30-minute guided mediation followed by a dharma talk.

30-minute guided mediation followed by a dharma talk.

Reflect for a couple of minutes…

What do you know for sure?

What are you sure about? Certain that it is true? What's the truth?

I think a lot of people are sort of wired to think, “whatever I think, that's the truth. I'm just certain about my views and opinions and attitudes and outlooks. They’re right, and if you don't think this way, you're wrong. I'm for sure right and everybody else is unfortunately confused.”

What's it feel like to be certain, to be right, to know the truth?

Thoughts on the idea of ‘safety’.

Sharon Salzberg tells a story about when she’s in India on a rickshaw going to see her teacher Dipa Ma when she's assaulted. She gets away, but she's traumatized. She's just been ******** assaulted. She goes to Dipa Ma and she asks her, “What should I have done? I'm trying to practice loving kindness and I'm not safe.”

Dipa Ma asked her if she had her umbrella (in Calcutta it's often raining). She said yes. Dipa Ma replied, “well, if that ever happens again, with all of the loving kindness that you can muster, take your umbrella and smack him in the face.”

Self-defense. You don't even have to hate him to be able to say, “get the **** away from me.” Protect yourself.

Buddhism is non-violent. And I believe that there is a level of self-defense that is not violent.  When you're in a situation where you may be assaulted, there's a level of physical self-defense that is not an act of violence. There's a line between hitting him in the face with your umbrella and stopping the attack…but when there's the anger, when there is the rage where you're you think, “Now I’m going to stab you with this umbrella 17 times.”

There’s a line between defending, the stopping of harm to yourself when you can then say, “I’m safe again”… and “I'm safe again and I'm hurt and now I want to hurt you.”

Then, it's no longer self-defense, it's violence.

I love Buddhism.

I love that the first Noble Truth just normalizes our suffering. We're in this culture where suffering is thought of as a failure. You're supposed to respond when someone asks,

“How are you?”… “I'm good.”

You are supposed to say that because it's expected.

“I'm good. I'm fine. I'm OK.”

When people ask us how we're doing, they don't really want to know. They’re really hoping you say, “I'm fine.” Right?

They don't want to hear, “Well, I'm really quite afraid in the moment.”

Or, “I'm really freaked out about what's happening on this planet.”

Or, “I'm really lonely.”

Try this, when somebody asks you how you are, say, “terribly lonely, thank you for asking. How are you?”

The first Noble Truth is, “yeah I'm suffering sometimes.”

And if I am honest about it, then I'm healthy.

I’m not just stuffing it all of the time and pretending I’m not suffering.

Honesty and vulnerability are what we're trying to build, what I believe the Dharma is trying to build again. Part of the Dharma is this honesty and this accountability that is freely offered. Forgiveness, not judgment.

Part of a series of dharma talks on sex, drugs and the dharma.

Addiction is rampant in our society. A means to escape, even for moment, from the painful reality of things, yet drugs and alcohol use only makes matters worse.

You have the capacity to awaken in this lifetime.

The true Buddhist path is rare and difficult. Along the way you will be asked to face the most difficult of human emotions and challenges. The great news is that you have the capacity to awaken in this lifetime! All you need is the perseverance to train your heart/mind thoroughly. Along the way you will meet many other spiritual revolutionaries. Some will become lifelong friends on the path; many will fall by the wayside, drawn back into the matrix of greed and hatred. Those of us who commit and stay the course are the 1%ers of dharma, the forgiving few, the dharma ninja assassins, the real revolutionaries who can change the world. I hope to meet you along the way. May our paths cross soon on this journey of the heart.

From a Buddhist perspective, we all have a personality type—one of three kinds.

How that personality type comes about—whether it’s karmic (based on past lives) or conditioned (based on experiences we have in this life)—is debatable.

For now, I will simply investigate the truth of our personality tendencies and how we can diagnose ourselves and others, and ultimately how we can use the information we have about ourselves and others to create more harmony and less suffering in our lives.

Traditionally, Buddhism classifies personalities into three categories, each one based on one of the three root causes of suffering: greed, hatred, and delusion.

Most likely we all have a bit of all three tendencies—moments of greed, moments of hatred, and periods of delusion. Although it is true that all un-enlightened beings do suffer all three of these experiences, it is thought that each of us has a core operating tendency toward one or another. Some people react with desire to most situations, some with aversion, and some without noticing what’s going on. You may have noticed that Buddhism diagnoses the personality based on the negative traits, but we don’t stop there. There’s also a positive side to each of these personality types: confidence, discernment, and serenity:

• Greedy/craving/confident type

• Hating/aversive/discerning type

• Deluded/spaced-out/serene type

All of these personality types need to be met with the appropriate heart-response. People of the greedy type will need to put great effort into becoming generous and nonattached to getting more. Those of the hatred-based type will need to focus intensely on forgiveness and compassion. The delusional types will need, through mindfulness, to come into contact with their greed and hatred so that they can offer the antidotes of forgiveness and generosity as their wise heart-response.

I encourage you to diagnose yourself, if you haven’t already. I believe that such diagnosis can be a skillful tool in the process of awakening the heart.

A Shifting Perspective on Relationships

A 30 Minute Dharma Talk & Guided Meditation at Against The Stream Meditation Center