Practising in family life

Family life can at times flow with love and harmony, but it can also be fraught with difficulties...

The complications of life can be accommodated by skilful living and adapting to life’s changes.

If, however, worry is a strong habit, it will keep muttering away in the back of our minds no matter what we do.

So how can we go beyond worry?

How can we move to a more trusting and peaceful heart, and what actually can we trust in? ​

Well, you can’t trust in anything that is subject to change; that’s all uncertain.

You can’t trust in your body staying healthy. You can’t trust in the economy. You can’t trust in having a permanent job.

So what can you trust in? ​

In Buddhism we say you can trust in the Three Refuges.

You can trust in your capacity to be awake and to be aware. This is Buddha.

You can trust in the Truth of the way things are. This is Dhamma.

You can trust in the goodness of your intentions, in the goodness of your moral and generous actions. This is Sangha.

For instance, if you feel angry and you trust that anger, what happens? In a word - suffering!

But if you trust in knowing that this is the feeling of anger, that this is an object of mind and not a permanent reality, then this is wise knowing, our refuge in Buddha.

If you trust that this anger will pass and you need not repress nor indulge, then this is in harmony with nature and is our refuge in Dhamma.

Even though the anger may pull you towards violence, you trust in the virtue of not harming others. This is refuge in Sangha. ​

This third refuge of Sangha stands for the practice of transformation; that is, being a good person and actually doing the work. Having an idea of being a good person is easy, but actually being a good person is very difficult...

Instead, if one says, “When fear arises I’m going to develop trust. I’m going to observe it and know it as a condition of mind rather than believing in it as a permanent reality,” then what happens?

Then we are beginning to trust in transformation rather than fear.

In the same way, when anger arises we can try to transform that into patience and compassion.

When greed arises we can be aware and transform that into renunciation, giving up what we don’t need.

It’s not just an ideal, it’s something we can do. ​

You can’t get it perfect immediately, but you can make an intention.

Buddhist practice is very much based on right intention or right suggestion.

We have to make the right suggestions to ourselves and to our families...

What I must do is to make compassionate suggestions such as, “May I be free from anger. May I be free from greed. May I be free from fear.” These are good suggestions to make. ​

On the other hand, if I wake up in the morning, and it’s winter, and it’s rainy and grey, and the economy is going down the tube, and I’ve just heard about another six rapes in Auckland, and 14 murders, and I’m very depressed, and then I turn on the radio to get more news, and I get more depressed, then my first thought is of course: “Life is miserable but I have to go to work, and oh, what a terrible country it is….”
What kind of suggestion is that? That’s a suggestion of misery. And that’s what I create in my world.

Therefore I must move away from that kind of suggestion. When my mind says, “I can’t take it anymore,” I wake up!

Then I can say, “So that’s what it’s like to feel miserable.” And as I see this, then the misery just becomes an object. It has no power, and it is something that can be known.

So I have a choice. I can believe in my misery, or I can let go.

The way to let go is to say, “I’m going to try to be more aware today. I’m going to try to be more sensitive to the people around me. I’m going to try to be more compassionate to myself.”

These are beautiful suggestions to the heart. ​

This doesn’t sound like much, but contemplate your own mind. How often in the day do you make skilful suggestions to yourself and how often do you just go on automatic pilot?

Being on automatic pilot is very dangerous because you can crash into a mountain. And the way we think when we are on automatic pilot is often negative: “Life is miserable… mumble… groan… these kids, or these parents… nah, nah….”

But to awaken means that we no longer run on automatic pilot.

It means we are fully alive.

To notice a thought which is unskilful, such as the thought of worry, the thought of fear, the thought of anger, is the way of mindfulness.

And then the way of transformation is to not invest any energy into all of that. It’s a lifetime’s work and we keep having to do it. Because it is a lifetime’s work we must always be patient and compassionate with ourselves.

If we judge ourselves all the time, it just does not work.

​The way of transformation means that we take responsibility for our wrong actions and wrong speech. We develop right intention by thinking, “That’s an area where I need to work, I need to make more effort, I need to be more awake, I need to transform.” There is a sense of personal responsibility, isn’t there?

If I blame the world around me, if I’m never awake to the fact that I’m angry, if I’m never awake to the fact that I’m full of worry, or if I’m never aware that I always want something else - then I can’t be at peace.

I will always need something else. I will always need some kind of distraction or I will always need to get rid of something. There will be no peace for me or for my family.

If we are to realize our human potential and not just live at the animal level, we must fully awaken to life. Being awake to our inner world with all of its passions and energies is part of being truly alive.

We sometimes call this the practice of Buddha knowing Dhamma. If we can’t be fully awake, then the life of the individual and the life of the family become an aimless succession of actions and reactions. The joyous possibility of family life as spiritual transformation is lost.

So what is the Middle Way? It means we honestly look at tendencies that cause confusion in our own hearts and that create suffering in our families. We put forth the effort to practise transformation; being willing to work on that for a lifetime.

~ Luang Por Viradhammo

A further excerpt from a talk on "Dhamma and Family Life", printed in the book, "The Stillness of Being"