Confusion
One of the most important points in Buddhism is to realize that these problems we all experience arise from causes. It’s not that they’re there because of no cause at all. The source of these problems is within ourselves. This is a big insight and not easy for most people to accept. This is because most of us tend to place the blame for our problems on other people or on external situations. We feel, “I’m unhappy because of what you did — you didn’t call me; you abandoned me; you don’t love me. It’s all your fault.” Or we put the blame on our parents — on what our parents did or didn’t do to us when we were little children. Or we place the blame on the economic situation or the political situation, social situation, and so on. Now of course, all these factors play a role in our experience of life. Buddhism doesn’t deny that. But the main cause, the deeper cause of our problems, is within ourselves — it’s our own attitudes, especially our confusion.
If we want to find one factor that clearly defines the Buddhist attitude concerning what it means to practice Buddhism in daily life, I would say it is this. When we’re having difficulties, we look within ourselves to try to find the source and, once we identify it, we try to change the situation from within. When we talk about looking within and finding the source of our problems, it’s not based on having made a moral judgment that I’m a bad person and I have to change and be good. Buddhism does not make moral judgments. We try to locate the source of our problems inside simply because we suffer and want to get rid of our problems and unhappiness, and the main source of them is our own attitudes. Specifically, Buddha said the deepest cause of our problems and suffering is our confusion. So, what we need to do is to discover how we’re confused about what’s going on and how we can correct that by gaining correct understanding.
What is our confusion about? It’s about several things. One isbehavioral cause and effect. We think that if we act in a certain way that it’s going to have no effect at all. For example, we think, “I can be late, ignore you, and so on, and it doesn’t matter.” That’s wrong; that’s confused. Or we think that something we do or how we behave is going to have a certain effect that is absurd and couldn’t possibly happen. For instance, “I was nice to you and so you’ll love me in return. I bought you a nice present, so why don’t you love me now?” With thoughts like these, we imagine that our actions and behavior are going to have an impossible effect or we inflate them, thinking that they’re going to produce more of an effect than they possibly could. Also, we might think that certain things are going to bring about one type of effect; whereas, in fact, they bring about the exact opposite. For instance, we want to be happy and so we think that the way to become happy is to get drunk all the time. But this just produces more problems than happiness.
The other thing that we are confused about is how we exist, how others exist, and how the world exists. For example, we suffer and become unhappy at growing old and getting sick. But what else do we expect as human beings? Human beings get sick and human beings grow old, unless we die young — these things are no big surprise. When we start seeing gray hair in the mirror and we’re unhappy and shocked about it, this is being unrealistic and confused about how the world exists, about how we exist.
Let’s say we have a problem with growing older. Because of our confusion about that — our not accepting the reality of it — we act in destructive ways under the influence of disturbing emotions and attitudes. For example, compulsively trying to look young and attractive, we act with longing desire to try to get things that we hope will make us secure — like the attention and love of others, especially of younger people whom we find attractive. Behind this syndrome usually lies the confusion that I am the most important person in the world; I’m the center of the universe. So everybody should pay attention to me. Regardless of what I look like, everybody should find me attractive and like me. It drives us crazy if someone doesn’t find us attractive or they don’t like us. It drives us even more crazy if they ignore us — if they don’t pay attention to us when we would like them to find us attractive, if not physically, at least in some way. But, not everybody liked Shakyamuni Buddha; so what hope is there that everyone is going to like us!
Our wish to be liked by everyone is an unrealistic expectation. It’s not reality. It’s based on confusion, longing desire, andattachment that everybody should find us attractive and pay attention to us. Underlying it is the disturbing attitude of naivety. We think that we are so important and loveable that everybody should like us, so there must be something wrong with this person if he or she doesn’t like me. Or worse, we start doubting ourselves: “There’s something wrong with me that’s causing this person not to like me,” and so we feel bad or guilty. This is all naivety.
The main thing, then, is working on ourselves. This is what Dharma practice is all about. No matter what the situation is — if we are having difficulties, feeling insecure, or whatever, we need to look in ourselves to see what’s going on. Where is the confusion behind these disturbing emotions I’m feeling? However, if we’re looking at a relationship we’re in that’s developed problems, we also need to realize that we’re not the only one with confusion. Obviously, the other person has confusion as well. The point is that we don’t just say, “You have to change; everything I’m doing is fine and perfect; you are the one who has to change.” On the other hand, we don’t say that I’m the only one that has to change either, because that can degenerate into a martyr complex. We try to discuss things openly with the other person — although, of course, the person needs to be receptive to this. We need to acknowledge that both of us are confused. There’s a problem in both of us in terms of how we’re understanding what’s going on in our relationship, so let’s try to clear up the confusion in both of us. This is the most realistic and Dharmic way in which to proceed.
Understanding the Dharma before Putting It into Practice
There are many different types of Buddhist practice. It’s not sufficient merely to get instructions on how to perform them like learning how to perform some trick. It’s very important to understand, with any practice, how is it going to help us in overcoming difficulties. We need to learn not only when and how to apply the practice, but also the assumptions behind it. This means that we don’t start with advanced practices. We start from the beginning and build up a foundation, so that we know, from the sequence of how the Dharma teachings build up, what’s going on with any practice.
Now, it’s true that we do read teachings that say, “If you’re given a medicine, don’t ask questions about how it works, just take the medicine!” Although this is a good piece of advice, we need to understand that it’s warning against an extreme. The extreme is just to study and try to understand the teachings, but never to put anything we learn into practice. We want to avoid that extreme. There is also the other extreme, however, which we equally need to avoid. That is when we hear some Dharma instructions concerning some practice, then, with blind faith, just doing it without having any understanding of what we’re doing or why. The main problem that comes from that extreme is that we never really understand how to apply the practice to daily life. If we understand the point behind any practice — if we understand how it works and what its intention is — then we don’t need someone else to tell us how to apply it in daily life. We understand and we know how to apply it ourselves.
When we talk about eliminating our problems, we’re talking not only about eliminating just our own personal problems, we’re also talking about getting rid of the difficulties we have in helping others. “I have problems helping others because of laziness or selfishness, or because of being too busy.” Or, “I just don’t understand what your problem is and I have no idea of what to do to help you.” That’s the big difficulty we have, isn’t it? All of these difficulties in helping others are also because of our confusion. For instance, the confusion that I should be like Almighty God and all I have to do is one thing and that’s going to solve all your problems; and if it didn’t solve all your problems, there’s something wrong with you. You didn’t do it right, so you’re guilty. Or I’m guilty, because I should have been able to solve your problems and I didn’t, so I’m no good. Again, it’s confusion about cause and effect.
Conviction in the Dharma
Another point is that to be able to apply the Dharma effectively in daily life in a non-neurotic way, we also need to have the conviction that it is possible actually to get rid of our problems. We must be convinced that it is possible to get rid of our confusion by following the basic Buddhist approach: to get rid of something, we need to eliminate the causes that make it occur. But, of course, it’s very difficult to gain deep, firm conviction that it is possible to eliminate all our confusion so that it never recurs, and also firm conviction that it is possible to gain liberation and enlightenment. This is especially difficult when we don’t even understand what liberation and enlightenment really are. So how can we really consider whether it’s possible or not to achieve them? If we don’t think they’re possible, isn’t it a bit hypocritical to aim to achieve something that we don’t think even exists? Then it becomes some sort of crazy game that we’re playing; our Dharma practice is not for real.
We have to be really convinced, and this requires a lot of study and understanding, as well as deep thought and meditation. We must be convinced that not only are liberation and enlightenment possible; but also that it’s possible for me to achieve them. Not that it was possible only for Shakyamuni to achieve them, but I can’t do it. But rather, it’s possible for me to achieve them, and it’s possible for everybody to achieve them as well. We must understand what it is that we have to do to get rid of our confusion. What is it that will really rid us of it? What will really rid us of confusion is correct understanding; and so we have to understand how correct understanding can overpower confusion and eliminate it so that it never returns. As the result of all of this, we see that the actual working place of Dharma practice is daily life; it’s dealing with our problems, our confusion, and our difficulties in life from moment to moment.
Dharma Practice Requires Introspection
Dharma practice is not simply time out from life, going to a nice, quiet meditation cave, or even just to our room, and sitting on a cushion to escape having to deal with our lives. Escaping is not the focus of Dharma practice. When we go to a quiet place to meditate, we do so in order to build up the skills we need to deal with our problems in life. The main focus is life. The focus is not on winning the Olympic medal in sitting and meditating! Dharma practice is all about applying Dharma in life.
Moreover, Dharma practice is introspective. With it, we try to be attentive of our emotional states, our motivations, our attitudes, our compulsive patterns of behavior. We especially need to look out for disturbing emotions. The defining characteristic of adisturbing emotion or attitude is that when it arises, it makes us and/or others feel uncomfortable. We lose our peace of mind and become out of control. This is a very helpful definition, because knowing it helps us to recognize when we’re acting under the influence of one. We can know that there’s something disturbing going on in our minds if we feel uncomfortable. At such times, we need to check what’s going on inside and apply the antidotes to correct it.
This requires becoming very sensitive to what’s going on inside us. And to do anything about changing our emotional state, if we find it disturbing, requires the realization that if we act in a disturbed and disturbing way, it’s going to create a lot of unhappiness both for us and for others. We don’t want that; we’ve had enough of that. And if we’re upset, how can we be of help to anybody?
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