The 8 Worldly Winds - 8 conditions which can destroy peace of mind
The Lokavipatti Sutra or the Attalokadharma addresses something called the Eight Worldly Winds or Concerns, also knows as the 8 Vicissitudes.
The 8 Worldly Winds are 8 conditions, made up of 4 pairs of agreeable & disagreeable experiences, which tend to throw us off our stride, kicking our equanimity aside. The 8 winds are: fame & disrepute; praise & blame; pleasure & pain and gain & loss.
These pairs are opposites: we are attached to the one, while we tend to avoid the opposite. “The conditions of their blowing are beyond us and can’t be controlled.” In other words they happen to all of us, and these conditions or winds tend to make us lose our balance.
1.) The first 4 winds: fame & disrepute (also variously named as status & disgrace, or fame & insignificance) and praise & blame are paired together to help us recognise how our reputation and good standing (acceptance) influences our life. This could mean acceptance of our self or social acceptance, our reputation or good standing in the community. It could be in any environment, at work, at home or elsewhere. People's opinion of us, our opinion of our self, or any situation which influences our feeling of being accepted will create conditions for these winds to blow.
Our past and personal dynamics means our response to these winds will vary in intensity and form. The anger of being blamed - especially for something we didn’t do! - will be more intense for some. The feeling of our reputation being tarnished will affect some people more than others. We may feel these winds when people we love or are close to us engage in undesirable activities or say things that we feel “rub off” on us. The wind of fame may blow strongly through us when we get many likes on Facebook or when we receive a prize. The wind of shame may be present when we photoshop our photo before posting it, in fear someone may see us in a less than flattering light.
2.) Pleasure & pain - also named joy & sorrow or happiness & suffering - are present for all of us. A popular quote reads: "Pain is certain, suffering is optional.” We may know pain as a sore body after sport, or through unpleasant experiences that leave us feeling emotionally drained. As I did the research for this, I also came across a sentence: "Think also about turning to pleasure to suppress the flow of pain." Of course, this is so prevalent, whether it's an addiction or keeping ourselves very busy to avoid facing our thoughts.
3.) Gain & loss - also known as success & failure. Well, what's to say about gain & loss? You only have to take a moment to think about what you have achieved or gained and what you have failed at or lost to recognise that some things are hard to lose. We only lose what we cling to. If it feels irrelevant whether we have a thing or not, you won't feel the loss of it. The hardest part of gain & loss is, of course, the people we love.
It's important to remember two important points about the 8 worldly winds: the winds are to help us recognise that all 8 conditions among all human beings are inconstant, impermanent and subject to change. Impermanence is an inescapable and painful fact of life. Nothing lasts. Everything eventually changes or vanishes. To understand impermanence fully, at the deepest possible level (we all have an immediate but superficial understanding of impermanence) is an important part of the philosophy which underpins mindfulness meditation.
The other important point the sutra makes is that all human beings are subject to these worldly conditions. Although it's tempting to slide into thinking so, we don’t stop experiencing disagreeable conditions when we become a meditation pro. Even though we may have cultivated more equanimity, greater balance as we progress in our meditation practice, we still experience pain and loss, we just handle them differently.
With mindfulness we learn not to let our mind remain consumed with good or bad fortune. We learn to take a mental step backwards and pay attention to our thoughts, to the validity - or lack of - of our thoughts and to our response of either attachment or avoidance. With our practice of Acceptance in mindfulness meditation, we learn to sit with whatever comes up because we know being at war with it doesn't help. We abandon the sort of thinking that's not useful to us.
"The well-trained dharma student learns to direct her attention to the quality of equanimity inside her instead. Equanimity is a quality that is innate to human beings; it’s inner strength. As dharma students, we learn to become familiar with it."
An article I found online, (sorry, I forget exactly where I found it) tells the story of the Buddha "in teaching equanimity to his son, Rahula, told him to develop a “mind like the earth.” The earth, the Buddha explained, is subject to all manner of disagreeable experience: rain, snow, ice, wind. People throw all sorts of unclean things on it. But the earth isn’t horrified. It isn’t shaken. When conditions are agreeable, when the weather is pleasant, the earth doesn’t become exhilarated. It keeps steady, day after day, season after season. Nature, in fact, offers many examples of equanimity. It is one of the reasons the Buddha recommended going into nature. Recognizing the equanimity there, we recognize the equanimity inside ourselves."
In conclusion: while all of us experience the 8 winds, and we can appreciate pleasure, winning or receiving praise, in meditation we learn not to give any of the winds too much weight. We don't need to tie our happiness to praise, gain, pleasure or status. We also know that there is a constant and necessary flow between pleasure and pain. Pain, loss and blame sometimes happens, and we can learn to accept that this is so.
The Tao Te Ching describes life beautifully as being "made up of 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows."
Enjoy these two :
Have a wonderful week!
Mx
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