Buddhist Thoughts on Humor

Laughter and a sense of humor can be a universal index of spiritual development. Scientists in Japan, explained that wholehearted laughter is good for your heart and your health in general.

Use self-effacing humor with humility. Practice letting everything in with acceptance and a lack of fragility. By not taking yourself too seriously you are less likely to get wounded.

This type of humor builds trust, leveling everyone in the room. With humor we can let go of our tight gripping sense of who we are. It breaks down the social barriers that separate us. It does not belittle but uplifts us, allows us to recognize and laugh about our shared humanity, about our shared vulnerabilities, and our shared frailties. Life is hard and laughter is how we come to terms with all the ironies, cruelties and uncertainties that we face.

Humor is something that you can cultivate. Like anything else, it is a skill. It helps if you have the inclination, or if you can laugh at yourself. It’s about humility. Laugh at yourself and don’t be pompous or serious. If you start looking for the humor in life, you will find it. You will stop asking, Why me? and start recognizing that life happens to all of us. It makes everything easier, including your ability to accept others and accept all that life brings.

THE TRUTH OF GROUNDLESSNESS

Groundlessness is the largest truth we come to through years of meditation. We avoid groundlessness by pushing away and grasping throughout our life. Mental activity is our way out. We indulge in planning, constantly trying to get somewhere, believing that once we arrive it will stay that way. We are wired to do everything we can to gain predictability and familiarity. It is how we seek happiness. Instead of locking into a plan, can we rest in spaciousness? Fear can be destabilizing. Can we abide in the fear with interest and curiosity rather than filling the space with habitual patterns that take you out of the present moment? When we avoid the groundlessness of life we miss out on the freedom it brings.

Compassion means letting go of self-identity

Fear makes you self-absorbed. If you are self-absorbed you get brittle and mean. If you are mad or fearful you can’t be compassionate. Compassion will come naturally when you feel completely safe. Just noticing the fear invites it to leave. Being compassionate means the war in your head is over.

Compassion is present when you let go of your self-identity. Let go of making yourself the center if the world by thinking, “what I want is not more important than the benefit of the whole community.” With true compassion everyone enjoys the same benefits. Applying wisdom to the compassion means not holding on to the way things “should” be.

Kindness and caring will help us overcome all obstacles. The transformation starts with ourselves. We need to give ourselves the love, kindness, forgiveness and the space to transform.

Boston Dharma Punx meets weekly at the Lutheran Church, 66 Winthorp St, Cambridge, MA on Sundays from 4:00-5:30. Check our web site for updates.

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

Accountability Without Animosity

You can’t be an effective agent of change if you are angry. But you can’t just stuff down your anger either. You need to notice it and process it. Only then can you move forward in a positive way.

Think about what kind of results you want. You can practice accountability without animosity by holding the person accountable but giving them a way out. How can you get the results you want without backing yourself and the person into corners, behaving in a way that keeps you farther from your goals?

In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh “If someone is being unpleasant towards you or treating you badly, that means that they are unhappy. Accept that they are unhappy and treat them with love. Offer kindness without feeling superior, self-righteous, arrogant or smug. Do it with humility. Doing Metta meditation for them will help you internalize and truly experience your love.”

Freedom

The present is the only moment where you can choose freedom….. The freedom not to be controlled by habitual patterns and social conditioning. Being present and seeing your patterns and knowing you have agency over them.

Be present and make a conscious choice with understanding will bring you a moment of freedom. And…. there is freedom in forgiving yourself from bad choices you’ve made.

We we are constantly falling short of where we want to be so if you can’t forgive yourself, you don’t really have a Buddhist practice.

Making Choices

Does this choice make you larger or smaller? Does it close you down or open you up? Make you resentful and bitter or softer? Or critical or more generous? Will this suffering make me wiser or stupid? Meet these questions with curiosity. What is it to be human? Everything is an experiment. Thinking this way gives you the freedom to fail. To test things out. Remember that it is the process that is important not the outcome. Let go of the judgment around it. Ask yourself am I being kind?

Difficult feelings such as anger, resentment and rage are teachers. Ask yourself why am I behaving this way? Investigate the feeling underneath the original feeling with kindness and curiosity.

ARE YOU SEEKING OR DISCOVERING?

When someone is seeking they have a goal, and quite often they only see the thing that they are seeking. They become unable to find anything and unable to absorb anything, because they are only thinking of the thing they are seeking. They become obsessed with their goal. 

Do not seek, but rather strive to discover. Discovering is to be free, to be receptive, curious and to have no goal. 

CONQUERING FEAR

Fear can be paralyzing. Or it can start you down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out “what will happen if….” But we can’t adequately know or predict the future. Mediation teaches us to accept the way things are, instead of fighting things. Being in the present instead of the future or past. Focus on what you can know now, such as your intentions and your attitude. Feelings can be mixed and multi layered making them harder to decipher. Often you can know your feelings by directly experiencing them in certain parts of your body. Checking your motivation can help. Fear is often accompanied by blaming others or blaming yourself. Part of resolving fear is knowing that fear is there to protect you. You will have won your battle with fear, when you can truly and deeply feel that whatever happens you can handle the outcome.

The Thinking Mind and The Process of Meditation

"Most people assume that thinking is a virtue and the zenith of human creativity but fail to appreciate that worry, fear and anxiety are thinking operating at an intensified vibration. Everyone knows how difficult it is to stop thinking when agitation or intense feelings arise, as any emotional disturbance fuels the thinking process. Unless someone is prepared to stop thinking or daydreaming in the good times, it will be impossible to halt the thinking momentum when difficulties arise. 

To master the thinker is the most challenging task of the spiritual process. It does, however, yield great self-knowledge and clarity when the practice becomes second nature and the mind becomes obedient to the power of a superior intelligence. In the process of mastering the thinker, it’s important to understand the psychology of thought. A single thought is not thinking. Random images are unavoidable so it’s to be vigilant and consciously alert so as not to allow the next frame to move. The thought will disappear when consciously present in the senses. Once the idea of this is grasped and someone sees in their own experience how effective this is, there’s a much greater sense of being in command of the inner space. Then, when it’s necessary to take some practical action in the world, the mind will function with much greater efficiency, and afterwards obediently return to a state of neutrality.    

The main difficulty is commitment to the discipline of being still. The human mind fears stillness even though it may appear to co-operate for a while, especially in the early stages. Once it grasps you’re serious, however, it’s amazing the range of plausible excuses it makes to avoid making time to be still. The mind has become habitually attached to the momentum of thinking as a means to safeguard its aversion to stillness. This is because the mind equates the state of inner peace as the ultimate dread and fear. The spiritual liberation that everybody yearns to realise is none other than the state of no thought. When this state can be contained and integrated as a way of being, the whole perspective of what it means to be a man or woman of the earth is radically changed. 

The solution to mastering the thinker is the purification of inner space. Whenever the demands of the self are transcended, a little piece of space within the subconscious is reclaimed. This creates, over a period of time, a perimeter of purified space that is impenetrable to negative thoughts and emotions, not unlike a castle moat which prevents the intrusion of any hostile forces. As intelligence dissociates from identifying with erroneous thoughts and memory impressions, the perception is actually withdrawing from the thinking band of the human psyche into the pure psyche, where any unnecessary mental association is transcended. "

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Practicing Non-Attachment

Try to feel non-attachment, not just think it, but really feel it. Letting go of attachments to outcomes can be a gateway to contentment. That doesn’t mean every outcome should be seen as positive of even or ok. Whatever outcome emerges, acknowledged it with all subsequent emotions identified, felt, accepted and let go. Removing a sense of a fixed self and the judging mind can open doors you didn’t imagine. Approach it with curiosity. Would you work as hard if you are not attached to outcomes? Experiment while watching your feelings and actions. Attachment to a goal can cause you to miss the joyful things that can show up serendipitously during the process. Stay aware in the moment with ease.

Now is Always Available

Every time you sit and meditate it’s a different experience. This is not a problem and doesn’t mean you aren’t growing. It just is. Each time it is a new opportunity. Be present with your experience rather than doubting yourself. Come back to your breath with compassion, forgiveness and kindness. The situation is always changing. Meditation is not cognitive. It’s happening on a different level. Tapping into the level of the heart changes the way we see things and helps us let go of clinging to an outcome.

Finding Meaning in Suffering

How can we find meaning in pain and suffering? It is often helpful to remember that some things happen for no reason and it’s not always our fault. Being stuck in shame and blame will only lead us deeper into the suffering. Finding meaning when we are stuck in the mists of suffering and depression can be difficult. Often controlling the emotions though meditation is the first step. Titrating back and forth between looking deeply at the pain and taking refuge in the breath. Remembering there is safety of the present moment.  Eventually we give up the desire to push the pain away, and are ok with saying “This happened to me,” and letting it wash over us. The work is in connecting with others who hear us and can hold our pain. Meaning may emerge in unexpected places not necessarily related to the suffering. Pain and suffering are universal, but ultimately personal suffering brings out our compassion for others.

Noting Emotions and Communication Choices

Mike lead Dharma Punx  last Sunday with a long meditation and a short reading from “Being Dharma” by Ajahn Chah which sparked a discussion about acknowledging feelings in the moment. We do this during meditation with the practice of ‘noting” or “labeling,” the thought or emotion and then without judgment letting it go and returning to the breath. When we are in conversation with others, this process becomes much more complicated. Members of our group shared their experiences. 

Mike talked about being like a dog, intuitively shaking off the emotion, or learning to process the emotion by using “Right Speech”. Asking yourself: Is this comment helpful? Is it skillful? Is it wholesome? And most importantly being gentle with yourself. Having awareness of awareness, or Metacognition. Thinking about one's thinking. More precisely, Metacognition refers to the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one's understanding and performance. It includes a critical awareness of a.) one's thinking and b.) learning and oneself as a thinker and learner.

During our group discussion one person talked about how learning noting has helped him to take a pause before reacting impulsively. Another person talked about noting, giving way to a pause, which is followed by an understanding the consequences of his actions, but how he is still struggling with being powerless over his conditioned behavior and impulse to do the unskillful thing. The discussion changed to other people’s communication skills, and a reflection on what to do when someone tells you that “you are being unskillful,” in a totally unskillful way. One solution might be, rather than reacting, let silence be your ally. Still another member of our group talked about being able to feel anger in her body arising while talking to someone, noting it, practicing patience, but only later realizing her anger was in response to the person mansplaining to her. Recognizing that mansplaining is caused by societal conditioning and the female’s perception can also be due to past conditioning. Asking “What is my part in this? and Why is my reaction so severe?” can lead to a different response. Helpful comments were, “Having compassion for the person speaking unskillfully to you can be a way out.” Or if that fails, commenting with humor often works. Such as “You have a brilliant command of the obvious.” One member of our group offered “Why cut the tree down in the first place? The wiser course of action is to observe before you cut it down and try to build a piece of furniture. The work is in observing and understanding, not making the furniture.” 

Our group moved to a discussion about political differences between people. “You can fall into the trap of saying something, hoping for change. But if it’s not going to change the person, don’t waste the energy.” This can be tricky, you might want to engage for a chance at civil disagreement, or a positive outcome of swaying a vote or belief system. It can result in a dynamic relationship to have political conversations with someone who holds opposing beliefs. But finally, you may have to disengage, remembering the quote, “Never wrestle with a pig, you get dirty and the pig enjoys it.”

When Things Fall Apart

Melissa led DPX last Sunday with a body scan meditation that took us through all the sense doors. She then kicked off the discussion with a reading from Pema Chodron’s book, “When Things Fall Apart.” Telling it straight, but always with compassion, Pema says…. Things don’t get resolved, they come together and fall apart. Let there be room for this to happen. We don’t know and we must leave room for not knowing. Disappointments can be a beginning. The spiritual journey is not about getting lasting pleasure with no pain. That is Samsara, grasping and ignorance. Nothing can be counted on for security. We need to learn to stay with the difficult states of mind, the broken heart, the anger, the uncertainty. Staying relaxed in the mists of these difficult states is the spiritual journey, not expecting them to go away.

 In our group discussion we talked about, how we bring our judgements and expectations to a situation, then attach significance, and label it as if it matters. When in truth, nothing is permanent. The suffering comes from clinging our ideas. People in our group talked about their responses to life with Covid. Many felt comforted by knowing we are all in this together struggling with similar situations. Stating that seeing comradery in people all over the world has helped. We are all bottomed out and experiencing something painful at the same time. Similar to life with Covid, members of our group talked about recovery groups that have helped them along their journey by gaining strength and emotional support from shared experience.  Healing through finding commonality with how people begin to overcome enormous grief and loss, and rebuild their lives together.

 Pema Chodron wrote about her need to try to put her life back together after it had fallen apart, as a human instinct and natural desire. But she realized, while putting it back together may seem easier, it’s often is not possible and one needs to move forward not backward. The same configuration doesn’t always work. Each decade we enter brings another challenge for us. Our progression has good and bad cycles. There is a natural aging process marked by life’s stages, so going back is often impossible. Mary reminded us that “With our Buddhist practice, every decade gets better based on the wisdom gained from within.” Brendan aptly stated “Falling apart stems from the misguided assumption that we had it together in the first place. If we don’t have any expectations for our lives to be a certain way, it won’t fall apart.”

Melissa closed our session with an appropriate poem by Emily Dickinson:

We grow accustomed to the Dark —
When light is put away —
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye —

A Moment — We uncertain step
For newness of the night —
Then — fit our Vision to the Dark —
And meet the Road — erect —

And so of larger — Darkness —
Those Evenings of the Brain —
When not a Moon disclose a sign —
Or Star — come out — within —

The Bravest — grope a little —
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead —
But as they learn to see —

Either the Darkness alters —
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight —
And Life steps almost straight.

Accepting Not Knowing

Thanks to Mike for leading DPX this past Sunday with a meditation using the words , calm, soothe, settle to focus on. It was simple and powerful for our group. Then he presented a reading from Pema Chodron. Members of our group talked about other helpful Zoom groups they are attending such as Bill and Susan’s daily meditation through Barre Center for Contemplative Studies https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/online-programs/  and Kathy Cherry’s DPX-NYC morning meditation group https://www.dharmapunxnyc.com/#home-section.

I our group discussion some people talked about injustice in light of the killing by police of George Flyod. Saying “things in the world are so unsettling and it’s important to take action. The pandemic may be impacting people becoming more aware and their ability to act. We struggle with the part we cannot change.”  We recognize that there are a lot of micro movements we can join within the bigger movement to change our broken society. As white people, we acknowledge that we, we have bias. Reading and listening can help. With meditation and mindfulness we realize, “here is where I am, and here is where I can make a difference. This is not a sprint. It’s an ongoing struggle and you need to take care of yourself so you can effectively do the work.” 

Others talked on a more personal level about their recovery and feeling an unformed sense of self. Commenting that “what people call recovery, I call life”, and that “things are always getting better and worse at the same time. That’s why it’s important to remember impermanence.”  Thanks to Mike for sharing with us Pema Chodron’s quote in her book When Things Fall Apart, which sums it up beautifully:

 "Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

When we think that something is going to bring us pleasure, we don't know what's really going to happen. When we think something is going to give us misery, we don't know. Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. We try to do what we think is going to help. But we don't know. We never know if we're going to fall flat or sit up tall. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure”. 

I Can't Breathe

Melissa led DPX last Sunday with a Metta meditation and our group discussed the horrific killing of George Floyd and the following Black Lives Matter/social justice protests and rallies. The Metta meditation inspired by Jon Kabot Zin included this quote “specifically include in the field of loving-kindness those less fortunate than yourself who are exploited at work or at home. All those who are imprisoned justly or unjustly. All those who are at the mercy of their enemies. All those who are hospitalized or sick or dying. All those who are caught up in chaos, who are living in fear, who are suffering in any way shape or form. Whatever brought them to this point in their lives, just as we do, they all want to experience ease of well-being rather than dis-ease and fragmentation, just as we do. They all want to be happy and contented. They all desire to be whole and healthy. They all desire to be safe and free from harm.”

In our discussion Melissa quoted from Lama Rod Owens book Radical Dharma reading “If you don’t know that life is suffering, you cannot know liberation. With true liberation one doesn’t feel the need to control things, because you are free. That liberation gives rise to knowing that others need to be free of suffering also.” We understand the trauma black communities experience is a result of racism over centuries. We need to bring it to the surface, articulate it and hold the pain. We practice Metta to extend loving kindness out into the world.

In group discussion we talked about the police killing of George Floyd which has exposed the bigger collective suffering caused by systemic racism, poverty and ignorance. Marco commented, “We are always on the precipice, ready to fall apart. With 50% of the GDP going to war, one wonders what will be fixed. This is a universal problem. In many countries the division is motivated by religion, not race as it is in this country. It’s nothing new, we just experience it collectively now because cell phones are reveling it.” Ray talked about working locally to help the black community with displacement due to real estate gentrification. Mike stated that the Dharma teaches us about our essential goodness and the 3 poisons, hate, ignorance and greed. Meditation helps to be able to sit with the suffering and not turn away from it. If it is not exposed we cannot fix it. Brendan stated that “We can fix the overall system but it’s fundamentally the individual’s responsibility not the governments job to fix it. We need to look at our own capacity for hate and greed and meet it with kindness and soften the heart. We need to get off the see-saw of blame and unskilled behavior. That is the most fundamental thing we can do.”

Push back came from Melissa who stated “Personal responsibility lets us all off the hook. There are real policies that contributed to this. Look at Stop and Frisk. There are many of the social systems that could be changed which would help, such as community policing to engender trust, racial sensitivity training, police accountability, conflict resolution and police training in de-escalation tactics.” Systemic racism needs systemic change. As usual, the answer is all of the above, and more.

Gaining A Tool Belt

Thanks to Mary for leading DPX last Sunday with a short talk about the importance of good breathing for overall health and a short synopsis of Dan Harris book titled 10% Happier. Mary talked about relaxing into uncertainty, through a regular meditation practice. Becoming curious about it, sitting with it and learning to respect our fear without being controlled by it. People in our group talked about how having a routine that helps with uncertainty and learning to take our habitual catastrophizing with a grain of salt. For some, Covid 19 has been a boot camp for self-help, developing routines, and gaining a tool belt of positive self-help practices. Remembering little things like separating work spaces from leisure spaces which can help. People also expressed difficulty balancing having confidence about the future Vs. expecting disappointment all the time. Acknowledging that expecting the worst can be a comforting coping mechanism, which taken to an unproductive extreme. We try to keep in mind that everything is impermanent, and everything will change as we take refuge in the moment.

Equanimity

    Thanks to Melissa for leading DPX last Sunday. We meditated on and discussed Buddhist equanimity. She read us a passage on equanimity from “Loving–Kindness, The Revolutionary Art of Happiness” by Sharon Salzberg.  Salzberg states that equanimity is accepting the cycle of the natural world, being balanced and being fully present with all life’s changing experiences. People often confuse equanimity with disinterest or indifference, which are both mild forms of aversion. Equanimity is neither aversion nor craving. It’s being with what is, accepting and letting go which allows us to respond and act skillfully.

     In our group discussion, one member of our group expressed a deep feeling of being out of balance, being angry and trying to change the outcome of situations, which is the opposite of acceptance. With meditation we get a true sense if ourselves.

     Barbara mentioned that during meditation, acceptance can seem like it letting your thoughts run amuck. She like the quote from Melissa’s reading on equanimity “Arrest the mind before it falls into extremes” and talked about realizing that the mind has volition over thoughts. It doesn’t need to run amuck. Ray commented that during meditation, instead of labeling her thoughts “thinking” and returning to the breath, she labels her thoughts “let it go” and then returns to the breath. This gives you a bit more awareness of your own volition during meditation in a nonjudgmental, subtle way, and can gently cut the endless flow of thoughts that distract you from being in the present moment.