“When the container and contents* are filled with negativity, transform adverse conditions into the path to enlightenment”
– Mind Training in Seven Points
This advice from the renowned Tibetan Buddhist master, Geshe Chekawa was composed 900 years ago. But it speaks to us just as directly in this 21st century.
The life we wish we had – and the one we have
If we could write the script for our life, we’d choose a story that only told of good times. We’d be free to do what we want when we wanted. We’d always be with those who bring us joy. We’d have a long healthy life. Everything we set out to do would run to plan. We’d never choose a storyline including illness, ageing, separation or stress.
But we know this type of narrative is only found in fantasy. In many ways, we try to live our lives as if this fantasy were realistic: we never stop trying to set things up exactly the way we’d like. And we spend so much time and energy trying to avoid, or change, situations we don’t like.
But in real life, things never run fully to script. Of course, we all have wonderful, positive experiences. But we can never sustain those good times indefinitely, no matter how hard we try. And without any choice or wish on our part, illness, conflict and separation from those we love, intrude into our lives, often without warning. Our happiness is fragile and uncertain.
Also, for Dharma practitioners, we may find we can meditate, study and practise consistently when things are running smoothly. But when life throws big difficulties our way, these can also severely test our Dharma practice and throw us off balance.
Mind training: transforming difficulties into powerful practice
The thought transformation techniques, taught as part of the mind training tradition, are designed to help us navigate these ups and downs. It’s not just that they make us more resilient.
They help us to bring these difficulties into our practice and make it more powerful. With a Dharma perspective, anything can be a cause of our wisdom developing, our compassion developing, and our mind becoming stronger.
Difficulties as a doorway to the Four Noble Truths
Buddhists know that the first teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha focused on the four noble truths. And the first of these describes our essential predicament: while we are in cyclic existence, the lasting satisfaction and enjoyment we continuously chase after can never be achieved.
So, when something comes into our life that is very hard to take, we’re getting firsthand instruction in the first noble truth. It’s no longer a theoretical idea we are hearing about in a teaching, reading about in a book or contemplating on our meditation cushion. It’s part of our lived experience, right now.
Seeing this prompts us to go deeper: the second noble truth shows where the unwanted experiences of cyclic existence come from – delusion and karma, with their root cause of self-grasping ignorance. And by so doing, the second truth implies that cyclic existence can be stopped – the third truth. This leads us to the methods to do just that – shown by fourth truth.
How hard times open the heart to compassion
Difficult times can make our Dharma practice real and purposeful. And as well as making more sense of our own experience, they lead us to compassion – the very heart of Buddhist practice.
Tough times can often make us small-minded. Fear and stress can cause us to turn away from others and to become self-focused. But if we understand what we are going through from a Dharma perspective it can have the opposite effect – opening our heart to others.
Whatever difficulty we are going through at any time, we can be certain that right now, there are other living beings going through the same experience – or ones that are much more difficult. We can be certain that no living being who, like us, is caught in cyclic existence, has ever been free of suffering or ever will be, unless they remove the causes of cyclic existence. Whether they are strangers to us, or the people who are most precious to us, we share this common bond: we never get to live that perfect life story we would script for ourselves.
Cultivating this understanding is the way to develop real compassion. In fact, the only way to develop genuine feeling for others is to have known adversity ourselves. Developing compassion is almost the most important thing we can do with our life from a Buddhist perspective.
It is the energy of compassion that ultimately brings us all the way to enlightenment. And even in our day to day, compassion and kindness make our lives meaningful and sustaining for both ourselves and others. They are the best friends we could have.
Impermanence: the bigger picture view
There are so many ways that experiencing hard times can deepen our Dharma understanding. Whenever a big unwanted change happens in our life – separation from those we love, the end of a relationship, losing our job – we’re awakened to the fact of impermanence.
The more genuine our appreciation of impermanence, the more resilient we are when our life is unexpectedly turned upside down. Impermanence gives us a bigger picture view. We don’t get so tangled up and upset about the ups and downs in life, or when people do or say things that we don’t like.
Building patience through adversity
Also, to get anywhere in our Dharma practice we need to develop our strength of mind – or patience. This includes the patience of dealing with difficulties that other people cause us or adversity generally.
But if our lives were ones of continuous physical and mental comfort, where everybody did exactly what we wanted when we wanted, it would be impossible to develop patience.
Turning every moment into the path
Geshe Chekawa’s advice in the root text is to “use every immediate circumstance for meditation”. The thought transformation methods show us how to do just that. Every experience in our day to day – enjoyable and delightful, or challenging and difficult – can become steps on our path to enlightenment.
* “Container” refers to our environment and “contents” means the living beings in that environment.
For a detailed commentary on Geshe Chekawa’s Mind Training in Seven Points, including the methods of thought transformation, please refer to Chapter 19 of Path to Enlightenment in Tibetan Buddhism by Venerable Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden.
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