Words from transcriber: This dhamma talk was taught by Sayadaw U Jotika on 06-04-1997. Due to the low quality of the recorded audio, there are quite a few of “can’t get the words” in this transcript. However, you still can catch the complete content and the points Sayadaw wanted to make, I believe.
In this talk, Sayadaw used quotes from the book named “Emotional Intelligence (EI): Why it can matter more than IQ” by Daniel Goleman (the best book ever about EI), explained them and added Sayadaw’s thoughts into it as well as connected it with mindfulness practice. As you may beware of, though all should agree that EI is powerful, yet you don’t see those EI books mentioning much about the best tool to practice and put EI into action which is mindfulness practice, especially Vipassana meditation. In this talk, Sayadaw U Jotika made that link along with explanation. May all mindfulness, peace and happiness be with you.
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[cant’ get the words]. There’s no secret formula actually, [can’t get the words]. I want to read an extract from the Pali, translated into English. It is very beautiful. These are very important to remember every day. Buddha said, “Monks, thus must you train yourselves. We will be thankful and grateful.” This is the way you should come out there. I or we are thankful and grateful. It is very important, to be thankful, to be grateful. “Not even the least thing that is done for us shall be forgotten.” So beautiful. “Not even the least thing that is done for us shall be forgotten.” So, as monks also, we remember that, always reflecting on that. This is very important. We demand too much. Sometimes, we are so unsatisfied that we forget to be thankful and grateful. We forget what others are doing for us so much. If you think about it, even those people that we don’t know are indirectly contributing to our well-being in some ways, to our understanding, even the animal is contributing to be alert, to understand [can’t get the words].
So here is a big, big extended family. I always repeat these things. Please understand that I am not just saying words, very important to feel it, to feel that we are a family, an extended family. And we are contributing. We are helping each other. We are doing quite a lot for each other, directly or indirectly. We have our president here, the mother of our society. And we have our secretary working very hard to put things together, to keep things together, to organize. Not easy… I can see, I can understand that. Not easy to work for our organization. So much to take, so much to talk, so much to prepare. And also we have a [name of the person] doing all the recordings and copying and everything. He is looking after myself too, doing quite a lot of things. And all of you here too. In many ways, you are doing a lot for me and for the society and in some ways for the whole humanity. So, understand this very deeply. You are doing quite a lot and others are also doing the same. So, we appreciate each other. This is uncle and father. It’s very important to remember this daily as you do.
So, today I want to talk about something very important in our lives again. Something very universal again. I want to talk about emotion, and one part of Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta is about emotions, vedanānupassanā. Vedanā is feeling, sensations, emotions, all three in vedanā. So, in our body we have pleasant sensation, unpleasant sensations, and also neutral sensations. [can’t get the words], but in our mind also we have pleasant emotions, unpleasant emotions, and neutral emotions. But in Pāli, it’s the same word vedanā. Sukha vedanā, dukkha vedanā, adukkha vedanā in our body. And in our mind, so within vedanā which is pleasant emotions. [in Pali] vedanā, unpleasant emotions,[can’t get the words]. So, one word in Pāli covers the whole thing, very broad meaning. So I was thinking of talking about this a long time ago. How to talk about emotions without becoming emotional? Because I’m very emotional, actually. And some people think that, well, monks are not emotional. Mostly, they’re very well controlled. They are in touch with their emotions. So they can maintain their calmness. But they still feel emotions. Don’t forget that. Unless and until you become an Anāgāmi, you feel emotions. Sometimes you feel sad, sometimes you feel very happy and excited. So it’s human. So, not to pretend that we are not emotional is very important. Because pretending makes us feel even more unhappy, more uptight, more lonely. But not to explode with emotions is also very important. Not to react with emotion is also very important. So to understand, to be in touch with emotions and with that understanding, deep understanding, we can appropriately respond to the situation, even to our emotions. So, to respond appropriately is very important. Not to deny, not to hide, not to pretend, not to explode, not to react. But to be aware, to be mindful, to be in touch with our emotions. And then from that awareness and deep understanding, respond appropriately.
So, I will tell you a very short story about some monks. Maybe about one monk or more, personally. He is my teacher also and his teacher is also my teacher. We have a common teacher, very old, one of them passed away. So, this teacher, who is still alive now, he’s about 70, maybe 71. He is a dhamma teacher and a [can’t get the words] teacher. And he has many students, monks and lay people, hundreds, maybe thousands. So, he gave many good dhamma talks. And at funeral,[can’t get the words], people invite monk to come and give a dhamma talk. So, he will go to deliver dhamma talk and always tell people, “Don’t be so sad. Don’t become so emotional. It is the nature of the body, to be born and to die. Even Buddha died. You know Sariputta? And even Sariputta died. Even Venerable Maha-Moggallana who was very powerful, who developed very powerful powers, even he died to Nibbana. So all of us will die one day. Just learn from it. Don’t be so sad. Don’t cry.”
But one day, his brother came to the monastery and told him that his mother was very sick. So, he told me that, “I am going to see my mother. And will you please come with me?” Because I am the kind of somebody who have a lot of medicines. Nobody knows how to use the medicine. So I will come with a lot of medicines with me. And we went to his hometown, actually a village near town. But when we arrived there, his brother came and told us that his mother has just passed, only a few hours ago. So we went to his mother’s house. Her body over there and a lot of the variety of things. And you know what my teacher did? He cried and cried and cried. He couldn’t do anything. He was supposed to give a dhamma talk also, to tell the relatives not to cry. But… [can’t get the words] And then he cried and cried and didn’t stop crying. Didn’t give a dhamma talk. So some people said, “Well, when our mother died, he told us not to cry. But now he can’t even give a dhamma talk.” And he said, “It was your mother, but now this is my mother.” So even a great teacher, my teacher, he cried when his mother died. And also when our teacher passed away, he cried too. And I cried too. Somebody is so loving and kind. He was like a father to me. Actually, he told me that he was, he was my godfather. Because when a person wants to become a monk, he needs the permission from his parents. But my parents wouldn’t give me permission, I was disowned. So I told my teacher, I cannot become a monk. I cannot get permission from my parents. And he said, I am your father. So it was settled, I became a monk.[can’t get the words] Very kind,… Very loving, very forgiving. And when he died, of course, I felt very, very sad. So it’s very difficult to talk about emotions without becoming emotional.
Emotions are very important in our life. These days, people think a lot more about intellectual, ideas, reasoning, thinking, intellectuality, or I don’t know exactly how the word is, actually the word. But talking about the brain, if I may use the simile of the brain. We have two brains to half brains. In fact, it’s like we have two different minds. The left side of the brain thinks, reasoning, use logic, solve problems and the right side of our brain feels, love or hatred or sadness or envy. So our right side of the brain is very creative, and the same thing holistically. So, these days, we pushed too hard for the children to learn more, more knowledge from books. But we don’t teach the children to understand their own feelings, their emotions. So people grow up with a lot of useful knowledge, but not enough understanding of their own emotions and their own emotions. So emotional maturity is also very important. You can be intellectually very mature, but emotionally very immature too. [can’t get the words: seems like Sayadaw mentioned about IT people]. I know a lot of my friends who are very, very intelligent, who are top in our classes. But when they graduated from the university and went out into the world, they cannot relate to people. They can learn a lot from books. They can do a lot of work alone, but when they go out and relate to people, they don’t know how to deal with people. Emotionally, we are much much more. So, some of my friends who were very, very intelligent, who were very intellectually developed are not doing well in life. But some others who did not, who do not have degrees from universities, but doing very well in life. They understand them very well. Their emotions are very stable, very mature. They understand people very deeply. They can empathize with people. So they can work with people. In order to be able to work with people, you know, you need emotional maturity. Without that, you cannot work with people. You can work alone in your office, with a computer, even with a computer, a lot of my friend who is working with the computer, sometimes he said, I want to punch the computer. When I make mistakes, it doesn’t understand.[can’t get the words] So sometimes he got upset with his computer even. [can’t get the words]
But anyway, it is very important – the emotional emotional maturity. Emotional maturity is the base of will and character. Without emotional maturity, we cannot decide to do something and keep doing it until we achieve it. Because some people, they become emotional, they can’t [can’t get the words] very quickly. The men with the highest score in college were not particularly successful, compared to the lower scoring peers in terms of salary, productivity or status in their senior. [can’t get the words]. So, a lot of people I know they complain that, “Oh, my husband, he doesn’t know my emotions. He doesn’t know my feelings. He won’t listen to me. He’s not solving problems at all.” So, when somebody understand your feelings, your emotions, then you feel them a lot. You feel that this person understands you. You feel very close. You don’t feel lonely anymore. Even for yourself, to understand your own feelings, to understand your own emotions is very important. And based on your own understanding of your emotions, you can empathize with another person and understand that person. Only when people understand each other’s emotions, then they know, they feel that they are understood. They feel very close. So without understanding emotions, we will feel very, very lonely.
“Emotional maturity, abilities such as being able to motivate oneself…” That is very important to motivate oneself. So, when you meditate and become very calmed and peaceful and look deeply into your heart, you get in touch with your, with your real nature, so to speak. Most of the time we are imitating other people. We are trying to do what others are doing. We are taking other people’s standards. But we are not doing what we really love to do. And only when we become very mindful and free and we get deeply in touch with ourselves, then we feel that there is some yearning, some sort of deep, longing for something. In the beginning, it’s very, very vague. You don’t really know what it is, but if you stay with that long time, then you feel that “I really love to do something”. You really love to do something, not because you have to. You just love to do something. When you do that, you feel very satisfied and happy with your life. You may not become rich or famous, but you feel very, very satisfied. So, to know what we really love is very important, and to do what we really love is also very important. To do something just for money is not really satisfying. So, what motivates yourself is important. You know what you want to do and you will do it and do it and do it, no matter how long it takes. Maybe many lifetimes.
“Abilities, such as being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustration…” Persist… This persistence is very important. In meditation, it’s not easy. You are working with your mind and the mind is so flickering, so jumping from one thing to another. It’s very difficult to do and you become very frustrated and many people just give up. “Oh no, it’s not for me anymore. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t sit still even for five minutes”. They give up. So, if you give up then you will never succeed in doing anything worthwhile. Anything that is really worthwhile in our life needs persistence. You have to work for it. Maybe years, maybe a lifetime, maybe many, many lifetimes. So, persist in the face of frustration is very important. The frustration is another emotion. So, if you don’t understand frustration, you just give up or you destroy. It may be a job or work, or a relationship, whatever it might be. Whenever you get frustrated, if you blow up, you destroy the situation, make things even worse. So, whenever we are frustrated, it is very important to get deeply in touch with our frustration. “I am very frustrated”. And by deeply in touch with it, slowly and slowly you will learn more and more about it. Then you will see the situation holistically. You see your situation, your expectations. You see another person’s expectations, abilities, conditions, difficulties, even another person’s motivations. We do something together, but our motivation might not be the same. So when our motivations are not the same, sometimes we feel very angry or upset. “Oh, that person’s motivation is not very good. I don’t want to work with him”. But instead of thinking like that and giving up, we can discuss about the situation and still keep on working. We have to work together to achieve something big, like a society here.
I always talk about this. Because I really feel this is very important: to have a society, to have a community is very important. One person cannot do much. Together we can do quite a lot. But when we work together, we have different motivations. So, people get frustrated again and again. What do we do then? First, get in touch with our own frustration: frustrated and upset. “I don’t like this”. And deeply, by being deeply in touch with it, you distance, you can back away a little bit and see that “What is happening, what is happening to me now. Am I biased?” Sure, all of us are biased. It is very difficult not to be biased. Personal bias, all of us have personal bias. But when we become mindful of our own frustration and of our own biased point of view, then we can turn around and look at the situation from the other person’s point of view. Then you become magnanimous. You become big. Magnus means big. Animus means soul. Then you become big soul, big heart. “Well, I can take his place or her place and see and understand how he or she feels about it.” Then, we can understand that way. Then, we can cooperate. Even change, uh, each other’s, uh, compromise each other’s desires, expectations. So, whenever people work together, we need to understand each other and some compromise. Without doing that, we cannot work.
“To control impulse”. Very important too. These days, younger people have become very impulsive. Many parents told me, “Oh, we can’t control our children. They are so grumpy.” They want to do this. They want to do that. Before they finish doing one thing, they get up and do another thing. They won’t even listen for five minutes, before you finish telling them what you want to tell them. They are off. So, very impulsive. That means they are not really in touch with their emotions. They’re emotionally not mature. So, we must help our children to become in touch with their own emotions, to understand their emotions, and also help them understand our emotions, our expectations, our frustrations, also our hopes. So understanding each other’s emotions is very important in relationship. So, to control impulse and delay gratification. To achieve something needs a long time to do. So, we do something now, but we have to wait for a long time, maybe many years to get the results. So, to wait is very important. I read in one book, a person says, said that he learned two things: He learned how to meditate and he learned how to wait. Very important. When you meditate, then you really learn to wait. You became very patient. You can see a very big picture. And you can see far away distance in your life. You can see what will happen.
So, like you are growing a seed. You put that in the ground and you look after the seed. It becomes a small seedling. And you look after the seedling and it grows and grows and grows. It might take many, many years to get the fruit, to get the result. So in Burma, they plant palm trees. You know, the toddy palm trees. We get molasses from palm trees, palm juice. To get palm juice from a palm tree, you have to wait for about 30 years. You plant one palm seed now and wait for 30 years to get the results. So, that is delaying gratification. You need to teach our children to do that also. Do what is proper to do now. Patiently, you will get results later.
But in many cases, we get the results right away to a certain extent. Like say, when you meditate, you sit down and calm down, try to keep your mind on breathing. Even if you do that for ten minutes, even though your mind is not still for the whole ten minutes, still, after you get up, you feel a little bit calmed and relaxed. Many of my friends told me, “Well, I sit and meditate and all the time my mind was thinking. But when I got up, I noticed that I was much calmer than before.” You get some results. When you are angry, you pay attention or (remind yourself) “Anger, anger, anger. I’m angry. This is anger.” If you pay attention, then your anger becomes less and less. You are in control of your anger. You don’t explode. You don’t react. And after you’ve calmed down, then you see what is the right thing to do, what’s the best you can do. And you respond appropriately, not to react, but to respond. So, reaction comes from automatic impulse, but response comes from understanding the whole situation, understanding from different angles. And then you do what is the right thing to do. You don’t become so personal about it. You don’t become so biased. So, mindfulness gives you distance and time. So, that you can calm down and look at it.
“To regulate one’s moods”. This is very important too. That’s why I advise my friends to meditate early in the morning, the first thing in the morning. Meditate as soon as you wake up. “Oh, I’m awake now. Meditate.” Don’t get up from your bed immediately. Stay in your bed for a few minutes and meditate before you think about anything. And then mindfully get up, go and wash and sit for a while and meditate. Get some time. Arrange your life, your daily life for meditation, for regular sitting meditation. So that, early in the morning you are in a very peaceful mood. Peacefulness is a mood, kind of mood also. Equanimity is also mood. It’s a kind of emotion, but neutral, very good. You know, whenever we hear neutral, we think it’s not good. Neutral means what? We are more prone to value, happiness, excitement. We don’t really value quietness, peacefulness, equanimity, balance. So, it’s like drinking water, very important. Water, it doesn’t taste anything. But it’s so important in our life. So, the most important drink that we drink is water. The most important food that we eat is plain bread and plain rice. The rest is just seasoning. So, it’s the way like that: to keep our mind very calm and peaceful, most of the time, to maintain our mood. And depression also is a mood. Unhappiness is also a kind of mood, emotion. So to regulate one’s mood, if you know how you are feeling now, if you know your emotions, then you can regulate. If you don’t know, it will regulate you. Your mood will regulate you, influence you, and make you do things for which you will regret later. So, very important to be in touch with our mood. Mood is very subtle. It’s not very emotional. It’s not very exciting. Sometimes you’re a little bit upset, very, very slightly upset. You are even, you are not even aware of it. But because you have this low level of irritation or feeling of upset, whenever somebody makes a mistake, you explode. Because you already have that tense state of mind. And people will say, this person, you don’t know how to deal with this person anymore, you don’t make a small mistake. You get explode. So people want to go away from you, turn away from you. They don’t want to relate with you anymore. You are impossible.
So, I know a lot of people, some of them are parents. The children complain so much. “Oh, my father, don’t go in front. Don’t go and see him. He will always point out some of your mistakes and get upset”. So, I taught some of my friends who are now parents. I told them how to understand children, how to understand children’s emotions, and how to talk with them and deal with them. Now I receive letters, they say that, “Ah yes, my children have changed now, without forcing them to change.” You can change them, very indirectly, very gently.
So, to regulate one’s mood is important. Keep distress from swamping the ability to think. When we become too anxious, when we have too much anxiety, we cannot think straight anymore. You make more and more mistakes. So, whenever we get excited anxious, that is another mood or emotion, get in touch with that emotion, get in touch with that mood. And if you get used to doing that in a few seconds, you see it very clearly and you are in control now. I mean, your mindfulness and wisdom is in control now. And the mood or the frustration, anything, the sadness, whatever, it will not influence you. Although it may still be there, it will not influence you. We can work with it.
“To empathize…” In our relationship with people, empathy is very important. Without that, it is very hard to work with people. Especially with our family members, with our close friends, empathy is very important. So, to be able to empathize is a kind of compassion also, to be compassionate, to understand another person’s feelings, emotions, hopes, sadness, unhappiness, whatever. So, to empathize is important and to hope for our life also, for ourselves and for others also. Always being hopeful is important. No matter how bad the situation is now, if you feel hopeful, things can get better, get better. If you feel hopeless, things will get worse. So, to encourage another person to be hopeful also is very important. If you can’t help another person in any other way, just encourage this person, give some hope. So, I know a lot of doctors who are treating terminal patients, patients with very serious diseases. Sometimes the doctors said, “The best I can do now is just to give this person some hope to live”. And sometimes, really, it’s just the best. If a person feels hopeful, then he feels better and maintain his activities, state of mind very well. And some even recover. If a person feels hopeless, even a minor disease can kill a person. Hopelessness is really terrible. It really can kill you. So, no matter what happens, to be hopeful is very important. No matter how bad the situation is, for yourself, for your family, for your friends, for your country even, for the whole humanity maybe… So, not to feel hopeless is very important.
“Much evidence testifies that people who are emotionally adept…”, emotionally adept means you don’t deny your emotion. You don’t suppress the emotion. You accept the emotion. You understand the emotion. You are in touch with the emotion. Even from the very subtle state, you are aware of that. So, you understand yourself and you understand other people also. And you do what is appropriate to do. That means to be adept. So, “people who are emotionally adept, who know and manage their own feelings well…” Who know and manage… First you need to know, then you manage. Without knowing it, without being in touch with it, without being aware of it, you cannot manage it. Even if you deny it and you feel like, “Well, I don’t feel upset about it, it doesn’t matter”, you deny it. So, you really don’t feel it sometimes, but still it affects your behavior in many ways it comes out. And when people point that out you said, “No, I didn’t do that because I got upset. No, I’m not upset”. But still you say things that hurts others, if you judge, you criticize too harshly, inappropriately. So, only when we are deeply in touch with our emotions, then we can manage it honestly. So denying, if you deny your emotion, you become dishonest.
So, “who know and manage their own feelings well, and who read and deal effectively with other people’s feelings”. Read. You can read it. People show that actually, if you know how to observe people, even though the words they use, the tone, the loudness or the softness of the voice, the way they look, the eyes, eyes are very expressive. And the face, the way they smile even. Sometimes they are just wearing a smile. They are not smiling. The smile is not coming from their heart. They are just wearing a smile. You can see that when this person is not really smiling. You know that something is going on. Even the way they move their hands. When you say something, suddenly they move their hand. It shows that something is upsetting. This person is upset now. Sometimes you look down and you look away. You try to avoid contact. You can see that this person is very uneasy now. Something is hurt. Something is hurting him. What you are saying is hurting that person or what you are going to say, he or she knows that you are going to say something, trying to avoid. So, to understand these things is very important in our relationships.
“… (who know and manage their own feelings well, and who read and deal effectively) with other people’s feelings are at an advantage in any domain of life”. Those who can do that, or person who can understand their own emotions and understand other people’s emotions, those who can read the sign languages also, they become very successful. “Are at an advantage in any domain of life, whether romance and intimate relationships, or picking up the unspoken rules that govern success in organizational politics.” Every organization has its politics, and there are unwritten rules. How do you understand unwritten rules? If you don’t understand unwritten rules, you won’t be able to work with that organization very well. And those who will… Those rules will never be written. It’s impossible to write some of the rules. But you have to understand. And still, from that understanding, work. In every home, there are unwritten rules.
“People with well-developed emotional skills are also more likely to be content and effective in their lives”. If you know your emotions very well, then you feel more content, more calmed and peaceful. And when you meditate and become very calmed and peaceful, contentment becomes very naturally. You don’t have to try to be content. Because that deep understanding of your own mind, of your own emotions give you some sort of satisfaction, very deep satisfaction. You feel very close to yourself. You don’t feel lonely most of the time. So, people who are not in touch with their own thoughts and feelings and emotions feels more lonely. So, to overcome loneliness, the first thing we need to do is to be in touch with our own thoughts, emotions and feelings. Every thought is accompanied with a kind of emotion, every thought. There is no thought without emotion. So, try to understand our own thoughts and emotions.
“… mastering the habits of mind…” So, “people with well-developed emotional skills are also more likely to be content and effective in their lives, mastering the habits of mind that fosters their own productivity”. So, if we understand our own emotions, then we can maintain our mood and keep doing what is proper to do, what is the right thing to do, what is beneficial to do. If we can’t understand our emotions, we become more impulsive. We do something now, and we change our mind. And do something again and change our mind. So, people change jobs. People change partners. People change, change. Too much change now. Change is necessary in our life. But too much change is not very good. Because we lose direction. And we always think that I will change my mind again, so why take anything so seriously? So, we can’t take anything seriously anymore. We can’t even take ourselves seriously anymore. We can’t even take our motivations, our intentions, even our goodwill seriously anymore. I might change my mind at any moment. And when you deal with another person also who is very impulsive, you can see you will think that, “Well, how can I take that person so seriously? He will change. He / she will change her mind very soon. So, better to keep a distance, better not to get so involved, better not to really trust.” So, people who are not emotionally balanced are not trustworthy. People don’t trust those people. So, if we are in touch with our own emotions and maintain emotional stability and become emotionally more mature, then we can really decide to do something. We can still maintain our good intentions, no matter what happens. In our relationship, if somebody is doing something wrong, we can still maintain our good intentions for that person. We will not give up. We will still keep on working very patiently, very lovingly. And someday things will get better. So, to understand our emotions, to understand other people’s emotions is very, very important in our life.
“People who cannot marshal some control over their emotional life, fight inner battles”. We fight inner battles, we always changing. “… inner battles that sabotaged the ability for focused work and clear thought”. So, focused work and clear thought is more and more important these days. Life is not so simple anymore. Life is becoming more and more complicated, more and more burdensome. You make a mistake, you suffer for it. You have to pay for it. So, to be impulsive is not good anymore. It never was good, but it’s more damaging now. So, people who are not emotionally in control, not emotionally matured, have more inner battles, inner conflict, more regret, and sometimes they feel themselves hopeless. “I am just hopeless. Nobody wants to talk with me anymore. Nobody wants to be a friend with me anymore.” Because you are so impulsive. Sometimes you are nice, sometimes you are very nasty. And people said, “Ooh, enough”. I know some people like that in Burma. She has no friend. Another man also, I know he has no friend. He lives alone, very, very lonely. So, if you want more friends, be more considerate, develop empathy, compassion. And to develop empathy, compassion, first, you need to be in touch with your own emotions.
“Awareness of emotions is the fundamental emotional competence on which others, such as emotional self-control, build”. Awareness of emotions, this is fundamental. Before we become emotionally balanced, emotionally mature, before we can control our emotions, first, we need to be aware of our emotions. So, to be aware means to be interested but not reactive. We are interested, we pay deep attention. We are willing to look at our emotions, but we don’t react. Awareness of emotions, in short, means being aware of both our own mood and our thoughts about that mood. So with thought comes emotions and mood. So, pay attention to your thoughts, the words that you use. Some people have the habit of using very harsh words, negative words. So, whenever you think with negative words, harsh words, strong words, feel that emotion also. “It is a non-reactive, non-judgmental attention to inner states”. Non-reactive, non-judgmental attention… You don’t judge yourself, you don’t react. You don’t feel upset about it. Even you don’t even feel guilty about it. You pay attention. You know that, “I’m upset. I am angry.” Or “I’m worrying. I’m anxious. I’m afraid.” So, when you pay close attention to it and you’ll find out. You calm down. You become more relaxed. You become more balanced. Just by paying attention, you become more balanced. Do it and find out. Not difficult to do. Needs only some practice.
So, if you are mindful, then you are more balanced. Even when you become emotional, you know your emotional, you don’t react. You can still maintain your balance. And learn from the emotion also. You become very rich. You have a very rich inner life. So, I can feel a very wide range of emotions. When I was young, I thought it’s very shameful to be emotional. It’s not manly. Men don’t feel sad. Men don’t feel unhappy. Men are very rational. They do the right thing and that’s it, finish. Even to be happy was a thought of as something shameful. But as you become more honest to yourself, you see that no matter what you think about it, you still feel. You are still emotional and it’s okay. So, try to understand a very wide range of emotions, your emotions. Or how much can you feel?
I don’t know where I have put away one of my notes. I have so many. Now I cannot find. Well, anyway, loving kindness is a kind of emotion. When you feel loving, you feel very warm, very soft, very gentle. It makes you feel very good. And peacefulness also, in meditation, you feel very peaceful, emotionally very, very balanced, very calm. Equanimity… Yesterday I talk about equanimity. You know, even talking about equanimity, I can see people become very calm and relaxed. Even the idea of being balanced, calmed, not excited, accepting totally, willing to accept anything, willing to let go anything. Being open to the process. No matter what happened, I’m open to it. I’m not resisting it. And not grasping, not clinging. That is balance. Even when I talk about that, I notice people. They are very calm. They are getting into that mood. You see what can make people become like that? So, when you make a joke, people laugh. You change their mood immediately. So, when you talk about something very peaceful and calm, people become very peaceful and calm. So it depends on how you think. If you are in the habit of thinking terrible things, you are making yourself in a bad mood. If you can change your thought, you can change your mood also. Not that difficult, actually, but it’s a habit.
So, joy, tranquility, calmness, peacefulness, feeling hopeful, equanimity, sadness, frustration, loneliness, a lot… So, try to maintain good mood throughout the day by being mindful. There is no other way you can maintain your mood. The only way, the only that is practical and very effective way to maintain your mood is to be mindful. You might go slightly up and down, but still you maintain your mood. And sometimes when you are mindful, you can understand that very deeply. And from that understanding, you learn something and you like it. So good mood, whatever they are, enhance the ability to think flexibly and with more complexity. So, when you are in a good mood, you are more flexible. When you are on a bad mood, you become biased, you become lazy. You cannot change. You do not want to change. You don’t want to accept another person’s point of view. You do not even want to understand. So, good mood is very important and with more complexity, that’s making it easier to find solutions to problems, whether intellectual or interpersonal. So, especially those who are in a position of a leader or parent or in an organization, it’s very important to maintain equanimity, to be mature. So, now I have heard some of my friends telling me that in the future things will become so complicated that people who cannot maintain their mood can make very serious mistakes and cause a lot of damage. What will happen if a president of a country lose his mind and make a wrong decision? Give a wrong order. Millions of people will die. So, in the future, especially, to maintain equanimity, to maintain your mood is more important. Only those who can maintain that can become leaders, teachers. And we need good leaders and good teachers. So, we need to train ourselves, to train our friends, to train our children to maintain their mood. Otherwise, they will destroy the world. Moody, people have become very moody, [can’t get the words] manic depressive. Sometimes, they become very depressed. Sometimes, they become very active and aggressive. Even mild mood change can sway thinking. Even when you become a bit calmer, more relaxed, you can see things more clearly.
“In making plans or decisions, people in good moods have a perceptual bias that leads them to be more expansive and positive in their thinking”. More expansive, good, they can see a big picture and more positive, “No matter how terrible the situation is now, I will not let the situation get worse. I will try my best to improve the situation”. Always trying our best to improve, not to blow up. So, to be hopeful, to have a positive attitude, positive expectation is very, very important. “People with high levels of hope share certain traits, among them being able to motivate themselves…” When you are positive, when you feel hopeful, you are motivated. You want to do something. When you feel hopeless, you stop. You don’t want to do anything anymore. That means depression. So, to be hopeful is very important. “…, feeling resourceful enough to find ways to accomplish their objects”. Feeling resourceful means you know that you have the ability. Some ability, at least, to solve the problem, to overcome the difficulties. And even if you don’t have all the solutions, you think, you can see that. “Well, I can go and ask advice from my friends and teachers. I can see, if I still have some time, I can still learn and deal with this problem.” So you feel hopeful. You feel that you have the ability and resources to work with this problem. If you feel that, “I have no ability, I have no resources. I cannot do anything about it.”, you become hopeless. So, it is very important to develop, to develop all our abilities and skills. Then you feel more hopeful, because we are more resourceful.
So, “…,feeling resourceful enough to find ways to accomplish their objectives, reassuring themselves when in a tight spot that things will get better”. Things will get better, no matter how hard, no matter how difficult it is now. Things will get better. You can still learn something from this situation. “…, being flexible enough to find different ways to get to their goals or to switch goals if one becomes impossible. And having the sense to break down a formidable task into smaller, manageable pieces”. So, there are many ways to solve one problem. Maybe three, four or five ways. So, some people are very rigid. When they can get it in the in the way that they want to get it, they take it. When they cannot get it in that way, they refuse to to take it or to do it. So, there are a lot of people like that. For example, to go from here to Melbourne, you can take many different routes, many different ways of getting there. So, whenever you want to solve a problem, try to find many options, many choices. How many choices do you have? If I can do this way, I will do it. If not, then I will change. So, to be able to change, to be willing to change is also very important. People who are not willing to change put themselves in a very tight spot, in a fix. They cannot move anymore. And when you think about a big problem and think of solving the whole thing immediately, sometimes you are not able to do it. You just stop, to break down step by step, step by step, division.
“Having hope means that one will not give in to overwhelming anxiety…” You don’t give in. Give in. So, whenever you feel anxious, meditate and calm down a little bit. And meditate and calm down, you are less anxious. Then you can see things more clearly. You are not overwhelmed with your anxiety. When we are too anxious, too worried, sometimes we think that we cannot do anything. But when we become calmed, then think about it again, you see that it is not that difficult. “I can … with it. I can deal with it. I can cope it.” So, always tell yourself, “I can cope it.” Just telling yourself makes you feel stronger. And when you feel stronger, then you can take more creatively. You can see more clearly. “… a defeatist attitude or depression in the face of difficult challenges or setbacks”. So, no matter what happens, not to have a defeatist attitude. It’s very important. Don’t ever think that you are defeated. “Indeed, people who are hopeful evidence less depression than others…” Of course, when you are hopeful, you do not get depressed. You are interested. You are motivated. You have energy. You want to do something. You want to work. “… less depressed than others, as they maneuver through life in pursuit of their goals, are less anxious in general and have fewer emotional distress”.
So, the whole day, try to be mindful and keep your mood calm in this way. Hope is more than the sunny view that everything will turn out all right. Hope does not mean that I will just sit and wait. Everything will be okay. No, that is not hope. If you sit and wait and hope that something will happen, it’s not hope. So, this believing you have both the will and the way to accomplish your goals, whatever they may be… You know that you have the will and you know that there is a way. You know that you have the ability. You know that you can get help from other people too, because we are not all able. But we can get help from many people. If you are willing to accept help, you can get a lot of help from people. If you have the right attitude to accept and ask for help. So, whenever you are in a big difficult situation, calm down and see what you can do about it. And look at your own resources, your abilities, your knowledge. And also talk to good friends. They can help you, advise you, encourage you. They can give you some hope. When you feel that somebody is with you, then you feel more hopeful. You are not alone. You are not alone in this world. Nobody is lonely, actually. Only we make ourselves lonely. If we do not do that, we will have friends and they will help us, always, always. So, do not make yourself lonely. Do not cut yourself off. Always think that if I am willing, if I am friendly and open, there will be many friends, who will help me.
So, in Pali text, maybe you have heard about Buddha talk about adhipati, very strong motivation. Chandā dhipati, cittā dhipati, vīriyā dhipati, vīmaṃsā dhipati. So, it means you have very strong desire, a strong wish to do something. If it is really strong, that energy will keep you going and one day you will accomplish it. So, Buddha said: [in Pali]. If you really have really have chandā, well wish. What is there that you cannot accomplish? [Pali] What is there, [Pali] that cannot be accomplished? If you really have the will, there really is a will to do that, you will really accomplish it. The same thing Buddha said [Pali]. If you really have that persistence… Sometimes people say, “I want to do this” and then they forget about it. They don’t have cittā dhipati. But if you think that, “I want to do it” and you always keep them in your mind, you never forget it. All day, day after day, you never forget it. You are always thinking about it, looking for ways, looking for knowledge, how to do this, how to do this, and getting in touch with people who can give you some information, advice, help. If you keep doing that, then it will happen. If you think, “Oh, I want to do this and you forget about it”, it will not happen. So, if you are persistent like that, Buddha said, what is there that you cannot accomplish? Which means that there is nothing you cannot accomplish. Unbelievable. Just take time, just a matter of time. [vīriyā dhipati] – energetic. You do with all your energy, with all your body and mind wholeheartedly. “I’ll do it.” That’s it. No half heartedly. “I will do it with all my body and mind, with all my resources, with all my time”. And so Buddha said [Pali]. If you really have that sort of energy, what is there that you cannot accomplish? And [Pali]. That means understanding how to do something. If you really understand… Even though you do not understand, you can find out. It takes time only. So, if you really understand, if you really have that wisdom, what is there that you cannot do? So, if you have all these four, not just one, all these four, you can do what you want to do. But to have this, you need emotional stability. If you are not emotionally stable, you change your mind. You lose your motivation. So, to have this emotional stability you need to be mindful, mindful, mindful. That’s why mindfulness is so important. That’s why Buddha remind his disciples again and again, “Be mindful. Be mindful.”
You know anything about Thomas Alva Edison? Anybody know about Thomas Alva Edison? Yes, he invented electricity, very famous for this. But he invented more than 3000 objects. And one of his inventions is gramophone also. Yes, even safety pin. Maybe you forgot that. Even safety pins, he invented that. Electric bulb and the meters that measure the electricity, how much you have used? More than 3000. And also the battery that you use in your car, he invented that. Rechargeable battery, he invented that. So, when he was inventing this rechargeable battery, he was, uh, he did more than 200 experiments, which failed. So, even his assistant said, this will not work. There is no such thing. It is impossible. You cannot get rechargeable batteries. And some people said that to Edison and Edison said, “I found out more than 200 ways which will not work. And closer.” Closer to succeeding. That sort of belief in yourself is necessary, if you really want to make something big. That sort of belief in yourself, “I have found out more than 200 ways that won’t work. And closer.” Keep going, keep going, keep going. And he found it.
So, encourage yourself, meditate, develop your inner qualities. If you have develop your inner qualities, the rest in your life will happen very easily, very easily actually. It’s unbelievable, you see. But easily, I know… I have many friends and students who are doing that. I can read letters from them, even they send it here. I told them not to write to me. I have no time to reply. But still they want me to know how well they are doing. So, I am very happy about that. I cannot do that for you. I can only encourage you. You can do that for yourself. If you really meditate and become calmed, mindful and get deeply in touch with your own mind, with your own motivation, you can accomplish something really big. Your daily life will improve and improve and improve. Your relationship will improve. Your job will improve. Your understanding of life, dhamma, everything will improve. With mindfulness, everything will get better. But with mindlessness, sure, everything will get worse and worse. You become more and more hopeless. So, if you want to be hopeful, be mindful. I still have some idea to talk about, but I look at the clock. It’s time for me to stop. So, again, to go to the beginning again… Always like to remind myself also. This is also a reminder for myself. Where is that? Couldn’t find my notes anyway. Hmm. This is the quotation that I read first. “Monks, thus must you train yourselves. We will be thankful and grateful.” Oh, it makes me so warm and happy just to think about it, thankful and grateful. “Not even the least thing that is done for us shall be forgotten.” So, you have done a lot for me. I will never forget that.
Let’s pay respect to the Buddha, even these few words, so precious. Very thankful for the Buddha too, to the Buddha too, for saying such things, for teaching.
I honor the Buddha by the very practice that leads to liberation.
I honor the Dhamma by the very practice that leads to liberation.
I honor the Sangha by the very practice that leads to liberation.
So, go to honor somebody who is worthy of honor.
Viet Hung | A Happiness pursuer | Author of The Happiness Journal, Tản mạn về Hạnh phúc and NGẪM CAFÉ
Sách tôi dịch: Trái tim thiền Phật giáo, Thiền cho người mới bắt đầu, Nổi loạn và tự do, Bài chú giải Kinh Mangala Sutta, Sức mạnh của sự hoài nghi và thiền chánh niệm (Vipassana), Những nguyên lý để sống hạnh phúc, Chúng ta đang sống vì điều gì?, Sự cho đi và Tình thương yêu, “Lấy tâm mình làm bạn của chính mình”
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