7 min read

You can Take a Deep Breath because Happiness is not Difficult

Inspired by some elements of the poem "The Third Patriarch of Zen Hsin Hsin Ming by Seng-T'san"

(The entire poem is here)

"Happiness is not difficult for those who have no preferences.

When like and dislike are not there, everything becomes clear.

But make the smallest distinction and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you want to see (the truth) then hold no opinions for or against anything.

To set up what you like against what you dislike is a disease of the mind.

It’s because us choosing to accept or reject that we don’t see the true nature of things.

When you try to stop activity with passivity your very effort fills you with activity.

As long as you remain in one extreme or the other you will never know Oneness."

You probably already know Zen and mindfulness teachings are centred around the belief that attachment (the action of trying to keep what we like) and aversion (pushing away what we don't like) is what causes us dissatisfaction.

How? Since it is the nature of all things around us to be impermanent, always shifting and changing, trying to control our environment, trying to keep things the same by hanging onto stuff or pushing it away is a pretty useless activity, and bound to cause us unhappiness.

The teachings all come back to that point at some time or another.

I read this poem to be about that teaching, but also about how opposites and preferences cause us to feel unhappy and tense, about seeing beyond and through our usual, subjective way of seeing and thinking about things.

It’s one of the things I love most about Zen and mindfulness: we go beyond the subjective and objective way of seeing. I was trying to find a way to describe what this different way of seeing is, this looking beyond our usual way of seeing and thinking. Escher's drawings always come to mind.

At the moment I am reading a science-fiction novel by Nick Harkaway called Gonomon, where the protagonist talks about imagining and it happens to be quite a good explanation too, I think:

“Imagine being a bat.”

She looks at him.

“What are you imagining now?” he asks her.

She understands: “Being me, being a bat”, she answers.

When I think about the poem and it’s meaning, I can understand and begin to feel this sense of looking at things differently. Sensing the feeling of Oneness, although I prefer to call it “not-twoness”. Having done some research and read translations and interpretations of various Zen masters, I learnt that the translation of Oneness is actually a misinterpretation. Buddha never used the word Oneness; he uses the word “advait”, which means ‘not-twoness’. And there’s a big difference between Oneness and ‘not-twoness’. The Oneness or ‘not-twoness’ is very important: have a think about that for a moment.

What the Oneness or not-twoness is trying to convey is that we create separation between us and others through preference: I like this, don’t like that. I like him, I don't like her. Your choice doesn't correspond to my value system, therefore my critical, judgmental mind may even go as far as to think "I'm right, you're wrong" and that creates separation.

When we expect something and the opposite happens – we create a like/dislike situation and that separates us from others: "heaven from earth are set infinitely apart." (The separation is actually an illusion, but that’s for another time.)

I tried to think of an example of creating separation that might be familiar, and I think we can all relate to this:

Someone making an arrangement to meet us and canceling the appointment at the last minute, or perhaps not even showing up. Of course we don’t like that. We most likely feel very annoyed or even insulted. Quite put out, in fact. Perhaps it has taken us some considerable inconvenience in time or energy to get there, it fuels anger. Can you picture the scene? Can you sense the separation between the two people?

When we cling to something we are attached to and it goes away we have the same kind of reaction: I have my favourite coffee mug, my son drops it, now I don’t have it anymore, it fuels my anger, creates a separation. Someone pushes ahead of me in a line at the supermarket. Etc.etc.

Through meditation we learn that we can keep ‘our cool’ and prevent the critical mind, the judgmental mind creating separation by changing the way we look at the world around us. When we are faced with something opposite to what we expect or isn’t our preference, we can learn just to let it go, without getting into the mode of choosing, judging or rejecting, getting angry and setting ourselves infinitely apart from the people we love and the rest of the world.

If you take a moment to recall a familiar situation of this kind, you will recognise the truth of it: “Make the smallest distinction and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.” It's not a nice feeling.

Or, perhaps as you’re reading this a different thought popped up in your mind altogether. A thought about not wanting to be a doormat, about not being a pushover, something about the meek and mild being bullied, abused or controlled.

But in this context meekness doesn’t have to mean weakness.

Zen might be about avoiding self-indulgence, but it also avoids self-denial.

Incorporating “not-twoness” in our life doesn’t mean that we have to be ok with people standing us up last minute, or feeling fine about being pushed around. It doesn’t mean we have to be a doormat and happy with whatever’s happening around us. Working at Oneness or ‘not-twoness’ doesn’t mean we can’t set up healthy boundaries. We can still take steps to ensure the person who didn’t pitch for the appointment knows not to do so again. But… and this is the important bit … we don’t have to do it with the narrow mind of judgment. We don’t have to take on the anger and hang it on our shoulders. We can do it while feeling quite calm, tranquil and composed about it.

As we know, life is not always simple (although I believe that’s largely a choice too) and people, things and situations are always shifting and changing, often not in the way we like or expect. I’m sure you can think of a few examples. We really do have a choice: not to feel so angry and annoyed when things are opposite to what we expect. Every time we come across a situation which is the opposite to what we want or expect and we start to feel angry, think about it: we have an opportunity to practice “not-twoness”. An opportunity to practice letting go and feeling peaceful. If we can accept that people and things are always shifting and changing, we can open our hearts to life fully. It feels much, much better, I promise.

The great thing is: If we contemplate our likes and dislikes and listen to them as they come up, we are actually already untangling ourselves from our attachment to them.

It’s that easy to start this practice.

Just the action of looking and examining means we are already letting go. Just by ‘seeing’ and understanding that creating separation fuels our clinging and the anger and the hatred that makes our life so unsatisfying, we are already letting go.

What happens simultaneously, in paralell to letting go, is that we can include things. Maybe this is a bit of a mind-bender, but think about it: We are often quick to get rid of opposites and cling to preferences. But letting go means we are opening our mind a little more to possibilities, which means we can include more, be more inclusive. So we are adding to our life, not giving up.

Shunryu Suzuki uses a meditation example in a ca. 1971 teaching:

(paraphrase)

"When you sit, you are not thinking, not watching anything. Although your focus is soft and about 4ft ahead of you, actually we are not watching anything.”

(Zen meditators meditate with their eyes half open)

“When we are in this kind of mind, when we have this kind of mind, our mind actually includes everything, even though you don’t try to include everything, actually everything is in your mind.”

This morning’s meditation at Anahat explains how we sit and explains our mind when we practice Zazen or Shikantaza meditation:

We don’t try to stop our thinking.

When you stop your thinking it means you are bothered by it.

Don’t be bothered by it.

Let whatever you experience in your mind stop by itself.

Nothing will stay long.

If something comes into your mind, don’t think: “Oh dear, my mind is doing this or that, and it shouldn’t be.” Just let it come in, let it go out. Whether your gaze fixes on something or your mind wanders off, just let it go. It won’t stay there long.

You might think things come into your mind from outside your mind, but actually what is happening in your mind are the waves in your mind. What you are experiencing is in your mind, not coming from outside. Don’t be bothered by the movement or waves in your mind. If you are not bothered by it, it will soon stop. 5 minutes or 10 minutes or 20 minutes, and your mind will become much calmer. Your breathing will become slower. And eventually you will be quite serene and calm.

So it comes in, that’s ok. So it goes out, that’s ok.

That’s sitting (in meditation)

That’s the kind of inclusive mind we try to practice in meditation.

Why?

So that we can learn how it feels to work with whatever happens in our life without getting angry or upset about it if it's not what we want.

Anger is (usually) not a useful response.

How does that work in practice?

This happens, that’s ok.

That happens, that’s ok.

Maybe we will need to do something about it.

Or maybe we don’t need to.

Don’t be bothered by what is thrown up by your mind.