RockneCAST
Two Pages from Thich Nhat Hanh (#255, 14 Oct. 2024)
Wow, just finished my morning reading and came across two powerful pages from Thich Nhan Hanh's book, The Heart of Buddha's Teaching.
In this episode, we'll cover Thich's definitions of "suffering", "mindfulness", and the two kinds of mediations that Thich suggests.
Thich's work is mind blowing. I hope you have the chance to read his work and to share it with others.
- Broadcast on:
- 14 Oct 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
guys, I hope you get the opportunity to read the work of tick not on the heart of Buddhist teaching. I've done other podcasts on this particular book and the work of tick not on. But I had to share with you this book again today because during my morning journaling, I came across just two pages. And these two pages are chock full of good things that you can use, not only to improve your own life, but perhaps other people in your life who may be having difficult times. This work is so good because it's tethered to reality. So I thought I'd share this with you for this episode of The Rock Me Cast. So for this episode, I'm going to give you a short overview, super short of the four noble truths of Buddhism. I'm going to cover just two pages. This is pages 38 and pages 39 of the heart of Buddhist teaching by Tick Nhat Han. And then I'm going to give you kind of a takeaway that you can use to substantially transform your life because this book is so good. Now, one of the things that before I get started, one of the things I just briefly want to cover. Buddhism is called a religion. It kind of is a religion. I don't really get into that. But Buddhism as interpreted by Tick Nhat Han is chock full of good life practices that are one-to-one corresponding to reality itself. That's what makes it so good. I am a card-carrying Lutheran. I love my Christian faith. I love going to church. I love this tradition. One of the things, though, I don't like about the Christian practice as it's currently manifested, as I currently understand it. And there could be people like my friend Kevin are probably going to push back on this. But it's kind of conclusory in terms of what you need to be doing. It's just like, well, like this past week sermon, I learned that Jesus is like, sell all your stuff and follow me and then you'll find your life. I'm like, OK, I get that in general. But who of us are really going to sell all of our earthly possessions? Almost no one does that. So it's kind of like, well, what do I do now, Jesus? I'm totally broke. And I'm a beggar and I have nothing else to support me and I'm going to expect a miracle. It's too abstract sometimes. And so I take it for what it's is. It's part of my tradition. I love the teaching, the purity of the Christian message, the Greek, the Hebrew, the connection to the Creator, plugging into the light of all lights. That's really good. But if you can use Buddhism to kind of augment your Christianity, I think you'll kind of get the best of both worlds. Because if you just do Christianity without Buddhism, you still may find yourself wanting because you're not engaging in this practice called mindfulness. And mindfulness is kind of a loosey, goosy term, kind of like gratitude. Tick helps us understand what it really is in super, really just accessible ways of understanding. And I'm going to share just two pages. Now, I've been suffering from a little TMJ lately, which is basically I've been some issues with my job. And so I've been getting a little bit of suffering. It may be because I'm reading too much tick because my jaw is just like dropping all the time, because it's so freaking good. That's how good tick is. So first off, let's just describe and give you a refresher on these four noble truths of Buddhism. It's so good. You're going to be like, whoa, like, how did I not know about this before? So let's just review this. Wake, what is the essence of life? Well, the Buddha teaches that the essence of life is suffering. He uses the word dakkha, which is translated to mean bitter. Life is full of bitterness and unpleasant things. Now, if you just stop at this first stage, you're kind of like, yeah, what am I supposed to do with that life sucks? What am I supposed to do with that? But there are four noble truths. So listen on, the second one is is after just kind of recognize this first noble truth that all life is suffering and bitterness. That's the first noble truth. The second one is where you start to get the real growth. You start thinking about and looking at the root of your suffering, the root of your suffering. You could use another metaphor like the lynch pin of your suffering. You know, I've done a lot of work on the study of habits. One of the things that Charles Duhigg talks about is our keystone habits, those good habits that you do that radiate out throughout the rest of your life, whether it's exercise, whether it's abstinence from alcohol, whether it's a daily journaling practice, whether it's saving, things that kind of radiate positivity. Well, the opposite of a keystone habit is an anti key, keystone habits. And I've been looking for the right word on that. You have a good word for that. The anti keystone habit. I thought maybe a train wreck habit. I don't know, but like those, those things that you do that cause a lot of other suffering in your life, completely unnecessarily, a train wreck habit, an anti fragile habit. If you've worked, if you've read the work of Tic-Nahan, if you have any suggestions on that, reach out to me at racnecans.gmail.com. I don't really have a word for that. But this getting into the root of your bad habit or of your suffering, what is causing you to suffer? You are in the best position to figure that out. And here's the key. Then once you start thinking about the root of why you're suffering, then you stop doing those things that cause you to suffer. And that's called mindfulness. And then after you've addressed those, you engage in the noble eightfold full path. And that's kind of beyond the scope of what we're actually talking about. But the reason why this is so liberating, I'm going to use it just through the lens of alcohol, because it's something that I think a lot of people really struggle with, even those who don't think. I used to kind of think that alcohol, as long as you didn't get an OWA or kill someone, or as long as you weren't like Nicholas Cage, craving a drink all along that you have no issues. And I still drink a little bit, not much, because I engage in mindfulness about the plus of it. And so this is kind of a good, this is kind of a good kind of lens or a good kind of example to kind of figure out this particular thing and its relationship to your emotional and physical well-being. So I'm going to use that as my mechanism to explain just these two pages of tick. And I hope your mind is as blown as mine is based upon this particular work. So first off, let's just get into the essence of these two pages, pages 38 and pages 39. You're suffering. What do you do about it? Well, the first thing he encourages you to do, and this is why counseling can be so incredibly important, is to speak openly about it. And here, I'll quote from the work of tick, this mind-blowing two pages. If you sit with a friend and speak openly, determine, discover the roots of your suffering. Eventually, you will see them clearly. But if you keep your suffering to yourself, it might grow bigger every single day. Just seeing the clauses of your suffering lessens your burden. Shahret Putra, I kind of learn how to pronounce these Sanskrit words, one of the Buddha's great disciples said, "When something takes place, if we look at it deeply, in the heart of reality, seeing its source and the food that nourishes it, we are already on the path of liberation." And then Titch writes, "When we are able to identify our suffering and see its causes, we have more peace and joy, and we are already on the path to liberation." And here we transition to the work of Epictetus and the Stoics. Why does that make you empowered? Because you begin to be able to control things that before you thought you couldn't control. You know, when I was in my 30s, I think especially, I suffered from a lot of stress and anxiety, and I still do from time to time too. So these are things that never completely go away. But I never really thought about what was causing these particular emotions. What were their roots? I never thought about why was I experiencing these bitter emotions. That's what Titch in Buddhism describes for suffering. What is bitter? What is unpleasant? What hurts? I never thought about that. And so I'll just use the example of alcohol. In terms of what it did, first off, I never connected. I never related any connection between stress, anxiety, and alcohol. Now, of course I knew that I thought there was a positive relationship in the sense that if I were feeling these things, alcohol would allow me to relax, to unwind, and to kind of discharge the stress and anxiety. That is absolutely the case. But I never thought about that cost after I had drunk. You see, the only thing negative that I thought about alcohol was I knew in the abstract that like if you had a fifth of whiskey every day, that you would eventually wear out your liver and you could get really fat. But I never really thought about the emotional and physical impact in terms of its ability on your mind to be able to sleep and recharge during the night. There's various ways in which it is a thief and that it will take that far exceed the temporary benefit that you get when you're able to relax. Because it does have that quality. It does make you relax. It does make you feel good while you're doing it. But I never thought about the connection after that point in terms of its first because alcohol is a thief. First off, it takes your money when you buy it. So when you're buying the alcohol, you're investing in things that do not give you anything in return. The second way that it's the thief is that it steals your ability to recuperate your mental energy during your sleep. There's a lot of other ways to in terms of its impact on your liver, that as your liver and just the alcohol, it can't do anything else like digest food and help your body to digest food. It totally prioritizes that toxin to rid your body of that toxin. But what happens when you can't get the sleep? You're not restored. You get up later, which means you don't have these early morning sanctuaries to enjoy this thing called time in which your mind can relax. It then if your mind and you're not well rested, you're not able to focus. What happens when you can't focus? You can't get as much stuff done. What happens when you can't get much stuff done? You have too much to do. What happens when you have too much to do? You get stressed. And when you get stressed, you get anxious. What am I missing? And not only that, so there's just kind of this negative cascade that flows from this one thing. The other thing about it is that it also physiologically and affects your brain in terms of your brain's own natural ability to produce the natural feel-good hormones that you have, like the dopamine. It's an artificial creator of these feel-good chemicals. And then without it, then you start feeling flat. Your brain becomes less resilient to deal with stress, to deal with anxiety. These are still things that you can't, and you're so much less resilient. I never thought about that. I never thought about the cost or the impact that it had in terms of my own emotional well-being. Well, why is that? Because I could not see the relationship between what alcohol was actually doing for me and its consequences in so many different domains of my life. But once I was able to stop, I could see that. I could see these things that were very, very clear to us. But once you start seeing, the thing is you start seeing that there is a way out. It's kind of like if you're lost in the woods and you don't know where to go, and you finally see a particular area that you're familiar with, you know you can get home. You know that you have control over that path to reach your goal. And that is so important, the ability to see the cause of your suffering. If you are a daily drinker, if you are someone who suffers from stress and anxiety, just to be able to see it is the first step. And notice what he says here. There are so many people that kind of carry these things around and don't share them with other people. Now, this is where either you can do that for someone else. But probably I've done therapy and I've had some really, really good ones. But I'd say probably 90% of it is for the therapist for help to help you kind of see the things that are going on in your life to see the roots of the suffering, but not the roots of your suffering. Also to see the roots that nourish your joy to the good things too. So then Titch writes, what is what happens here when we start to be able to see, he said, in the second stage encouragement, we can see that it's possible if we stop ingesting the nutrients that cause us to suffer. We encourage ourselves to put an end to the cause of the suffering. Only a strong intention where I would say an awareness not to do things in the same way and keep this wheel in motion. And here's how he defines mindfulness. Now, Titch defines mindfulness in a way that I take me a year's to do it. This is how good this is just two pages of this book. Here's how he defines it. Mindfulness is the energy that can help us stop. We can sit and look together with our friends, with our family and our community. Mindfulness of ingestion, protecting our body and mind, protecting our family, society and environment are important topics for us to discuss. But here's what he said we have to be able to do to have this energy. You have to direct your attention towards the suffering. Okay. And the way out. And here's how he defines suffering. Of course, he'd earlier defined it as bitterness. But what he's saying is, once you start touching and seeing the bitterness, that is the key to your way out. And here's what Titch Titch actually defines as suffering. Suffering means when we talk about suffering in Buddhism, Tif says it means the kind of suffering that can show us the way out through the practice of mindfulness. Are you tracking with me? This is so good. And I think for example of one of the reasons why it is not at all hard to stop drinking alcohol for me at all. What I don't worry about ever drinking a bottle of wine a day. You know why? Because I see I know the cost now. I know that if I have a bottle of wine every night, I am going to cost myself a lot. I'm going to be a lot or stressed out. I'm going to be a lot out here. I'm not going to sleep as well. That's because I see. We talk a little bit in Christianity about the ability to see the unseen. Well, that is the nature of mindfulness. It's seen, but it's also seen and having the energy to stop doing those things that cause us to suffer. Now, this is also another aspect to us. This is that it's grounded in reality. This is what the master meditation master Tron Tai Tong said, 13th century Vietnamese monk according to take with every step, he touched the ground of reality and the tick rights. If you practice mindful walking and deep listening all day law, that is the four noble truths in action. When the cause of suffering has been seen, healing is possible. We vow to refrain from ingesting foods that make us suffer. And we also vow to ingest foods that are healthy and wholesome. This is the essence of the second noble truth. And then here he concludes these two mind blowing passages from Confucius. And he says, this is what Confucius had said, at 30, I was able to stand on my own feet. At 40, I had no more doubts. At 50, I knew the mandate of heaven, earth and sky. At 60, I could do what I wanted without going against the path. And then here, tick writes, you are free to come and to go as you please. This is the action of non action. Suffering no longer arises. This stage is not something you can imitate. You have to reach this stage of realization within yourself. Now, I've been mentioning alcohol. And many of you probably say, like, Oh my God, Cole, I haven't drunk in forever anyway. So how does this even apply to me? This is kind of bullshit. I just, I just have had enough. I don't drink. I think the other thing in terms of well being control over your time is huge. So I think of my own life. I couldn't say no when someone would ask me to volunteer. And so there was just one board. I won't say this board that this guy asked me to be on. But it was kind of this youth empowerment board. And it was one of these boards where the sky kind of wanted the board members to do all the work and to pay all the bills and then so he could kind of do whatever the hell he wanted. And setting aside, whatever was going on in that particular board, that was time I did not have. I was someone who was stressed overweight, not exercising. I did not have that kind of time because I didn't have the rest of my life in order. And so I said yes to that in the process, I had said no to so many other things. And so now if I were to be asked to be on that type of board, I would have, as Tic writes, the action of not an action. Or in other words, I can just say no, I don't have to volunteer for things for which I don't have time for. And as a result of that, I'm going to have more control over my time, which is essential. And I think the key aspect of time is making sure that you have the time to keep yourself healthy, fit and vibrant and resilient. So you're in a position to serve. You know, if this is taken too far in terms of mindfulness, then you can then it becomes too self centered. Ultimately, human beings are wired to serve other people. That is the great. I think the author, Jay Shetty talks about the Dharma. The Dharma, the desire to serve has to meet need. It can't just be about yourself. It does have to serve a need, whether it's your child, your partner, or your spouse. But you have to think about and see and be intentional about what is the optimal way for me to serve in such that I can serve and I can multiply and I can maximize the impact. If I'm part of an organization where I'm spending a lot of time sitting in a meeting with a board member or with a CEO that is not doing very well, that's not an optimal use of my time. For me, I'm not maximizing my service. Because I think ultimately, there's a lot of people that don't want to do certain things. And so that is why at some times you have to do things even though it's going to cause you to suffer a little bit. There are things that I don't want to do, even if it causes me to suffer a little bit. But that is okay because that's part of our command is humans to serve. And I think that is one of the things that I learned in my sermon this past weekend is there are certain things where we're going to suffer a little bit. It's not easy. There has to be some sacrifice. But you also have to think about that and you have to be intentional about how you're actually doing your time. So I hope that one of the things when I do this particular racking cast when I hope I'm able to translate is the joy, the knowledge, the wisdom that I'm acquiring. The desire is for you to absorb it and to think it's as interesting as I experience it. That's my goal. That's the purpose of the racking cast. So I can share what I've learned to the benefit of other people because you know, it's true that to a certain degree, we all have to discover our own truths. It's taken me until 45 to figure out the virtues of a, well, I'd say 40, but 40-ish, the virtues of going to church. But there's a lot of these things. Like if you can learn these timeless principles earlier, you can maximize, you can avoid unnecessary suffering, and you can be so much more productive moving forward in your own life. So I just hope you find this is really good. The other thing about the work of this mindfulness practice, yes, it's a timeless truth, but it's also tethered to the individual because the individual isn't the best position to assess their own issues, what they do well, what they don't do well, what causes them to suffer, what doesn't cause them to suffer. And so here I'll give you three recommendations from tech. I'll keep them very, very short. But what he talks about is a sitting meditation where, and I would just say a journaling meditation, you know, a lot of people think that they can't meditate because they're supposed to turn off their mind. No, that's not it. Meditation is just being awareness. It's not not having thoughts. It's an awareness of the thoughts and the truths within your own life that you need to be able to assess and to see and to hear. You typically need to do it where it's quiet and anyone can do it. And I think the best way to do that to kind of control your thoughts is through a daily journaling practice so that you can hear and see and feel and understand some of the things that are going on with you internally. So I encourage you to do a sitting meditation. There's two others that he talks about in the context of being with a friend or learning from a friend, a walking meditation, just going on a walk with someone and talking about ideas can be incredibly important, both in terms of being the receiver and the listener to those ideas. He also recommends a tea meditation. Now this is just having a cup of tea with someone and listening. So you can really do either one, but it's so good. And I just love the wisdom that you can get in this book. It's so accessible. It's so translatable. And it's so life affirming and powering and it and it has the potential to heal and touch so many different lives. And I hope that I've been able to translate the awesomeness of this particular work such that you will be able to discover it and absorb it for yourself and that you will be able to share this with other people. That is the goal to be a beacon. One of the things I love about the podcast format is that you have to tune in. You can always turn it off. I never force feed you what I'm talking about. You have to tune in. And if you think this is a light for you, share this light with other people so that we all together can be beacons. We can be beacons of transformation for the friends and family members of other people in our lives that we want to improve our lives. So that's it for this episode of The Racking Cast. I don't know how frequently I am going to do work on the work of Tick. But when I read his work, it is so good and I so want to share what I'm learning with other people that I just have to share it with you. And that's really pretty much the goal of all my work is to share what I've learned so that you can be a better version of you. So that's it for this episode of The Racking Cast. I got some good stuff in store this week. I'm going to be interviewing Luther Professor Will Bongi. He's a religion professor, Harvard educated, super interesting. And he's getting up there in years. I'm very, very excited to interview him. I was able to interview Richard Simon Hanson. I think I'm going to be doing more interviews of my Luther College professors. I'm also going to be interviewing my mom, I think, relatively shortly. And I'm hoping to interview my daughter and bring Professor Coyle back on for a discussion of the emergence of the cicada world. So we'll continue to do a lot of really good high quality stuff on The Racking Cast. Please give me positive views on Apple Spot. If I don't make me beg and we will together grow in this tiny, but mighty community on The Racking Cast. Until next time, you and I see each other on The Racking Cast.
Wow, just finished my morning reading and came across two powerful pages from Thich Nhan Hanh's book, The Heart of Buddha's Teaching.
In this episode, we'll cover Thich's definitions of "suffering", "mindfulness", and the two kinds of mediations that Thich suggests.
Thich's work is mind blowing. I hope you have the chance to read his work and to share it with others.