YOU ARE BUDDHA

We are all looking for greater meaning and wisdom in our lives. The problem is that we search for these things outside ourselves. The most profound teachings of the Buddha say that the wisdom we search for doesn’t come from outside. It is already within us — it is our very nature. You Are Buddha is a practical guide to discovering this innate wisdom and living a happier, more meaningful life.


"Combining insight into the spiritual path with engaging personal anecdotes, You Are Buddha introduces Buddhist practices and philosophy to support whatever path you're on."
— Susan Piver, Founder, The Open Heart Project, New York Times best-selling author of The Wisdom of a Broken Heart

"You Are Buddha speaks about the nature of our mind and the spiritual path in a very fresh and personal way, making profound insights and practices readily accessible. By looking at ancient wisdom teachings through a contemporary lens and sharing his own rich experiences on the path, Dennis Hunter offers an approach to the Buddhist teachings that can be employed by readers of all kinds of backgrounds. There is no need to label oneself a Buddhist to benefit from this book and discover the basic nature that we all share."
— Khenpo Karl Brunnhölzl, author of The Heart Attack Sutra and The Center of the Sunlit Sky

"Starting from the most profound understanding of the Buddha’s teachings, You Are Buddha offers an elegant and practical guide to bringing these insights into your daily life. The presentations of meditation practice, and working with negative thoughts and emotions, are especially valuable. Because this book is grounded in Dennis Hunter’s own deep personal experience and his extensive practice of meditation, it brings a very contemporary perspective to these classical teachings." 
 — Andy Karr, author of Contemplating Reality: A Pracititioner’s Guide to the View in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and co-author of The Practice of Contemplative Photography: Seeing the World with Fresh Eyes


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EVERYONE:
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WORLDWIDE:
You Are Buddha is available in various editions (paperback and/or e-book) not only in the U.S. but also in Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, India, and Australia! Check your specific country's Amazon page to see which editions are available where you live.

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All the best to you.
Dennis

Of the Two Witnesses, Hold the Principal One

This article is part of a series of short commentaries on proverbs or slogans from the Lojong ("mind-training") teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. Several other such commentaries will be offered soon, in addition to the ones that have already appeared here in previous months. To see the whole series of commentaries on Lojong slogans, click here.


Of the Two Witnesses, Hold the Principal One

When we look for spiritual guidance, there are basically two places we can look: outside and inside. On the outside, we can benefit from the advice and opinions of other people, particularly those who are further along the path and can guide us skillfully. Other people can often tell us when we have somehow gotten off-track, or validate that we are doing something correctly and making good progress. But other people’s evaluations and advice can only go so far. Other people can’t read our minds (at least, we hope not!). They can observe a certain amount from our outward actions, but they can’t see what’s really going on inside us. They can only guess at our true motives for doing the things we do. And sometimes we pull the wool over other people’s eyes by putting on a good show for them.

At the end of the day, we are the only ones who really know our own minds. Another person can be a helpful sounding board or a mirror, but she can't make our choices for us — and she doesn't have to live with the consequences in quite the same way as we do. We are the only ones who experience our lives first-hand. We are the only ones who know when we’re acting selflessly and when we’re acting selfishly. We are the only ones who have to suffer the pangs of regret when we’ve done something that wasn’t up to our own ethical standards. We can, with great effort, hide our regret from others — but we cannot hide it from ourselves.

Our own minds are imbued with innate wisdom and self-awareness. That inborn wisdom is the principal witness, the one we should hold and trust above all others. Learning to trust ourselves and our own wisdom is a process that unfolds across the entire span of our lives. It is our own wisdom that guides us to seek out and follow the spiritual path in the first place, and it is that same wisdom that guides us when we cross the threshold into full awakening. When the Buddha touched the earth at the time of his enlightenment, it was a gesture symbolizing that he no longer needed any external witness to validate his awakening. He was, himself, the principal witness.

A few months ago I wrote here about the power of intuition, which is one of the ways our inborn wisdom can shine through the chinks in our armor of rational thinking. Intuition and conscience, in some sense, are not really different things; they are different facets or manifestations of that inborn wisdom or awareness that knows itself. When we are out of touch with our conscience, we are also out of touch with our intuition: we do not know ourselves, we do not see clearly that which is right in front of us. We don’t know how to distinguish real, non-conceptual insight from ego’s arbitrary labeling of things it likes and dislikes. We don’t distinguish skillfully between what is helpful and what is harmful. We resort to all kinds of rationalizations to justify and explain our own thoughts, feelings and actions to ourselves, proceeding from dumb to dumber. But when we learn to listen to our intuition and follow our conscience, we develop confidence in our own innate wisdom. Then we can really begin to hold and trust ourselves as the principal witness.

When I was a child, there was a ubiquitous public service ad campaign featuring a cartoon mascot named Smokey the Bear, who held out a pointing finger at the observer and said: “ONLY YOU can prevent forest fires.” Smokey was a very wise bear.

Only you can hear the voices of your intuition and your conscience. Only you see the world from your perspective, and experience the things you do. Only you really know when you’re kidding yourself, or when you’re trying to get away with something. Only you can prevent the fires of negative habitual patterns from burning down your own forest.

Don't Make Gods into Demons

This article is part of a series of short commentaries on proverbs or slogans from the Lojong ("mind-training") teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. Several other such commentaries will be offered soon, in addition to the ones that have already appeared here in previous months. To see the whole series of commentaries on Lojong slogans, click here.


Don't Make Gods into Demons

Most of us have a strong tendency to complain about things, even when our circumstances are actually very good. As Chogyam Trungpa said in his commentary on this slogan, we habitually "make painful that which is inherently joyful." Lost in stinking thinking and spaced out in what Tara Brach calls the ‘trance of unworthiness,’ we focus only on the negative — on what is wrong, what is missing, what we lack. This is one of the meanings of turning gods into demons.

As humans, we have a curious power to manifest what we envision. This power can be a gift or a curse, depending on how we use it. When we envision negativity and focus on what we lack and what is wrong with our circumstances, then nothing we get ever seems to be good enough; the self-centered, “what about me?” attitude of the ego is a bottomless pit of dissatisfaction. We drift helplessly in a sea of poverty mentality, blown to and fro by the winds of hope and fear. But when we envision contentment and focus on making the best use of what we have, then we experience altogether different results. We might even find ourselves wondering how we can leave this world a better place than we found it.

The other meaning of turning gods into demons is perverting our spiritual practice by becoming arrogant and prideful about it. The spiritual path should be leading us towards greater humility and selflessness. If we find ourselves getting puffed up about our realizations or being judgmental and hypercritical of those who don’t agree with us, then something in our practice is amiss.

Chogyam Trungpa was once part of a panel of Tibetan teachers who were asked to explain how students could know whether or not they were making progress on the spiritual path. Each of the other teachers on the panel gave a rather lengthy, formulaic answer that relied on traditional doctrines and lists of qualities. Trungpa’s response, however, was brief, blunt and to the point: you know you’re progressing along the path, he said, if you’re becoming less arrogant and less opinionated.

Be Grateful to Everyone

This article is part of a series of short commentaries on proverbs or slogans from the Lojong ("mind-training") teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. Several other such commentaries will be offered soon, in addition to the ones that have already appeared here in previous months. To see the whole series of commentaries on Lojong slogans, click here.


Be Grateful to Everyone

This slogan is closely related to the previous one, "Always Maintain a Joyful Mind." When we maintain a joyful mind in every life situation, then we are able to see that everyone we encounter — including and especially the people who irritate us and push our buttons — is giving us opportunities to transform our negative patterns and awaken from our own delusion. Just as Atisha realized that his difficult and temperamental Bengali tea boy was his greatest teacher, so each time we meet someone in our lives who tests our patience we are given a choice: to do the habitual, instinctual thing — or to wake up.

The teacher Krishnamurti is said to have had a student like Atisha’s Bengali tea boy, someone who was very temperamental and difficult to work with. All the other members of Krishnamurti’s spiritual community loathed and avoided this man. One day the man got fed up and stormed out of the community. He got in his car and drove away, determined never to come back. Most people in the community secretly breathed a sigh of relief. But Krishnamurti got in his car and went after the man, and persuaded him to come back. When a student later asked him why he had gone out of his way to bring back this man who was so difficult and caused so much trouble in the community, Krishnamurti is reported to have said: “Are you kidding? I pay him to be here!” Krishnamurti knew that the one thing his students needed most was the continued presence of this man who tested their patience and pushed all their buttons.

The other side of “being grateful to everyone” is recognizing that our own well-being depends entirely upon the endless network of sentient beings of which we, ourselves, are part. Almost no blessing or comfort that comes to us is solely the product of our own hands or our own minds; everything is shot through with interdependence. Consider something as simple and ordinary as a cup of coffee at your local coffee shop: thousands of people were involved in serving, brewing, roasting, transporting, harvesting and growing that coffee. A team of hundreds was busy ensuring that clean water would flow to the coffee shop, and providing electricity to run the machines and light the shop so you could read your newspaper while you sip your coffee. You might never meet any of those people, but your happiness in the moment of enjoying that cup of coffee depends on all of them.

The simple fact that you’re reading this would be impossible if not for the kindness of the many teachers who patiently taught you, step by step, how to read and write, how to comprehend and communicate abstract ideas. And standing behind them was a network of teachers stretching back thousands of years, to the dawn of written language, and beyond. How often do you think with gratitude of the kindness you have received from those generations of people and all the ways it has benefited you?

Our habit of taking everything and everyone in our lives for granted means that we seldom see how interdependent we are with everyone around us, and how indebted we are to other beings for providing us with the causes and conditions of our own happiness.

Always Maintain Only a Joyful Mind

This article is part of a series of short commentaries on proverbs or slogans from the Lojong ("mind-training") teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. Several other such commentaries will be offered soon, in addition to the ones that have already appeared here in previous months. To see the whole series of commentaries on Lojong slogans, click here.


Always Maintain Only a Joyful Mind

Look at the lives of the great spiritual beings who are now walking or have walked among us: the Karmapa, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, and others like them. These people are not gritting their teeth and just flatly enduring the hardships and challenges that come their way. They do not slog through their work as spiritual leaders with a sense of weariness or a chip on their shoulders. They do not cop resentments about the burdens they have to carry and the things they are asked to do for others. Quite the opposite: they bring boundless joy and cheerfulness and relaxation into everything they do, even in the midst of very difficult circumstances. They are always smiling and laughing, taking delight and finding humor in the situations and people around them — not in a Pollyannaish or frivolous way, but in a way that is united with their tremendous heart of compassion. They bring a constant sense of joy to their 24-hour-a-day practice of helping others.

For the rest of us, back on planet Earth, this slogan may sound naïve and pie-in-the-sky. Always maintain only a joyful mind? You’ve got to be kidding. How is that possible? And why would you even want to do that?

Often, the difficult circumstances we encounter in life land in our laps with a great thud, and no prior warning. We didn’t ask for our lover to leave us, or for our children to rebel against us, or for the stock we own to crash, or for the doctor to give us the diagnosis we didn’t want to hear. But there it is. We have no choice in the matter. The question is: how do we react? How do we work with it? How do we hold our minds in response to what life throws at us?

There is no situation that cannot be made better by infusing it with joy. Not Pollyanna joy, which is a kind of stupid, plastic cheerfulness that masks a total denial of the realities of ugly situations and negativity and suffering in our lives — but authentic joy, which sees these realities clearly but sees every situation as workable and as fuel for spiritual awakening.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux is one of the most beloved Catholic saints. She lived at the end of the 19th century and died of tuberculosis at the tender age of 24. When she was 15, she entered a Carmelite nunnery in which she was secluded for the rest of her life. Among the other nuns she encountered there was one particular nun who pushed all her buttons. Everything this nun did stuck in Thérèse’s craw: even the way she walked and talked and smelled was irritating. The Carmelites were a contemplative order and would spend many hours sitting in silent prayer in a chapel that echoed. This nun happened to sit near Thérèse, and all through the prayers she would make little clicking noises with her mouth that drove Thérèse up the wall. Thérèse sat there unable to focus her mind in prayer, consumed with annoyance and loathing for this clicking nun.

At some point, Thérèse concluded, to her dismay, that there was nothing she could do to make this nun change: she was stuck with her, and they were both committed to being there for life. Thérèse realized that the only way to change the situation would be to change herself, her whole way of relating to the other nun. Rather than avoiding the nun, as she had been doing, Thérèse began to go out of her way to find her and spend time with her. She always greeted her with the most genuine smile she could find within herself, and made little friendship gifts to give her. Finally, one day the nun said to Thérèse, “Sister Thérèse, I just don’t understand why you love me so much.” Thérèse thought: Well, if only you knew.*

Thérèse’s relationship to the other nun utterly changed, not because she succeeded in changing the other nun, but because she committed herself to changing her own mind. No doubt the other nun continued for the rest of her life with her clicking and all the other behaviors that annoyed Thérèse, but for Thérèse these things were no longer a problem. Thérèse had a boundless commitment to the practice of maintaining only a joyful mind; this commitment shines through in her autobiography. It is one of the reasons she is so beloved, and why she was one of the saints most quickly canonized after death. Thérèse didn’t have stigmata or perform any parlor-trick miracles: she performed the ultimate miracle of transforming her own mind. When she saw the blood on her handkerchief and pillowcase that signaled the presence of fatal tuberculosis and realized she would soon die, Thérèse “thought immediately of the joyful thing that I had to learn, and so I went over to the window.” How many of us would be able to hear our doctor give us a fatal diagnosis and “think immediately of the joyful thing” that we could learn from it? On her deathbed, Thérèse is reported to have said: “I have reached the point of not being able to suffer anymore, because all suffering is sweet to me.”

When we adopt the commitment to maintaining a joyful mind even in the face of challenging and difficult circumstances, then everything that happens in our lives is fuel for awakening. But if we take ourselves and our life situations too seriously and make too big a deal of them, then that very same fuel stokes the flames that burn us. Our habit is to get locked into a heavy, oppressive sense of how fixed and stuck things are — whether it’s outer circumstances, or other people and their neuroses, or just our own minds, our neuroses and our seeming inability to change. When we infuse our lives with a sense of lightness and joy and not taking things too seriously, it transforms our experience. Everything becomes much more workable, and we are able to relax right in the midst of chaos.

Our spiritual practice, too, should be a practice of maintaining a joyful mind. How often do we sit down to meditate as if we were going under the surgeon’s knife, as if meditation were a terrible and unpleasant chore that must be accomplished? With such an attitude, it’s little wonder we often lack enthusiasm for practice. Imagine, says Pema Chodron, what it might be like if we could bring to our spiritual practices the same sense of joy and delight and enthusiasm that we bring to, say, going for a swim, or eating popcorn and watching movies. We would probably be enlightened already!

When we find ourselves getting “too serious” about our spiritual practice, it might be helpful to turn down the flame on the stove a little bit, and let our practice simmer at a more reasonable pace rather than boiling over. Our challenge is often in knowing and respecting our own limits, and working at the level where we can maintain enthusiasm and joy.

We tend to think that our biggest obstacles and enemies are on the outside, in the shape of people and circumstances that challenge us. For instance, we might get very worked up thinking about the corrupt politicians, and the greedy Wall Street fatcats, and the lords of the military-industrial complex. We might get very enthusiastic about pointing the finger of blame at those people for many of the problems we see in the world today.

But in terms of what hinders our practice on the spiritual path, what stymies our awakening, it’s not the politicians or the fatcats or the five-star generals, or any other external figure — no matter how corrupt or misguided or galling they might be. In fact, no one outside of ourselves really has the power to hinder our awakening in the slightest. What hinders our awakening is the enemy within: our own mournful weariness, our laziness, discouragement, despair, depression and fatigue — all the internal enemies that deprive us of joyful exertion and make us withdraw fearfully into our protective shell.

The irony is that we devote ourselves whole-heartedly and enthusiastically to the pursuit and acquisition of external things that promise to make us comfortable and happy: money, possessions, relationships, careers, hobbies and so on. We don’t seem to have any shortage of joyful exertion for grasping at shiny baubles and emotional highs. Yet we seem unwilling to pursue the causes of true and lasting happiness — enlightenment itself — with the same zeal and enthusiasm. At bottom, it’s a question of understanding what really leads us to awakening and freedom, and what further ensnares us in suffering and delusion. When we hold the answer to that question deep in our bones, then our priorities become clear, and mournful weariness evaporates. With that kind of wind at our backs, we will not find it so difficult to always maintain only a joyful mind.


* I'm indebted to Tenzin Palmo for sharing, in one of her Dharma teachings, this beautiful story about St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

Always Meditate on Whatever Provokes Resentment

Many years ago, in my aimless twenties, I spontaneously arrived at the conviction that any strong resentment or dislike we humans might feel towards another person is usually rooted in a projection of something we don't like about ourselves. I could occasionally see this type of unconscious projection taking place in myself and my own resentment-riddled relationships, but more often it was easier to observe it, impartially, in the behavior of other people. (Isn't that always the case?)

Later, when I began to study Buddhism and encountered the Tibetan Lojong (mind-training) teachings, I realized that this principle is encapsulated in the Lojong slogan, "Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment."

By meditating on whatever (or whoever) provokes feelings of resentment or irritation in us, we can not only begin to release our negative emotions and open our hearts to the other person, but we can develop profound insight into ourselves and our own "shadow" material. As Pema Chodron puts it, "Instead of the resentment being an obstacle, it's a reminder. Feeling irritated, restless, afraid, and hopeless is a reminder to listen more carefully. It's a reminder to stop talking; watch and listen." By doing so, we become more able to stay present and experience the raw, uncomfortable energy of what Chodron calls shenpa, that gut feeling of being hooked into our emotional reactions towards others, beyond all our storylines.

In Jungian psychology, that hidden or repressed part of ourselves that we project onto other people -- which underlies so much of our shenpa -- is called the "shadow." From Wikipedia:

The shadow or "shadow aspect" is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts.... "Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is...."

According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to project: turning a personal inferiority into a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. Jung writes that if these projections are unrecognized, "The projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype) then has a free hand...." These projections insulate and cripple individuals by forming an ever thicker fog of illusion between the ego and the real world.

Jung also believed that "in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness -- or perhaps because of this -- the shadow is the seat of creativity."

B. Alan Wallace writes that the Tibetan text of this particular slogan, like many of the other Lojong slogans, is intentionally vague and could be interpreted in several different ways. He translates it as "Always meditate on those who make you boil." Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche translates it as "Always meditate on whatever is unavoidable," and suggests that we meditate particularly on those people who give us problems or compete with us, those whom we simply don't like, and so on.

I once encountered a fellow Buddhist practitioner at a retreat who was so innately talented at provoking my shenpa, that by simply walking into the room he could stir up a whole conniption fit of moral judgment and disdain in my mind. His entire manner of presenting himself as a practitioner struck me as phony, pretentious, holier-than-thou, a case-study of spiritual materialism in action. Everything about his self-presentation irritated me: his very spiritual-sounding name (which, damningly, I knew wasn't his real name), the excessively mindful way he walked, the meticulous, softspoken way he talked, the way he bowed, even the very religious way he said his prayers over his food -- there was no room in my mind for this poor guy to do anything right. But because of the close nature of the retreat we were in, I could not avoid him, and my intense closed-mindedness and judgment towards him were constantly being put in front of my face. He not only provoked an inexplicable resentment in me, he made me boil without even trying, and he was unavoidable -- however you translate this slogan, he fit the bill.

One day, I had reached such a crescendo of aversion towards him in my own mind that I simply couldn't stand it anymore -- I decided to devote the morning meditation session to reflecting on my resentment towards him and seeing if I could transform it. In my reflection, I tried to experience the raw, naked energy of judgment and dislike, and to analyze what it was about and where it sprang from; I tried to see what kind of storyline was attached to it and what the underlying forces might be in me that could arouse such a solid storyline and such a strong, negative reaction to this person.

In meditation, I realized that my whole way of reacting to him sprang from my own fear, insecurity, and jealousy. On seeing his particular way of practicing the spiritual path, so different from my own, I felt insecure and uncertain that I was going about things in the right way; I feared it meant that I was less spiritual than he was. I was jealous of his seeming comfort and ease within his spiritual practice, when I so often felt awkward about my own, and I felt competitive. All of these feelings hearkened back to my earliest childhood experiences of religion, in the Southern Baptist Church, when I had tried so hard to be a good Christian but felt absolutely no sincere connection to Jesus Christ as my personal savior, and consequently felt hopelessly lost and in danger of eternal damnation. These were all things that I was unable and unwilling to see clearly in myself, in the moment, and so they became shadow material that was promptly transmuted into a thick, impenetrable wall of irritation, judgment and resentment towards this poor, sincere practitioner who was just trying to follow the spiritual path in the best way he knew how.

Once I saw these things about myself, through peering in meditation into the historical and psychological roots of my resentment, the fog of irritation and closed-mindedness began immediately to dissolve. The deep-seated habitual tendency towards judgment did not entirely disappear -- I could still feel it well up when he took too long to bow at the door of the shrine room, or spent longer than I thought any person should spend saying prayers before eating his food -- but now I was able to see through the emotionality of my reaction, to observe my own egomaniacal judgments with a sense of humor and spaciousness. I even began to enjoy this man's company and to look forward to conversations with him. With my own shadow material exposed to the light of awareness, my judgments about his way of practicing no longer served as fuel for irritation and resentment. I became grateful for the presence of this person who previously had driven me to distraction, and I even began to think of him with affection and kindness.

All genuine spiritual paths emphasize the importance of transforming our resentments in this way: the Christian path emphasizes forgiveness and tolerance; the 12-Step path emphasizes moral inventory and making amends; the Buddhist path emphasizes meditation and clear seeing into the nature of our own mind, and moving beyond our habitual patterns. Whatever path we are on, if we hope to continue growing in wisdom, if we hope to be more free from suffering, we must face our demons directly; we cannot afford to continue wallowing for another day in the pig-sty of our own resentments. By meditating on our resentments and transforming them in awareness, they can become, as Jung suggested, the very source of our creativity and wisdom.

Drive All Blames into One

This slogan, drawn from the Tibetan system of mind-training known as "Lojong," suggests that rather than looking for someone else to blame when things go wrong, it might be simpler and more productive to cut the crap and accept responsibility for it ourselves.

When a situation goes sour in the office or in some social setting, usually we find everyone (including ourselves) sitting around pointing the finger and looking for someone else to blame. Stepping forward and taking responsibility for the screw-up is the last thing on anyone's mind, and when someone does take responsibility it can defuse the tension and change the whole atmosphere. Suddenly everyone can relax again, no longer afraid that the hot potato of blame is going to stop with them. I've experimented with this a few times at the office, and it does have an effect (not least of all, on one's own mindstream). Even if you know in your own mind that the screw-up isn't really your fault, accepting the blame allows the whole group to move on and fix the situation.

Consider this example, from today's New York Times:

"Washington is all in a tizzy over who's at fault. Some say it's the Democrats' fault, [or] the Republicans' fault. Listen, I'll take responsibility, I'm the president."

- President Obama, on the fury over executive bonuses at the American International Group

What an amazing thing to witness in Washington politics. What a grown-up response to a childish situation of name-calling and blame games. What a difference a new President makes.

"Drive all blames into one" also works on an individual level. Anytime we feel strong negative emotions, we instinctively want to blame David who caused us to feel that way and harp on David's behavior as the root of the problem. Instead, we could point the accusing finger inwards, and recognize that although David's behavior may not have been what we wanted from him, the actual reason we're so upset is because of our own ego hangups and our self-centered expectations. "Drive all blames into one" suggests that we look honestly at our own emotional reactivity and take responsibility for that before we start telling David what a jerk he is.

Obviously, if David is beating us up or stealing our money or something, then we're not being asked to blame ourselves for his actions -- if that's the case, then we really do need to get the hell away from David. But more often than not, the Davids of the world simply behave in ways that push our buttons. "Drive all blames into one" means that we recognize our buttons and how they're being pushed rather than automatically baring our claws and lashing out at the hand that's pushing them.