Page 19 - EH76

TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON 17

Or perhaps I felt I wouldn’t be these responses distract us from This is the essence of mindfulness:
abandoning my winter-burdened the feeling itself, and distort our paying deliberate attention, and
friends if I didn’t enjoy where I was. relationship to the direct feeling, doing so with an open heart. His
Or maybe it’s just hard for me to thought, or experience. answer really got to the heart of
let in the joy, to admit fully that I taking in joy, and being nourished by
deserve to be happy, just as I am In the Buddha’s terms, real, true it. Rejoicing in something beautiful
committed to the wellbeing and happiness can be seen as an arm doesn’t have to mean the same thing
happiness of others. of resilience. Happiness is not as attachment. Allowing ourselves
about feeling like everything’s to enjoy a delightful experience
I wasn’t totally conscious at the great, but about recognizing our with an open heart enhances our
time that I was doing this, but it’s inner resource of self-trust and our capacity for generosity and gratitude.
pretty common when you stop and connection to others that keeps We feel capable of being loving and
think about it. How often do you us from feeling depleted by tough connecting, and we want others
get a compliment, or hear someone emotions and experiences. to be able to feel the same. In that
else get a compliment, and find that recognition, we see, with strength,
the most automatic response is to In my first years studying meditation that we are not fundamentally
say “No, no!”? We have an infinite with one of my teachers, Munindra, isolated, that our lives really do have
number of ways that we distort our a fellow student once asked him something to do with one another.
experiences through habits of the why and how he came to practice
mind. When teaching meditation, meditation. I expected a studious Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh has
I talk about these patterns of response, perhaps a pious one, but said, “Happiness is available. Please
distortion most often in relation Munindra’s answer totally surprised help yourself.”
to pain or discomfort; for instance, me. Without hesitation, he replied,
rather than noticing a feeling like Helping ourselves could not only
“I practice meditation so that I can
anger as it arises, we may start amount to our own happiness,
notice the small purple flowers by the
to blame ourselves or wonder but also to our commitment to the
roadside that we otherwise miss.” wellbeing of others. EH
how long the anger will last. All of

easternhorizon@ybam.org.my | www.ybam.org.my/en/eastern-horizon/eh/