Turning Problems into Opportunities

Lama Marut has been very influential in my boyfriend's life. He began to share his audio files with me awhile back. He always refers to his teachings and ideas when I am having hard times. Lama Marut's teachings have helped me to see what is important in my life. The "problems" we create for ourselves are usually just that....created by us. We can avoid so much negativity in our lives if we just learn to live more positively and take positive action. Learning to live with joyous effort in everything we do will improve the quality of our lives as well as the the quality of everyone's lives around us. There is always a solution. The mindset we use to find the solution is a huge part of how things will turn out. I am going to post Lama Marut's  December newsletter below. I think it has great food for thought. Enjoy!

December 2007 Dear Ones, Welcome to the inaugural edition of "Lama Marut's Monthly Newsletter."  Every month we will plan to send you a brief article on a spiritual subject, information about the latest free video and audio teachings available on the web, and my teaching schedule for the coming month.  Please let us know if there is anything else you'd like to see in the monthly newsletter.  And please do visit my blog at:  www.lamamarut.org With all good wishes, Marut In This Issue Turning Problems into Opportunities New! Video and Audio Recordings Plus Podcasts Upcoming Teachings In Los Angeles Upcoming Teachings in New York Quick Links Asian Classics Institute Los Angeles ACI LA Teachings World View Yoga Studies Institute Turning Problems into Opportunities Making Clouds Disappear One of the most useful practices taught in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition is learning how to transform problems into opportunities.  We start by understanding that there are no "problems" per se.  Problems do not exist objectively as problems.  Problems are only interpretations.  And because problems exist only because we construe them as such, we can learn how to re-label and reinterpret them . . . and thereby convert them into something other than "problems." Through this relatively simple process of training ourselves to think differently about things, what was once seen as a problem can be transmuted into something useful for our spiritual practice and development.  In Buddhist literature, a serious practitioner who has learned to do this is likened to a peacock who feeds on poison and converts it into beautiful tail feathers.  This practice goes way beyond merely trying to find the silver lining in any cloud.  It is designed to make clouds disappear altogether.  For if we can see what we once thought of as a problem as something valuable and helpful, it is no longer a problem at all! When we experience something unwanted - sickness, losing a loved one, having a professional setback, encountering a difficult or hurtful person - we can always use it as an opportunity to reflect on the suffering nature of secular life.  When the Buddha said, "Life is suffering," he wasn't kidding.  But it is usually only when suffering is overwhelmingly obvious to us that we recognize it.  Teachers sometimes assert that "samsara is kind," for it will always, sooner or later, show you its true nature.  Without problems and the suffering they bring us, we would never get motivated to really work at our spiritual lives.  Without the reminders we get when problems arise, we would never gain the renunciation of suffering and its causes that is the precondition to any serious spiritual effort. So the first way to change a "problem" into an opportunity is to use it as a reminder that our real happiness cannot come from any other source than our spiritual practice.  Suffering eliminates both complacency and the smugness and pride that come when things go too well for us ("That kind of thing could never happen to me!").  To be happy we must first let go of the coals that are burning us, and it is only when we feel the burn that we become really interested in alternatives. When we experience problems we can also use them to learn true compassion for the suffering of others.  It's not until we feel ourselves what it's like to lose one's health, loved one, job, or money that we really know how others feel when these things happen to them.  Without problems befalling us, we would never truly understand the suffering of others and could not develop the compassion so crucial to our own spiritual maturity. The first Panchen Lama cites a verse in one of his teachings on developing a good heart (lo jong) that claims,                                In addition to acting as a wake up call for our own complacency and spiritual laziness,  and a remedy for our callousness regarding the suffering of others, problems also provide us with the opportunity to reflect on the nature of causality or karma.  Why did this unwanted thing happen to me anyway?  Do things just happen randomly?  Is there a God micro-managing the universe who is mad at me?  Or is everything - very much including this unwelcome event - implicated in the network of cause and effect? Every problem we experience ourselves comes from creating that kind of problem for others in the past.  We reap what we sow.  What goes around, comes around.  Suffering provides us with the chance to think about karma and its workings; it helps us resolve to live better moral lives: "I don't want to suffer!  So I must be careful not to create the causes for it." Furthermore, if we don't re-create the causes that brought us the difficulty in the first place, we can feel happy that we are now burning this negativity off.  Once a result has been experienced, it is over.  What could have incubated longer and then grown into a major disaster has instead ripened now into this relatively minor discomfort.  As Pabongka Rinpoche writes in his classic Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand,                       Finally, if you are trying to live a life of altruism, dedicated to relieving the suffering of others, when a problem arises you can say, "Excellent!  It's working!  My wish to take on myself the suffering of others is now being fulfilled.  I'm so happy that I can experience this pain so that others are free from it."  Je Tsongkapa, in his A very Brief Instruction on the Practice of Transforming Suffering into a Spiritual Path, writes that you should . . . feel great joy, thinking to yourself, "In the past I did the practice of giving and taking, trying to take on myself all the bad deeds and obstacles of every living being.  And now I see my wishes have been accomplished." In these ways, we can learn to make our suffering meaningful, to use it as a spiritual tool  and re-envision it as an opportunity we would not have had otherwise.  When we do this, there actually are no "problems."  There are just various occasions and contexts to cultivate and exercise our wisdom and compassion. Buddhism teaches that all unhappiness comes from self-cherishing and self-grasping.  We can eliminate our true enemies by embracing "problems" and transforming them, like the poison-eating peacock.  And when we do this successfully, there won't be any "problems" left to transform. New Video and Audio Teachings Available On-line I'm happy to announce that thanks to the work and expertise of Cindy Lee and others, we are re-inaugurating our video podcasts with a segment from the Tibetan Heart Yoga VI Teacher Training course held last September in Tucson we've  entitled "Running With Scissors."  Check it out, and if you like it, subscribe so you'll be informed when new video podcasts are available:  Running with Scissors Video Thanks also to Benjamin Worden who kindly filmed and uploaded two of my classes on emptiness in Arya Nagarjuna's "Wisdom: A Song on the Root of the Middle Way" (Mulamadhymamkakarika) taught at the Three Jewels in New York City last month.  You can find them on the web at: Mulamadhymamkakarika Video Part One and Mulamadhymamkakarika Video Part Two If you would prefer to listen to audio recordings of those teachings, they're available here:  Audio Recordings We also have continued the ongoing weekly audio podcasts with a series last month on the six "flavors" of emptiness ("mahamudra"): Mahamudra Podcast Complete audio of teachings on a variety of topics from last month's teaching tour  in Michigan, New York, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, South Lake Tahoe, and Los Angeles (ranging from "The Components of a Daily Practice" and "How Yoga Works" to "Guru Yoga in the Bhagavad Gita," a retreat on cultivating compassion, and a talk on "Relax and Work Hard and Other Paradoxes of the Spiritual Life") can be found by following these links: Relax and Work Hard Joyful Effort Exchanging Self for Others Guided Meditation #1 Exchanging Self for Others Guided Meditation #2 Guru Yoga How Yoga Works South Lake Tahoe Retreat 2007: Compassion . Upcoming Teachings     Lama Marut's Latest Retreat at South Lake Tahoe TEACHINGS IN LOS ANGELES Explorations in Emptiness, Part 2 Dec. 3 & Dec. 5, 7:30-9:30 Location: Aldersgate Retreat Center, 925 Haverford Ave., Pacific Palisades, CA Contact: Lauren Benjamin: lauren.benjamin@gmail.com "How to Be Happy, Part One: Cultivating Forgiveness and Gratitude." Dec. 9,  3:30-5:30 Location: Bodhi Tree Bookstore, 8585 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, CA Contact: Bodhi Tree Bookstore (310) 659-1733 Dharma Essentials IX ("The Ethical Life") Dec. 10-13,  7:30-9:30 Location: Westside Waldorf School, 17310 Sunset Blvd., Pacific Palisades. CA Contact: Lauren Benjamin: lauren.benjamin@gmail.com Fourth Annual Meditative New Year's Eve Dec. 31, 8:00 PM - 1:00 AM Location: Westside Waldorf School, 17310 Sunset Blvd., Pacific Palisades. CA Contact: Lauren Benjamin: lauren.benjamin@gmail.com TEACHINGS IN NEW YORK "The Three Yogas of the Bhagavad Gita" Dec. 14, 8:15-10 PM Location: The Shala, 815 Broadway, 2nd fl., New York City, NY Contact: Barbara Verrochi: bverrochi@earthlink.net "Karma and Emptiness in the Yoga Sutra," for Kelly Morris's Yoga Teacher Training Program Dec. 15-16, 2:00-7:00 PM, Location: The Shala, 815 Broadway, 2nd fl., New York City, NY Contact: Kelly Morris: kelly@kellymorris.com