Some Beautiful insights from the book Transforming Suffering

Transforming Suffering – Reflections on Finding Peace in Troubled Times His Holiness the Dalai Lama, His Holiness Pope John Paul II, Thomas Keating, Thubten Chodron, Joseph Goldstein and Others

Reverend Heng Sure pp41 The Wisdom of the Cross

From a Buddhist point of view, suffering can be seen as the compost of discarded wrong thoughts, feelings and actions that produces the seed of awakening. Out of the discarded leaves and stalks and thorns comes that seed of true fruit.”

Venerable Guo Yuan Fa Shi Freedom from Attachments pp125

Our teacher distinguishes between our wants and our needs. Our wants are always in the forefront of our minds. We are always processing our desires as we live our daily lives. Becoming aware of our needs takes some extra work. We have to sort through all our wants to see what it is that we actually need. When we do this, we find that we need very little. So, our teacher has made the suggestion that if you entertain a want, don’t just go out and get it. Ask yourself first, “Do I really need this?” Only if you can answer “Yes” should you buy it.

Why should we be so careful in this regard? Because we are dealing with one of the most powerful and subtle of the Three Poisons, namely greed. Greed is very deep-rooted and often out of our sight. But even if we do not see it, it is affecting our lives and the lives of others. It promises happiness but cannot give us what it promises. That is the problem. Because if happiness does not come from getting something we want, greed tells us that we need to possess even more to find happiness. And this process goes on and on, with no true happiness ever really emerging.

One other way of dealing with our possessions is to see them as blessings. When we have something, we should not say, “This is mine. I earned this through my hard work.” In some sense that may be true. But there are many factors that are out of our control that contribute to obtaining our possessions. So we should say with humility and gratefulness, “This is a blessing.” If we have sense that what we have are blessings, then we will be more sensitive to those who do not have what they need. They too do not control their destiny, so they can use our help in meeting their needs. Then we can be more generous in helping them.

Abbot John Daido Loori p129 Freedom from Attachments

One of the steps in the Eightfold Path is “Right Livelihood.” The Buddha says that Right Livelihood means pursuing a living that will not harm others. In pursuing this living, one should not be motivated to make more than one needs. If work is done to gain money to buy luxuries, one’s craving and attachments increase, and one can more easily become willing to deceive or to exploit others to get ahead. On the other hand, by working to make a living and to serve others, one can also advance in the spiritual life by becoming freer of attachments and growing in compassion and loving kindness.

We try to carry out our business at our monastery according to these teachings of the Buddha, and right now they are making a profit. Work is part of our practice. We try in our work to be sensitive to the real needs of those we are serving, rather than trying to generate new desires for our products. If someone does not have the means to buy one of our products, we give it to him or her. Now we are holding workshops to help others outside the monastery apply the principles of Right Livelihood. And we are finding that many people in business are interested in what we are doing. It is a way to make a living and not become consumed by the very process of making a living.

Venerable Thubten Chodron p 135 Freedom from Attachments

Another thing we consumers expect is comfort. Things should be easily available, so we don’t have to put forth much effort to get the teachings we need. In ancient times, people traveled over the Himalayan Mountains, across the Silk Road, and went through all sorts of hardships to find teachers. But nowadays, we want out teachers to come to us. And we expect to hear their teachings in a nice comfortable room, at the right temperature, and with good food. We shouldn’t have to undergo any difficulties.

We often go into the spiritual domain with the consumerist thought: “What can I get out of this? How is this going to benefit me?” We want to get something for ourselves. “Teachers should give me what I want beause it’s a matter of supply and demand.”

We want to have spiritual status. We may get it by being close to a teacher. We also gain some status by getting all the Dharma paraphernalia. We all have gift shops, where you have all sorts of beautiful statues of Buddhas or bodhisattvas, and all kinds of offering objects. As good consumers, especially when we enter the practice, we get all this stuff so we can feel like we are really religious people.

But maybe, just maybe, religious practice is about giving, not getting. It is hard to entertain that thought if our thinking is molded by consumerism. An Asian Buddhist temple in Houston held a summer camp for children. People worked in the kitchen, cooking food for a hundred kids for five days. They were there to give, not get. It was part of the spiritual practice, and they were happy, they relished those days of pure service to children.

Father James Wiseman p140 Transforming Suffering

From the book Words to Live By ~ Eknath Easwaran

Jealousy comes into a relationship when we try to possess someone for ourselves. It is a very difficult secret to discover: that when we do not want to possess another person selfishly, when we do not make demand after demand, the relationship will grow and last. And it is something we have to learn the hard, hard way. This is the secret of all relationships, not only between husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, but between friend and friend, parents and children.