Life Is Tough. Here’s Buddhist wisdom for dealing with it.

 

02.12.2021 LIFE IS TOUGH. HERE’S BUDDHIST WISDOM FOR DEALING WITH IT. Is life suffering? Certainly that notion is commonly thought to be a Buddhist one. Buddhist or not, we can all agree: life is tough. So we live our lives hoping to avoid difficulty — and then feel bad when we fail at this impossible task. But the truth is, we can work with life’s difficulties, and transform them into opportunities for learning, and even happiness. Here are teachings that can help. May they serve you well. —Rod Meade Sperry, Digital Editorial Director, LionsRoar.com

Life is Tough. Here Are Six Ways to Deal With It An ancient set of Buddhist slogans offers us six powerful techniques to transform life’s difficulties into awakening and benefit. Zen teacher Norman Fischer guides us through them. Illustrations by Keith Abbott. There’s an old Zen saying: the whole world’s upside down. In other words, the way the world looks from the ordinary or conventional point of view is pretty much the opposite of the way the world actually is. There’s a story that illustrates this. Once there was a Zen master who was called Bird’s Nest Roshi because he meditated in an eagle’s nest at the top of a tree. He became quite famous for this precarious practice. The Song Dynasty poet Su Shih (who was also a government official) once came to visit him and, standing on the ground far below the meditating master, asked what possessed him to live in such a dangerous manner.

How to Move Forward Once You’ve Hit Bottom Pema Chödrön tells the story of when, having hit rock bottom, she asked her teacher what to do. So what I’m saying is: fail. Then fail again, and then maybe you start to work with some of the things I’m saying. And when it happens again, when things don’t work out, you fail better. In other words, you are able to work with the feeling of failure instead of shoving it under the rug, blaming it on somebody else, coming up with a negative self-image—all of those futile strategies.

How to Cool the Flames of Anger with “RAIN” Emily Horn teaches us how to recognize, accept, investigate, and not identify with our anger. The best way to transform anger and other strong emotions is to befriend them. As with any relationship, it takes time to become intimate with the inner workings of our minds. To do it we need courage and strength. And we need the help of an effective technique. Peeling away the layers of anger moves us closer to life and empowers us to stand up for justice. One of the most effective ways to deepen and transform our relationship with anger is a four-step mindfulness-based practice known by the acronym RAIN: Recognize, Accept, Investigate, Non-Identify. Here’s how it works.

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