusory nature of reality, genuine perception of this situation brings forth this second type of compassion, which is more intense and profound than the first kind, and in which the delusions underpinnings of the suffering are addressed. Here there is focus and wisdom guiding our compassion. We see this type of compassion, for the most part, that we see in our Sangha.

3. Compassion without reference.

What distinguishes this third type of compassion from the first and second is that this compassion retains no notion of subject-object/self-other, nor of intention.  [It is what the Buddha and Subhuti are chatting about in chapter ten of the Diamond Sutra.] It is the ultimate form of a Buddha or Bodhisattva's compassion. It depends on the realization of emptiness.

This third and most profound type of compassion opens naturally and spontaneous from within. It is our default or factory setting. It is simply who we are when we attain one mind. This is the compassion that is manifest in the mostly deeply practiced of our Teachers, those we address as Venerable Masters.

Understanding the three types of compassion, and the order in which they occur, tells us where to start with our practice of compassion, what to expect next, and extends our vision so that we may practice with ever-increasing depth to until we are able to be of benefit to all those touched by suffering, without discriminating and ultimately practicing without any preferences.

Stealth Buddhism: Dharma in the Business World

While most practitioners “get” the big handful of basic tenets of Buddhism (the two truths, the three poisons, the four noble truths, up to if not necessarily the twelve links of dependent origination), applying these to our business lives can be baffling. For example, what does the dharma have to say about inventory control? Or, what does the Buddha tell us is the best strategy for negotiating a big deal? Or how do we keep line employees calm under pressure?

Buddhism was meant as a practice in the world. Quite an irony, since Buddhism is so infrequently taught today in an applied form. Sutras are translated, concepts are explained commentary-style, meaning what they “mean,” not how to use them. We’re almost never taught how to apply these dharma guidelines; how to use them in explicit business situations. We seem more comfortable with theory than practice.

If we’ve learned from our own experience with meditation and the dharma that stomping our heals and running around like warriors of certainty doesn’t make us more efficient and effective at the office, doesn’t make us better bosses, then perhaps it’s time to look for ways to apply Buddhism at work, to look at questions to ask ourselves so that modalities for applying the dharma appear.

There is a new sect of Buddhism developing in the workplace called Stealth Buddhism. From West Coast to East, Google to Monsanto to West Point, companies are teaching meditation and mindfulness, they just aren’t using the “B” word. As one consultant said: “As long as I don’t call it Buddhism, I can teach it anywhere.” “It’s basic Buddhist principles in a secular dissolution,” as another explained how she gets away with teaching dharma in corporate settings. Business Buddhism, it seems to most consultants, best serves us when it is Stealth Buddhism. Tis Buddhism without the label, I suspect, would have greatly appealed to the Buddha.

The dharma teaches us to be wise in our choices, disciplined in our action, caring, dependable and trustworthy in our interpersonal relations. That’s where we begin in applying the dharma to business. When our decision arises from one of the three poisons–greed, anger and delusion–our choice is never wise. So when it is time to make a decision, ask yourself: what am I trying to get out of this and why? If greed and/or anger are the motivation, then reconsider how you might effect the change in a way that honest, peaceful and beneficial.

The Pali Canon includes general principles for applying the dharma to business: Avoid any occupation or job whose main function causes harm and suffering or any kind of work that leads to one's own inner deterioration. Examples from the early scriptures are raising animals for slaughter or abuse, or slaughtering or abusing animals; manufacturing or dealing in weapons or arms; dealing in human slavery or prostitution; and producing or selling alcoholic beverages. The Buddha also says that his followers should avoid businesses and business practices that are deceitful, hypocritical, high-pressured, or dishonest. Obviously, the dharma implies we not engage in any kind of business that requires us to violate right speech and right action.

What does this say to terminating a “bad hire”? It certainly doesn't suggest the all too common three trumped-up writeups rather than being honest and paying for the unemployment. In the longrun, this type of dishonesty harms everyone? And there is always a sensitive, compassionate way to terminate a bad hire–kindly, gently, generously and honestly.

The Buddha places the positive aspects of dharma in the workplace under the three convenient headings of

1.     Rightness regarding actions

Rightness regarding actions means that business systems should be designed to encourage and allow workers to fulfill their duties diligently and conscientiously.

2.     Rightness regarding persons, and

Rightness regarding persons means that due respect and consideration should be shown to employers, employees, colleagues, and customers. An employer, for example, should assign his workers chores according to their ability, pay them adequately, promote them when they deserve a promotion and give them appropriate time off. Cooperation should be stressed over competitive in the corporate culture, and merchants and suppliers for the business should be held to the same standards.

3.     Rightness regarding objects.

Rightness regarding objects means that in business transactions the articles or services to be sold should be quality-produced and presented truthfully.

Once we get past these generalizations, we need to learn to use our analytic and deductive reasoning skills in applying dharma in the workplace. One way to learn to do this is to take each of the basic concepts and ask how it could be applied in any given situation. Start asking yourself, reflectively, questions like: What does the first noble truth say about this? What would be the least harmful way of dealing with this? What practices would best serve my employees and company around this issue? It will seem awkward at first because we haven’t done it before so let’s look at a couple of examples.

Consider inventory control and maintenance. What do the bodhisattva vows [Do no evil; do only good; save all sentient beings], for example, have to say about inventory control? In other words, what would be the least harmful and most beneficial way to manage and control a company’s inventory?

The garage at my local gas station, uses a just-in-time inventory control system. Which is the most beneficial way the garage can operate. It orders everything it needs from its suppliers for delivery either the day it is needed or the day before. It is clearly the most beneficial way for that business to operate its inventory–production occurs ontime and nothing is wasted either in terms of financial or human resources or in terms of the environment.

Other types of businesses might need a dependent demand inventory management system that inventories only what production demands and when it needs it, or even a history based inventory control system in which items are stocked based on a history of what was previously used. To determine which is dharma-suggested, ask: What type of inventory control system would be the least harmful and most beneficial to the company, its employees, and the environment?

In the case of dependent or history-based systems, as the Vina Sutra (SN 35.205) tells us, we should not manage our stock in a way that is too tight nor in a way that is too loose. The dharma suggests it should be tight but not so tight that we have shortages. Mindful monitoring and controls can keep everything flowing without interruption.

Question is, are we asking ourselves, in relation to our operating systems: Are these systems mindful of our company's need to be as beneficial as possible to all concerned, or are they just expedient, based on our greed to get things done rather than to do them “right”? Are they honest rather than dishonest? Are they a source of suffering rather than a source of peacfulness for those operating them? 

Here's another example: what does the dharma have to say about negotiating? As a negotiating strategy, the dharma would suggest reconciliation. In reconciliation, we fully accept whatever is presented to us, examine it mindfully, look clearly at the conditions, then we suggest whatever change or changes would be most beneficial for us and still be appropriate to the conditions. We simply do that over and over, never becoming impatient, frustrated or angry, never trying to get our own way, never becoming frustrated or angry. That way we stay clear-headed throughout the negotiation, which allows us to make the best deal. And if no deal is possible, we see that clearly and patiently accept it and move on.

Staying calm in crises, staying calm in customer service confrontations, just plain staying calm is a valuable and critical skill in any workplace. And what is the best practice for staying calm? Meditation. 2600 of experience has taught us that meditation is the most effective tool for developing calmness. Encouraging those on the firing lines to practice meditation, even perhaps giving them meditation time and a meditation space at work, will dramatically impact those under pressure, as well as customer satisfaction and office morale.

One San Francisco hotel, for example, had the executive committee (the senior management team) meditate together every morning for 20 minutes. The human resources manager said she noticed a significant reduction in conflict between those sitting and their direct reports.

Not all the results of applying the dharma in the workplace are easily measurable, not all will seem beneficial in the shortterm. But if we apply the dharma when conditions are right and with skillful means, the dharma will always be of benefit, both to the company and to the workers and to all sentient beings.

Our Ultimate Responsibility

It’s Time for a Paradigm Shift

What Meditation Teaches Us about Facing Cancer

By Carl Jerome

We make decisions based on certain underlying assumptions we have about ourselves and our world. These notions, which are called paradigms, guide and in fact determine our every action. These are our habitual responses to the world. They are “the box” in the phrase “thinking outside of the box.”

We don’t start thinking outside of the box until we become convinced that the box isn’t working. When things don’t feel right, when they just don’t seem to make sense, when we can’t find the answer we’re looking for, we might search for another box, search for another paradigm that works or at least works a little better. When we make a change in our modus operandi, it’s called a paradigm shift.

It is important to realize that we don’t make changes until something significant seems to demand it, and even then, we are often slow to make paradigm shifts, sometimes in spite of the fact that our paradigm is debilitating. We tend to keep fighting to make the current paradigm work. Perhaps in the case of minor paradigms because we are stubborn or hard-headed.

In the case of major paradigms, like the two listed below, our attachment to the paradigm is often so deeply rooted that it is built into our biology. Our instinct for survival, for example, is such a strong paradigm that we don’t even sense that it can be changed, even though it can hinder us when we are attempting to save our lives. When our fight-flight paradigm is activated, we become tense and anxious. An anxious and stressed mind hinders us from seeing clearly and making the best choice under prevailing conditions.

Regardless of their magnitude, paradigms are all habits, and what we learn in meditation is that all habits can be changed.

Here are two of our major paradigms, both of which meditation suggests need to be shifted, especially in view of a cancer diagnosis:

1. If I get more of what I want and what I think I need or ought to have, then everything will be all right.

This is the biggest and baddest of all paradigms, for it leaves us always wanting and never satisfied. It says that we should base our lives on greed. It tells us to always be striving, never to be content.

2. I am healthy.

This paradigm  falsely deludes us into thinking we will always be healthy. It prevents us from recognizing that getting sick it is the natural process of life and that sickness is simply a part of aging. It makes it impossible for us to remain clear-headed and fearless when illnesses occur, which is unfortunate because when an illness is life-threatening, that’s when we need to be really calm and clear so we can make appropriate decisions about treatment.

Until we understand our false and faulty paradigms, and how misguided they are, we won’t search for new paradigms. And until we not only search for new paradigms but actually make a paradigm shift, we will remain unable to address our most serious challenges, medical or otherwise.

The Key Paradigm Shift

Here is the new paradigm suggested by meditation (and the bodhisattva vows):

Our responsibility to ourselves, our families, our friends, and the world, is to use each moment to be of benefit to ourselves, our families, our friends, and our world.

Whether we are having lunch or deciding on a chemotherapy strategy for a recent cancer diagnosis, the paradigm is the same: do what is least harmful and most benefit to oneself, others and the world. This is a giant paradigm shift. And perhaps the most important realization that comes from meditation. Because when we do what is most beneficial, we become peaceful and make the best decision, even in face great difficulties and hardships.


As our paradigm shifts in this direction, self dissolves and we deadhead toward liberation.

A Quick Look at Dukkha

Two Perspectives on Suffering

In our classes, when we talk about suffering (that all is dukkha, the first noble truth) and the need to consider it contemplatively and experientially, I ask students what they learned about suffering in their churches and synagogues. The answer is always a resounding “Nothing.”

The reason “suffering” is underplayed in Christianity and Judaism is that those faiths’ theological emphases are in other areas and so “suffering” is simply an underdeveloped concept. In Buddhism, on the other hand, “suffering” is the central theme and all the teachings are directed to understanding it, either cognitively or experientially.

Traditional Judeo-Christian theologians and philosophers, while admitting to the horror and uselessness of suffering, struggle to make sense of it. The difficulty arises from the belief that suffering cannot be eliminated, it is God-created and so part of the divine nature. God created suffering, as their reasoning goes, to purify and/or punish us for our sins.

The way to make sense of suffering in biblical traditions is to make it bearable by portraying suffering as somehow beneficial. Many Judeo-Christian thinkers suggest that suffering is a necessary test of faith. The greater the suffering, the stronger the faith.  They suggest that suffering serves a higher, though unknown and unknowable, purpose. Often in Judeo-Christian thought, those who see themselves as “saved” or “chosen,” see their suffering as somehow special, different from the suffering of others, and particularly beneficial. The answer to the question “Why me?” in Judeo-Christian theology is that God acts in mysterious ways, ways we cannot know.

In the Buddhist view, suffering is never good, never beneficial. Suffering is always seen as bad, always seen as harmful. It is neither to be borne nor to be endured for the sake of some higher purpose. It is not an external creation of a higher being or a force of the universe. It is not the source of salvation. In Buddhism, suffering is not inexplicable and it does not need to be justified. For Buddhists, faced with the challenges of suffering, there is no question “Why me?”

In Buddhism, suffering is the result of our skewed relationship to the universe. Our ignorance about the way things really works results in our suffering.  When, by dint of diligent, hard, spiritual work, we realign ourselves by trading ignorance for wisdom, suffering ends. Therefore, to a Buddhist, suffering and the end of suffering is entirely in our own hands. We increase our suffering, decrease our suffering, or eliminate our suffering, depending on how we think and what we do.