How can I manage my life in such as a way that I feel comfortable and settled in the experiences that I am engaging in? Part of the answer is looking at taking care of yourself, being realistic and maintaining a balance at every level. Many people feel overwhelmed because they bring too much into their life – it is crowded out and there is no spaciousness. Rather than looking at how can I cope with this, look at how can I create more space? 

The Buddha talked about beings that are volitional (driven by personal will) or functional (performing their function seamlessly in an awakened state). The transition from adolescence to adulthood is when we find out who we actually are by performing our function and not thinking we are special. A skilful human being moves like a stick through water and does not leave much of a trace. There are countless ways of being of service and performing our function. 

The experience is what has a transformative effect in meditation. Seeing something we have not seen before can create a paradigm shift which helps us transform our suffering. Peak experiences are not the cessation of suffering. The real testament is the refinement of character which means you are not afflicted by what happens to you.  

The Buddha was not interested in teaching the momentary cessation of suffering but finding a pathway to cut off at the root the habit of bringing ourselves to suffering. When he was a prince twenty-five centuries ago, he came to the conclusion that there is no happiness to be found in the pursuit of pleasure alone. After he renounced his worldly life and went forth, he also found that practicing austerity practices alone does not cut off the causes of suffering. When he became enlightened, he came to see the absolute truth of the conditioned process of life beyond the appearance of things. 

We may not have recognised it but somewhere inside us is a longing for a sense of deep connection to what we are part of. We try to do meet this through ideas but this is not the same as being totally present. We need to turn up fully to our experience rather than get lost in thinking about it all and meditation is a process of gradually bringing to an end our sense of separation.  

With more mindfulness, you can see what you are bringing to this moment from the past. When you witness this without a sense of self, you see things much for how they really are rather than what you think they are. We can bring a more objective perspective and open the door to some of the charge we are carrying. 

The goal of meditation is to free ourselves from suffering of the affliction we experience in our life. To see clearly what life is, we have to polish the lens that we look through.  Understanding comes from insight rather than studying or intellectual reflection.  The eightfold noble path leads to liberation through insight.  As soon as you see what this is, you free yourself.  The liberation is in the seeing. In order to see, we have to pay wise attention 

What did the Buddha say was the cause of suffering? You might think that attachment is the cause of our suffering, but attachment itself is caused by ignorance. If we saw what life truly is, we would not suffer.  Our ignorance is the illusion of self.   When we are absorbed in what we are doing, our sense of self fades. The arising of the sense of me in the middle of my experience is what creates the sense of separation.  

You don’t know what you are going to get in life – good luck or bad luck, who knows?  Sometimes life goes your way and sometimes it does not.  It does not matter what you get, it matters how you meet each experience with a clear mind.  Burgs goes onto to discuss karma and consciousness and asks what do you know to be true?  The views we cling to are highly predictable on account of the way our mind works and our conditioning.  The “wisdom of the idiot” acknowledges that we know nothing and are open to life as it is – rather than rigidly clinging to our views.  

Sometimes the conditions are not present for us to be flourishing and we are either struggling or coping.  The maturing of our insight ensures we can make more skilful life decisions, so that our expectations are realistic and in tune with the karmic forces that are underpinning our lives.  There will be times when we are supported karmically, and times when we are challenged.  If you get a sense of what is going on in the background, you can time your decisions appropriately, and act when the energy is right.