freedom

Gratitude in a time of calamity

July 14, 2025

First, the calamity

We’re on a very bad path in the US at the moment. Many of you live in the US, as I do, although many of you don’t. However, as they say, “If America sneezes the rest of the world catches cold.” What happens here affects the entire world. Many people outside the US are concerned, worried, or despondent. In some cases they are seeing the rise of politicians and voters inspired by what’s happening here.

I’m not going to detail the calamity. Let’s just mention that it’s not normal to have masked men grabbing people from the streets, from hospitals, from courtrooms, and government offices, while refusing to show ID or provide warrants. It’s not normal for the government to be sending people abroad to concentration camps where they are tortured and have no hope of ever being set free. It’s not normal for the highest court in the land to allow this to happen.

What is happening is not normal. It’s a calamity. It’s the collapse of democratic norms. Usually we’d rely on elections to get us out of a calamity caused by government action. But much of what is going on right now is illegal, and governments that commit crimes are not generally open to being removed from power, because then they might end up in prison.

Things are grim, and the grimmest part is that this has only just begun. It’s pretty much guaranteed that there is much worse to come.

On top of this, we all have our individual difficulties to deal with: an aging spouse, a messy divorce, struggling to make ends meet, uncertainties about our health, and so on.

It’s a lot to deal with.

Next, the gratitude

I’m not suggesting that gratitude is going to overthrow an authoritarian regime, stop masked men from kidnapping people off the streets, or restore democracy. But I do suggest that it can help us stay more emotionally balanced while bad things happen.

The worst things we can do are to become hopeless and despondent, thinking that things can never get better. We need optimism — the positive optimism of confidence, not the toxic optimism of just assuming things aren’t really that bad and that even worse things won’t happen. We need faith that there are things worth fighting for.

There are people who want us to feel afraid, traumatized, and hopeless, because it makes it easier for them to accomplish the evil acts they’re set on. Finding joy and optimism is an act of resistance. Creating emotional resilience is an act of resistance.

As an image someone recently shared in the Wildmind community says, “If you ever feel heavy because you care deeply about injustice, suffering, and ecological destruction, remember that a trillion dollar propaganda machine was built to make you numb, and it didn’t work on you.”

The same is true regarding the destruction of democracy and the rule of law.

Gratitude helps.

Even in normal times, our minds have a tendency to focus on the things that we don’t like — things that are going wrong, or aren’t going the way we would like them to go, people that annoy us, events that disappoint us, and so on. We also have a tendency to take good things for granted, forgetting that most things in our lives are actually going well. These tendencies are inherent, and evolutionary psychologists say they’ve been useful for our species’ survival by helping us to avoid danger. But in modern times our main problem is usually not avoiding dangers. It’s learning to be at ease, to be happy, and to create and sustain loving connections with others.

Gratitude gives us a break from obsessing about the things that are going wrong, and turns our attention to the things that are going right. I have a practice of sitting down every morning and writing down five things (at least) that I’m grateful for. They’re often small things. This morning I shared my gratitude for learning from a kind and wise man in my dreams, text messages from my teenage son, an injury that’s healing (and another that at least is not getting worse), and the joy that has come from simplifying my possessions and making sure that the things I own have homes.

The secret, I find, is to avoid rattling through these things in a rote fashion, but to dwell on each one. I describe this as “holding each one in my heart until I feel the goodness of it.” In other words, I take something that’s good in my life, and I think about it for a little while. I might just let it lie in my mind. Or I might imagine what life would be like without it. Usually after just a few seconds I begin to feel a warm glow of joy. That’s what I call “feeling the goodness.”

This is the opposite of taking good things for granted. It’s the opposite of dwelling on the negative. And it has the opposite effect of those things. It uplifts me rather than dragging me down. It gives me joy rather than leaving me feeling disgruntled and critical.

Another secret is not to see my morning gratitude practice as the be-all-and-end-all of gratitude. It’s a gentle reminder at the start of the day of the direction I want my mind to move in. I want to be more appreciative. I want to take joy in life’s little things. And so I remind myself to keep returning to gratefulness throughout the day.

Every so often I’ll just pause and appreciate little things, like the way the leaves are blowing in the wind, or that sewers exist, or that there are shops just down the road where I can buy the food I need. This brings joy to life. It changes the very structure of the brain. It changes who we are.

(Feel free to join me and the others here who regularly share what they’re grateful for.)

We need joy and gratitude in order to get through these difficult times.

Rebecca Solnit Points out that beneath our anger is love: “You are angry the children are being bombed or the forest is being cleared because you care about them, so it’s not the feelings about the forces of destruction that is primary. It’s the love, and not losing sight of that is crucial.”

If we’re just angry, we’re playing a similar game to the authoritarian, who is angry and hateful about almost everything. We need to see what’s good and stay in touch with it. This takes practice.

Arash Javanbakht, a psychiatrist and a neuroscientist at Wayne State University, says “When you’re afraid, all you’re thinking about is what you’re afraid of.” He also points out that we need to balance the bad things we’re hearing by focusing on the good — even simple things like science, the arts, and sports.

There will be a time when this is all over. Maybe they won’t rig the elections enough. Maybe there will be a massive, non-violent uprising. In the meantime:

In a time of lies, appreciate truth.
In a time of division, be grateful for connection.
In a time of denunciation, recognize and celebrate the good in others.
And most of all, in a time of hatred, be grateful that love persists. Show it to others. Give them support and encouragement.

As the lawyer and commentator Joyce Vance likes to sign off, “We’re in this together.”

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Democracy and spiritual practice

July 1, 2025

Bodhipaksa

on practice

Because of the alarming political situation in the US, which has parallels with events in other countries, I’ve been writing about how we, as spiritual practitioners, might skillfully face the troubling emotions politics can give rise to.

The two emotions that stand out for me are fear (where is this all going? how bad will things get?) and despair (mourning the loss of democratic norms).

To help me to deal with these potent emotions, I’ve adopted three slogans: Feet on the ground. Heart wide open. Eyes upward (or keep looking up). These provide a framework for my practice.

Feet on the ground means finding ways to keep ourselves emotionally balanced, so we can avoid panic and despair. We might want to be mindful in our news consumption. We might choose not to follow those who build followings on social media by generating, outrage, and follow instead people who are informed, compassionate, and balanced. Keeping up a daily meditation practice helps us be calmer. Keeping up our friendships (especially with those who are wise and balanced) helps us with emotional regulation. We might also understand that what’s happening today is part of a long historical pattern of swings between more democratic and autocratic styles of government.
Heart wide open reminds me that it’s important not to shut down and disengage, no matter how overwhelming the news might be. We need to create an inner space of compassion — staying in touch with our own suffering — and live from that space. We need to stay in touch with the reality of others’ suffering, and do what we can to help.
Eyes upward reminds me that we mustn’t ever let what’s happening now seem acceptable. We must remember, at a time of viciousness and chaos, what’s good and normal, and how things should be. But a return to normal, difficult as it is to imagine the path that takes us there, wouldn’t be enough. “Eyes upward” means aspiring to create a better, fairer society than we had before. Above all, it means developing a deeper appreciation of democracy and wanting a better, more inclusive, less corrupt democracy.

Democracy Is Under Threat

In fact, one of the things we are losing, or might be losing — and this is a source both of grief and fear — is democracy itself. The grief comes because of the freedoms and security we have lost. The fear comes for many reasons, but chief amongst them is that when leaders are no longer subject to democratic accountability, very bad things start to happen, from political persecution up to torture, murder, and genocide.

Democracy goes through periods of expansion and contraction. There were very few democracies before World War I, but an explosion of them afterwards. Democracies in that period also became more truly democratic, extending the franchise to working class men and to women.

Before WWII there was rise of authoritarianism and a decline in democracy. But after that war, the former colonies shed their European overlords, former dictatorships became democracies, and democracy expanded again. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many former communist dictatorships adopted democratic forms of government. The number of people living in democracies peaked around 2006, after which democracy there was a rise once again of authoritarianism. Sometimes this authoritarianism took the guise of “illiberal democracy” where elections take place, but the ruling party has rigged things so that they’re almost certain to stay in power. Orbán’s Hungary is a prime example of this.

Right now we’re seeing a stark decline in democracy in the United States. Danger signs include:

the president taking control of governmental spending (a function reserved for congress)
threats to media outlets and law firms that the president regards as enemies
threats against judges (and actual arrests)
the executive branch defying court orders
the government attempting to take over the running of universities, etc.

These are all classic moves in establishing a Hungary-type authoritarian pseudo-democracy.

Recognizing the long-term ups and downs of democracy reminds us that it’s not “game over” when a country becomes authoritarian or even an outright dictatorship. Authoritarian regimes tend to implode, and people’s hunger for freedom and self-determination can never be entirely suppressed.

Reasons to Have Faith In Democracy

I have faith in democracy as the best form of government for complex modern states. It is our best hope for a dignified human existence. And it is the best political system for facilitating spiritual practice.

I say this knowing that there is no such thing as a perfect democracy. Human beings are themselves not perfect, and we are emerging from a history soaked in blood. We cannot slough off the past, and have to learn from it, sometimes painfully, in order to move on.

I offer four grounds to support my claim that liberal democracy is the best form of government.

1. Liberal Democracies Are More Peaceful

It is exceedingly rare for democracies to go to war with each other. The establishment of democracy in virtually all of Europe and South America has drastically reduced the incidence of war in those areas of the world. The more democracies there are, the more peaceful the world is likely to become.

Autocracies are inevitably violent. Their leaders are themselves belligerent and intolerant. They see wars as a good way of distracting a population from the poor standard of living that results from their inept leadership. Their populations are often unable to protest against wars. This is the case in Russia, for example. People may be so misled by propaganda that they don’t understand what’s going on. Many people in Russia think their soldiers are fighting Nazis in Ukraine. The more freedom there is, and the more the media is able to report what’s going on, the more opposition there is to war.

When autocratic leaders don’t direct violence against other countries, they often do so against less-favored citizens of their own countries. Liberal democracies tend to be peaceful places to live. Citizens do not generally have to fear that they will be dragged off for holding dissenting views. As Orwell wrote, “No system except democracy can be trusted to save us from unspeakable horrors.”

2. Liberal Democracy Allows for Material Flourishing

Liberal democracies tend to provide a far higher standard of living than autocratic regimes. The 10 countries with the highest standard of living are all liberal democracies, and yet liberal democracies count for only a third of the world’s governments.

Liberal democracies tend to be stable, predictable, and durable. No democracy is perfect, but in the main they have strong political institutions and legal systems, and democracies usually choose people with demonstrated competence to staff its agencies. Authoritarian regimes, offer government posts as rewards to those who demonstrate loyalty to the leader. Corruption flourishes, and as a result, the country and its economy become inefficient. The more dysfunctional and corrupt a democracy is, the more likely it is that it’s in the process of becoming authoritarian.

The more flawed a democracy is, the worse the standard of living tends to me. Neither the UK and US is anywhere near the top of the standard of living chart (the US is 15th, while the UK is 22nd), and both countries have been downgraded by the Economist Intelligence Unit from “full” to “flawed” democracies.

3. Liberal Democracy Allows for Emotional and Spiritual Flourishing

There is a reason why so many great spiritual and philosophical teachers—including the Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and Plato—arose in the so-called Axial Age. The invention of iron meant that society was no longer living at a subsistence level. People could use iron axes to clear forests for agriculture use, and plow fields with iron-tipped plows. The agricultural surplus they generated, they could transport long distances in carts with iron-rimmed wheels. This created cities, where minds could more easily meet and talk.

With a higher standard of living, and with more free time, people could now ask questions like, “What is my life’s purpose? What does it mean to live a good life?” To focus here on material flourishing is not to be materialistic. It’s to recognize that freedom from material want allows for spiritual flourishing.

Many of the qualities necessary in the political culture of a democracy — a democracy’s “personality,” so to speak — are skillful traits of trust, ethics, and empathy. These qualities give rise to well-being in those that bear them and open them up to spiritual growth.

By contrast, authoritarian regimes produce unhappy people. Authoritarian governments engender feelings of powerlessness and cynicism. People may believe a regime’s propaganda for a while, but eventually they realize that they are surrounded by lies. Everyone is corrupt, and nothing is done well, but changing things is almost impossible.

Authoritarian regimes have to distract their populations from their problems. One way to do this is to generate hatred. Leaders will often target a despised group that they blame for society’s problems. In this way, authoritarianism encourages unskillful emotions of hatred and intolerance. For the same reason it encourages simplistic black and white thinking, rather than more nuanced thinking that encourages truth-seeking.

4. Liberal Democracies are Tolerant of Spiritual Exploration

One of the “personality traits” of democracies being their tolerance of diversity, democracies tend to allow for spiritual experimentation. Mature democracies officially recognize, minority religions such as Buddhism, and often give them access to special benefits, such as tax-exemptions. Although in some ways the US is a religiously intolerant nation, people who are Buddhists or members of other minority languages have been elected to high office.

The American experiment took as axiomatic the idea that people should be free to follow their own conscience in seeking a life that’s meaningful. For that reason, the founders of the US avoided having a state religion. In contrast, autocratic nations often have a favored state religion, and minority religions may be disadvantaged, discriminated against, or even persecuted.

Because of these positive conditions, Buddhist sanghas tend to flourish in democratic nations.

So for these four reasons — democracies being more peaceful, prosperous, emotionally skillful, and supportive of spiritual exploration — I describe democracy as the most desirable form of political organization.

We Are the Majority

As democratic norms are eroded, we need to avoid panic (feet on the ground), yet we need to care deeply (heart wide open) and channel our love anger into opposing harmful changes. And as we do these things we need to keep reminding ourselves and others of democratic ideals, and of the material, emotional, and spiritual benefits of democracy (eyes upward). We need to keep democracy in people’s minds and on people’s tongues, and resist their tendency to see what’s happening as inevitable and unstoppable.

It’s the desire for freedom that’s unstoppable. Yes, sometimes people take democracy for granted. Sometimes they’ll vote for authoritarian leaders because they’re struggling economically or afraid of demographic change. And for some people the cruelty is the point.

But as I’ve written before, “[it’s] important to remember that there are many people in the US (and elsewhere, of course) who believe in kindness, generosity, tolerance, compassion, democracy, standing up to autocrats, and protecting the world that sustains us. That’s much more than half of the population. We are the majority.

We are the majority. And we will prevail.

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Stay in touch with the good

April 25, 2025

Bodhipaksa

on practice

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As human beings, we are psychologically porous. We’re open to influences from outside ourselves, including others’ words and actions. That’s largely a good thing, because it means we can learn from other human beings.

But it also means that what’s going on around us can affect, in not-so-good ways, our sense of what’s normal and what’s right.

Peer-pressure is one term we use to describe that kind of influence. It’s a term that might suggest a conscious attempt by an individual of group to persuade someone to do something, like a group of teens pressuring one of their members to try smoking.

But this pressure can also be indirect; we witness people talking and acting in certain ways, and even if they don’t try to sway us, their actions can become a cultural norm that we want to conform to. We want to fit in. This pressure comes not from our peers, but from ourselves.

Moral compasses can shift

There are, however, more subtle ways that we conform to what’s around us. Our sense of right and wrong can shift without our even knowing about it. This happens not because we want to conform, but because our moral compass responds to the magnetic field of what’s happening around us.

This isn’t about wanting to fit in. It’s simply that we are attuned to our environment, and as moral values, actions, and speech change in our society, we change too. And this can happen in good ways. Generally there’s been a shift toward greater tolerance, for example. In 2005 gay marriage was almost unthinkable in the US. In 2015 it was legal everywhere, and more and more people accepted it. The more people there are accepting something, the more likely others will start accepting it too.

Also see:

On the negative side, if we see cruelty and dehumanization around us, we may start to buy into it. We get used to it. Tune it out. We may believe the story that the person snatched off the street and deported to a hellish prison camp is a dangerous gang member, even though no evidence, or only laughable evidence, is given to support this. The government says that’s the case, but there’s no due process and no opportunity for the abducted person to defend themselves against legal charges, because there are no legal charges. Many of us may want to believe the government. We assume they must have their reasons. Or maybe we don’t care much because we don’t think this will happen to us and we lack empathy for those who are effected.

Shift happens

I remember seeing moral change happen to a young man, not long after Margaret Thatcher had been elected. We were both 18 and had worked together for a few months over the summer. We happened to bump into each other on a train platform, and when the train arrived he pushed his way past other travelers in his haste to get on board.

After I caught up with him he told me that you have to grab what you want in life. Having been been brought up to make sure that older people and women with children were seated first, I was shocked by his selfishness. He hadn’t been like that before, but the Thatcherite ethos that greed is good had taken root in his mind. He saw boarding a train as a way to show he was a “winner” in life’s competition, rather than as an opportunity to be civil to others.

Binding our minds to the good

One way we can resist becoming less skillful is to explicitly root our lives in moral values. As a Buddhist, I have lists of ethical precepts to guide my actions. The simplest of these is the five precepts. These are practices where we consciously aim to abstain from unskillful actions. There are, however, although ethically skillful actions we can commit ourselves to. For the sake of convenience, I’ll combine these:

I undertake to abstain from harming living beings, and vow to live with compassion.
I undertake to abstain from taking what’s not given, and vow to live with generosity.
I undertake to abstain from sexual misconduct, and vow to live with respect for others.
I undertake to abstain from untruth, and vow to live with honesty and integrity.
I undertake to abstain from intoxication, and vow to live mindfully.

Ethics as a free choice

These are not rules. There is no authority making us obey them, and no punishments, beyond the natural consequences of our actions, for failing to observe them. Each precept contains something we choose to undertake for the benefit of ourselves and others. Together they comprise a set of “training principles” (sikkha-pada) through which we aim to change ourselves through the decisions we make in life.

To keep themselves oriented to these precepts, many people chant them daily, often as a prelude to their sitting meditation practice.

I talk about this as “binding our minds to the good,” but this does not imply a lack of freedom. A ship that’s adrift, being pushed around by the winds and tides, is not free. A ship that has sails and an anchor is free.

Ethics as a mirror

But simply saying words doesn’t change us. We need to keep coming back to examining our thoughts, words, and actions against the yardstick of the ethical principles that the precepts remind us of. For example, no matter how badly some politicians behave, it’s unethical for us to wish harm upon them. No matter how much we think an item of fake news might help our cause politically, if it’s untrue we shouldn’t spread it. Fighting these temptations is difficult, but it’s a good difficult. It’s the kind of difficulty that makes us better people.

The Buddha pointed out to his son that just as a mirror reflects our appearance, moral reflection shows us who we are. The precepts give us a way of seeing ourselves.

By holding ourselves to a framework of ethical standards, we’re more able to prevent the moral forces around us from pulling our inner compass out of alignment . Sangharakshita described this in terms of becoming a true individual rather than a group member. The group member feels they’re right because they’re doing the same as others are doing. The true individual’s moral compass is better insulated, and they can rely more on the precepts.

Keep looking up

In responding to our current political situation, one of the phrases I’ve been bearing in mind is “Keep looking up.” This means, stay in touch with your ideals. Keep aspiring for and working toward a better world. It also means, don’t accept the erosion of what’s good and right.

At the moment, what’s good and right is under grave threat in the US.

Free speech is being punished and curtailed.
The right to legal defense is under attack.
Judges are being threatened for upholding the laws and the constitution.
Due process is being dispensed with, so that the government claims it has the right to determine, without needing a trial, who is and isn’t guilty of crimes.
The government is saying it can snatch people off the streets and deport them to inhumane prisons overseas, and that these decisions are irreversible, even if they are illegal.
The government is saying that it can break the law with impunity and ignore the courts.

Our crumbling democracy

With remarkable rapidity, an entire democratic system is crumbling, because without due process, and especially without habeas corpus (the right to challenge your imprisonment) there is no basis for a democratic society. Any of us might vanish at any time. When means we’re fearful, and silence ourselves. Which means that our speech is not free, because it can land us in prison. Or in my case it could get me deported. This article, if brought to the attention of the immigration services, could get my green card revoked. This has happened to others.

And this is just the start. The track record of autocratic leaders is well-known. They always persecute political opponents, who they harass, jail or even kill. That is the path we are on, and we are moving down it much more quickly than most people had feared.

We have no idea how far things will go before they are reversed. This will happen, because human beings aspire to freedom. But we don’t yet know how this reversal will be brought about. Will we even have free and fair elections in future? Neither do we know how long it will take.

Aim higher

In the meantime, we have to keep looking up. Don’t just long for and work for a return to free speech, due process, the rule of law, and the separation of powers. Long for and work for a world that’s better than what we had, because our democracies are always flawed, and democracy in the US was more flawed than most.

The law has never been equally applied to all, regardless of social status, sex, or race. It’s always been harder for some people to vote than others. Not everyone’s vote is equal. Those in power have often served the interests of the rich and powerful more than their own citizens. Our task is not just to return to the democratic norms we used to take for granted, but to create a better, fairer democracy for ourselves and our descendants.

To that end, support courage when you see it. When a university refuses to comply with governments attempts to curtail its academic freedoms, celebrate and support them. Support courageous politicians. When a librarian refuses to remove books that contain LGBTQ themes or ethnic minority characters, praise them. Support courageous publications and give them your attention and your money. When someone gives a TED talk and names a coup as a coup, share this as an example of courage that we should emulate. When someone shows up at a demonstration and waves a banner showing resistance to the erosion of democratic norms, appreciate them and thank them.

These are all things we can look up to and emulate.

Keep looking up. Things will get better, but only if we remind ourselves and everyone else that they can.

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Buddhism, free will, and non-self

March 10, 2023

Bodhipaksa

on practice

The concept of “free will” doesn’t sit very easily with Buddhism. As far as I’m aware, it’s considered an important idea because God rewards and punishes us depending on whether we choose good or evil, and in such a belief system it’s necessary that we be considered capable of choosing freely.

Actually, the concept of free will doesn’t sit very well with some aspects of Christianity. Think about it: if God is omniscient, he therefore knows every choice you will make in your life, and so every choice you make is predetermined, and so you have no free will. An omniscient God therefore rewards or punishes you based on something you have no choice about.

There’s no creator God in Buddhism, but because our culture has been steeped in Christianity for centuries, the question of whether there is free will often comes up, presenting itself as a pressing dilemma that we need to urgently solve.

First there’s the question of whether our will is actually free. And second, there’s the question of how there can be free will if there is no self to make choices.

The Buddha Often Taught In Terms of Contrasting Options

Buddhist practice rests on the notion that we can make choices. This seems to be in the same ball park as the concept of free will. The very first chapter of the Dhammapada is titled “The Pairs,” and it presents us with alternative choices. The first two verses illustrate this very clearly:

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.
Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.

The point here is that there are choices, and our choices matter. The Buddha doesn’t explicitly say here that we have a choice, or that there’s such a thing as free will, but he is implying that there are choices to be made.

The Buddha Explained In Detail How Choice Happens

In other teachings, for example in the Dvedhavitakka Sutta, the Buddha expands on how choice happens:

Mendicants, before my awakening—when I was still unawakened but intent on awakening—I thought: ‘Why don’t I meditate by continually dividing my thoughts into two classes?’ So I assigned sensual, malicious, and cruel thoughts to one class. And I assigned thoughts of renunciation, good will, and harmlessness to the second class.
Then, as I meditated—diligent, keen, and resolute—a sensual thought arose. I understood: ‘This sensual thought has arisen in me. It leads to hurting myself, hurting others, and hurting both. It blocks wisdom, it’s on the side of anguish, and it doesn’t lead to extinguishment.’ When I reflected that it leads to hurting myself, it went away. When I reflected that it leads to hurting others, it went away. When I reflected that it leads to hurting both, it went away. When I reflected that it blocks wisdom, it’s on the side of anguish, and it doesn’t lead to extinguishment, it went away. So I gave up, got rid of, and eliminated any sensual thoughts that arose.

The Buddha is clearly describing a process of making choices here. He makes a decision to categorize his thoughts, apparently on some kind of hunch that had arisen. As he notices the untoward effects of “thinking imbued with sensuality,” etc., he abandons those forms of thought.

Choice Is Karma

This choice arises from cetana, which is “will” or “intention.” And this cetana, the Buddha said, is “karma.”

Intention, I tell you, is kamma.

Karma is choice. Specifically, it’s the choice that shapes our character, for better or worse.

He Pointed Out That Our Choices Are Limited

But he also saw a limit to our ability to make choices in any given situation. For example, he pointed out:

Bhikkhus, consciousness is not self. Were consciousness self, then this consciousness would not lead to affliction, and one could have it of consciousness: ‘Let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus.’ And since consciousness is not-self, so it leads to affliction, and none can have it of consciousness: ‘Let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus.’

We’ll come back to “consciousness is not self.”

In the meantime, let’s just acknowledge that you can’t just decide what the nature of your consciousness will be. You can’t decide to be happy, for example. Well, you can, but it probably won’t change anything! You don’t have control over whether your body ages. You can’t make pain or illness go away by force of will.

If we have free will (the ability to make choices) then clearly there are limits in the choices it can make.

Choices Are Limited By the Preceding Conditions

Change comes about, the Buddha teaches, based upon the nature of the preceding conditions. For example, You can decide to grow crops, but you can’t make the seeds grow by force of will.

You can however plant seeds and water them, providing the requisite conditions:

There is the case where a farming householder quickly gets his field well-plowed and well-harrowed. Having quickly gotten his field well-plowed and well-harrowed, he quickly plants the seed. Having quickly planted the seed, he quickly lets in the water and then lets it out.
These are the three urgent duties of a farming householder. Now, that farming householder does not have the power or might [to say:] ‘May my crops spring up today, may the grains appear tomorrow, and may they ripen the next day.’ But when the time has come, the farming householder’s crops spring up, the grains appear, and they ripen.

This Principle Is Called Conditionality (Paṭicca Samuppāda)

In making choices, we’re working within a system of conditionality (paṭicca samuppāda). Certain things lead to certain other things in a relatively predictable way. We make choices only within the realm of what is possible.

What’s true for the cultivation of crops is true for for the cultivation of the mind as well:

In the same way, there are these three urgent duties of a monk. Which three? The undertaking of heightened virtue, the undertaking of heightened mind, the undertaking of heightened discernment. These are the three urgent duties of a monk. Now, that monk does not have the power or might [to say:] ‘May my mind be released from fermentations through lack of clinging today or tomorrow or the next day.’ But when the time has come, his mind is released from fermentations through lack of clinging.
Thus, monks, you should train yourselves: ‘Strong will be our desire for the undertaking of heightened virtue. Strong will be our desire for the undertaking of heightened mind. Strong will be our desire for the undertaking of heightened discernment.’ That’s how you should train yourselves.

If you want insight (heightened discernment) to arise, you have first to cultivate meditative states (heightened mind). If you want to cultivate meditative states, you have to practice ethics (heightened virtue). These are the laws of “mental agriculture” within which we operate. And you can’t just decide “I’m going to be free from clinging.” You can only choose from what’s possible, and that’s not possible.

How Does Choice Happen Within Conditionality?

The mind has the ability to make predictions about the future. This is crucial in the Dvedhavitakka Sutta passage. The Buddha recalls that certain mental states have led to suffering for self and others. He notices that certain other mental states have led to freedom from suffering for self and others. This has been true in the past.

And that becomes the basis of predictions for the future: this mental state that has arisen will cause suffering. And that prediction becomes the basis of choice: “Well, then, since I don’t want to suffer or to make others suffer, I should drop this way of thinking and choose another way of thinking. Why don’t I choose to think in a way that has been shown, through experience, to lessen my own and others’ suffering?”

What Is Freedom?

If you’re talking about free will, you’re talking about freedom. Free will means we’re free to do whatever we want. It’s the freedom to. I’ve shown that the Buddha pointed out that we can’t simply do whatever we want. That’s just not how the world works. It’s not how conditionality works. There are always limits to what we can choose. Will is never entirely free, because it can only interact with existing conditions, and those conditions limit what can happen next.

The Buddha’s conception of freedom was not freedom to, but freedom from. The Buddha’s concern was always about how we free ourselves from suffering. If someone had confronted him with the notion of freedom being the freedom to he’d probably have reminded this person that the purpose of spiritual practice is to become free from suffering.

His teaching was always about how to become free from suffering, and the method for doing this was to work within the bounds of what conditionality allows, making choices that lead to greater happiness — or, if you like, freedom from suffering. We become free of suffering by becoming free of the causes of suffering, which are selfish craving, ill will, and delusion. And we become free of those things by noticing them arising in the mind, and choosing not to exercise them, but to exercise their opposites. That’s what he’s saying in the Dvedhavitakka Sutta.

The Buddha doesn’t try to prove that choice happens, but simply takes it as a given. It’s our experience that choosing takes place. We can observe choices happening.

Wiggle Room Within Conditionality

I’ve said that we could decide not to do something that we know will cause us suffering (e.g. binge eating) and yet feel compelled to do it. Conversely, we could decide to do something wholesome (like meditate) and find that we can’t bring ourselves to do it for some reason.

At times we don’t have very much freedom, because the forces of selfish craving, ill will, and delusion are strong. But there’s always at least some wiggle room. The thought “This isn’t a good thing to do; maybe I shouldn’t do it” might be weak today, but it can get stronger over time, and eventually it might have enough strength to change how you act. So keep feeding that thought. It’s a wise thought.

There does always seem to be some wiggle-room for choice arising within the chain of conditions. Even if it doesn’t change the choices we make now, it might make a difference in the future. Who we are changes as we lessen the influence of selfish desire, ill will, and delusion, and as their opposites become stronger. In making wise choices, we’re becoming freer from suffering. That’s the important thing.

There Is No Self To Have Free Will

But what of the notion of anatta, or not-self? This was already referred to in one of the quotes above, and I promised I’d come back to it.

Consciousness (and the other skandhas — parts of our being) are “not oneself” (anatta) because one can’t control them, any more than we can choose to make crops suddenly appear or make an illness vanish, or decide to be happy for the rest of our lives.

Anatta, or not-self, simply means that the kind of self we think we have don’t actually exist. We think we have a self that is permanent, separate, unified, and capable of making choices consciously. We don’t have a self that works in that way. What we are is ever-changing, entangled with the world around us, and fragmented — and the choices that take place within whatever-we-are arise outside of consciousness. They arise before your conscious awareness registers them. Conscious awareness, in fact, doesn’t even make choices, as I discuss in Understanding Non-Self: The boys in the basement, the empty room, and the plagiarist.

In the Dvedhavitakka quote above, the Buddha says, The thought occurred to me: ‘Why don’t I keep dividing my thinking into two sorts?’

“The thought occurred to me” indicates that this thought wasn’t the result of conscious decision-making. It was a hunch. It just arose. This is in fact true of all thoughts. Thoughts just appear to conscious awareness. Conscious awareness doesn’t create them. The fact that it seems that it does is a delusion. Thoughts occur (the Pāli is literally something like “it was to me thus“). You can watch this happening, and realize, as Thoreau did, that nothing is as unfamiliar and startling to us as our own thoughts. If we observe thoughts appearing, we can indeed be surprised by them; we have no idea what our thoughts will be until they appear. We have little or no awareness of how they are made.

Who we are — our “self” — is not unified. One part of the brain gives rise to a thought. As that thought arises, it percolates to the various parts of our consciousness and has an effect. You (your brain, your mind) is not a unified entity, but a community. The community evolves and changes as wiser parts of us recognize that this emotion and the actions arising from it will lead to suffering, while that emotion and the actions arising from it will free us from suffering. It takes time, because this is a long, slow process of education.

Each of us is an evolving community, not a unity. It’s not the “Self” that educates the community. It’s just the wiser parts of the community (those that can draw the dots between present actions and future outcomes) that do the educating.

Ignore Free Will

In short, free will is an important concept in Christianity because if our basic model is that God rewards or punishes us for our actions, we have to be free to choose. (Although free will also seems to be incompatible with the concept of an omniscient deity.)

But the concept of free will doesn’t fit with the observable facts of the world. Choices aren’t free. We’re not free to do whatever we want, because what happens next is constrained by past conditions. Being able to be free to do what we want is not relevant to the project of freeing ourselves from suffering.

There is no need for the concept of free will in Buddhism. It’s not relevant. It’s not even a real phenomenon, being based on a false view of choice (prior conditions mean we can’t always choose to do the right thing). Because it’s an illusory concept, we don’t need to reconcile Buddhism with it. In fact we should ignore the concept of free will except to critique it.

Instead we should focus on what’s relevant from the point of view of becoming free from Suffering. Choosing happens. By choosing wisely, the parts of us that have a longer-term perspective on what’s good for our well-being can make us happier — and create the conditions for greater freedom arising. The most important kind of freedom is freedom from suffering, not the freedom to do whatever we want (which isn’t possible anyway).

We need to keep our attention on our ability to choose, to choose wisely, and to observe that choice is simply happening, so that we can lose the false view that we have a self that chooses.

Forget “free will.” It’s irrelevant because it’s an illusion. It’s not necessary.

We don’t have free will, but we have all we need in order to become free from suffering. And that’s the crucial thing.

Mindfulness: freedom from, freedom to

November 21, 2017

Bodhipaksa

on practice

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Mindfulness is everywhere these days, but it’s often poorly defined. To me its central and defining characteristic is self-observation. When we’re unmindful, there’s no self-observation going on. The lights are on, but nobody’s home.

Thoughts, feelings, speech, and actions are all functioning, but there’s no inner observer, and so there’s no evaluation going on. Without evaluation there’s no mechanism for recognizing that certain thoughts etc. are causing us or others suffering. And so we’re really nothing more than a complex bundle of instincts and habits. Those instincts and habits can do amazing things, like drive a car (ever “woken up” to find you’ve driven somewhere and have no recollection of the journey?) or read a book (I often would find that I’d read several pages of a bedtime story to my kids and not paid attention to a single word I’d said.

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The key thing is our suffering. Or, to put it another way, the quality of our experience. With no observation, there’s nothing to stop us from making ourselves anything from mildly disgruntled to extremely unhappy.

When self-observation is taking place, we notice the effects of particular thoughts, words, actions, and so on. And so we’re able to make adjustments. We might notice that a certain train of thought is causing us to feel anxious or depressed or angry. We might realize that the train of thought isn’t even true. And we might decide to let go of it.

Mindfulness gives us two kinds of freedom. It gives us freedom from, and freedom to.

By “freedom from” I mean freeing ourselves from the tyranny of habit and instinct, and therefore a cultivating a growing freedom from the suffering that these unmindful behaviors cause. When we’re mindful, these habits and instincts are still there, of course. They don’t magically vanish. But when we’re mindful they’re less likely to control our minds, and instead are just thoughts and desires that we observe and that we may decide not to act on.

That’s radical in itself, because it profoundly changes the course of our being. But we also discover that we have not just freedom from unmindful ways of being, but the freedom to bring about different ways of being. We have the freedom to choose. We can choose to be kinder, for example. If we just remember that being kind is a possibility, we’re more likely to be kind. If we remember what it’s like to feel and act in a kind way, then those qualities are more likely to arise. If we’re free from angry thoughts we are also free to think in ways that are more empathetic and loving.

And what is true for being kinder is true for being patient, curious, courageous, accepting, appreciative, reflective, and for practicing other skillful qualities. With mindfulness we’re free to choose to be different.

Mindfulness gives us the freedom to stop causing ourselves and others suffering through unmindful habits, and to instead cultivate skillful habits that help to improve the quality of our own lives and that also impact other people in positive ways. It’s both freedom from and freedom to.

Why meditation is for people who “can’t meditate”

December 22, 2016

Bodhipaksa

on practice

Are you one of those people who think, “Oh, I could never meditate. My mind’s too busy!”?

I’m here to tell you that having a busy mind is the very best reason to meditate, not a reason to avoid it! After all we start going to the gym because we’re out of shape, not because we’re already fit. Meditating helps our busy minds become calmer.

Of course, just as when you start going to the gym the first thing you notice is how out of condition you are, it’s often a shock when we first meditate to discover just how unruly our minds are. But that’s OK. That’s something we just learn to accept.

As we meditate, we start to recognize that it’s OK to have a lot of thinking going on. We learn that when we try to fight with or repress our thinking, it just makes us tense, and gives us a sense of failure. A lot of what we do in meditation involves paying attention to our breathing. Of course we quickly lose our focus and get distracted, but whenever we catch ourselves having got caught up in a train of thought, we let go of the thinking and return to the breathing again. We learn to see this as a process: follow the breathing, get distracted, return to the breathing. Rinse and repeat.

Those moments when we notice that we’ve been distracted and return to the breathing are very important. Our first instinct may be to curse ourselves — “Aargh! I’ve been distracted again!” — but what’s really going on is something worth celebrating: you’ve returned to mindful awareness. You’ve come home. So you can remind yourself to appreciate these little successes. This helps you to feel good about meditating. In a way, the more you get distracted, the more opportunities you have to feel good about coming back to the breathing again!

Something I want to stress is that a very ordinary but very amazing thing has happened when you realize you’ve been distracted. Your consciousness has changed its state in a subtle but quite radical way.

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When you were caught up in a train of thought you had no choice, no free will, no mindful awareness. You hadn’t decided to think about whatever was on your mind. You weren’t aware you were doing it. You had no ability to disengage from the thoughts. You were on automatic pilot. You were in a trance-like state.

This kind of distracted thinking is rather like dreaming. It was only when you “woke up” and mindful awareness, for whatever reason, re-emerged, that you realized that you were caught up in a story-line and were able to make a conscious choice to let go of it. In that moment of awakening from the daydream, you became free.

People think that meditation is some kind of trance. But it’s the opposite. It’s waking up from the trance of distracted thinking.

The moment you step back into mindful awareness, you move from being a kind of automaton to being more fully human. You’re free to choose where to direct your mind. You’re free to return your attention to your breathing rather than to engage in distracted thinking that, for the most part, makes you angry, tense, anxious, or depressed.

You became capable of taking responsibility for your own mind and even your own destiny.

You’re also free to change the emotional quality of your mind. You can choose not to be impatient, and to accept that it’s OK that you were distracted. You can choose to be kind to yourself, and to be kind to your mind, returning your attention to the breathing with patience and gentleness, as you might return a baby bird to its nest.

Choosing to go back to the breathing, rather than to be distracted, changes the mind in the long-term. Choosing to be patient and kind with ourselves also changes the mind long-term. We become calmer. We become kinder. We become better able to deal with life’s difficulties.

Enjoy the freedom not to…

December 6, 2013

Rick Hanson PhD

on practice

We’re pulled and prodded by financial pressures, commuter traffic, corporate policies, technology, advertising, politics, and the people we work with and live with. Also, internal forces yank the proverbial chains, including emotional reactions, compelling desires, “shoulds,” and internalized “voices” from parents and other authority figures.

Sometimes these pressures are necessary, like a flashing light on your car’s dashboard telling you to get gas. Even a broken clock is right two times a day.

But on the whole these pressures are stressful and breed a sense of helplessness. Plus, a lot of the internal forces come from childhood, irrational fears, unfair self-criticism, ancient tendencies in the brain (e.g., its negativity bias), or the darker corners of human nature; acting out these forces is bad for us and others.

Giving oneself over to these pressures is un-free, like being a puppet tugged by many strings. It’s the opposite of well-being to be “hijacked,” “obsessed,” “addicted,” “plugged in,” or “compelled” – which all imply mental servitude if not slavery.

On the other hand, a sense of inner freedom is a hallmark of emotional healing, mental health, self-actualization, and the upper reaches of human potential. For example, a common term for enlightenment is “liberation.”

In plain English, we all know what it feels like to be pushed around . . . and what it feels like to have choices and be autonomous.

So, lately I’ve been softly saying this phrase in my mind – the freedom not to – and seeing what happens. And what’s been happening is great. A feeling of ease, of room to breathe, of not needing to jump to some task or to agree or disagree immediately with someone. A sense of shock absorbers between me and my emotional reactions, of not making a mess that I’ve got to clean up later, of not embarrassing myself, of not swapping a minute of pleasure for an hour of pain.

Being intimate with life while feeling free within it.

How?

For one or more of the items just below, imagine what it would feel like for you to have the freedom not to:

Press your point home
Struggle to get someone to change his or her mind
Have a second drink. Or a first one.
Worry what other people think about you
React to what is swirling around you
Act on an impulse
Get into an argument
Be swept along by anger
Identify with a mood or point of view passing through awareness
Take something personally
Take responsibility for the experiences of other people
Criticize yourself for not being able to fit into a pair of jeans
Resist what’s unpleasant
Drive toward what’s pleasant
Cling to what’s heartfelt

For one or more of the items just above, imagine how your greater freedom would help others. Also, let others be freer themselves with you; give them room to breathe, time to think and feel.

Faced with things that grab you in daily life, play with phrases like these in your mind: I’m free not to . . . I’m free not to __________ . . . I’m free . . . there is choice . . . Slow things down, pause, buy yourself some time, that space of freedom between stimulus and response. If others are getting intense, try gently talking to yourself, reminding yourself: You are free . . . you can choose your response . . . they are over there and you are over here . . . there is a freedom . . .

Notice what it’s like to feel freer. Enjoy it. Let this experience sink in.

Be at peace.

What are you bracing against?

August 1, 2013

Rick Hanson PhD

on practice

The title of this practice is a little tongue-in-cheek. What I mean is, most of us – me included – spend time worrying about criticism: past, present, and even future. Yes, try hard, keep agreements, “don’t be evil,” etc. But sooner or later – usually sooner – someone is going to point out the error in your ways. Often in subtle versions that still have an implicit criticism, such as giving advice, helping or teaching when you don’t really need it, making corrections, comparing you negatively to others, or focusing on the one tile in the mosaic of your actions that’s problematic while staying mum about the 99 other good tiles.

In other words, criticism is unavoidable. Sometimes we take it in with good grace, other times it stings, and sometimes both are true. As profoundly social human animals, it is natural for criticism to sting sometimes. But whatever sting is inherent, we add to this pain with the jabs we give ourselves.

This “bonus pain” – a self-inflicted wound – includes continuing the criticism inside your head long after the other person has moved on. Or pounding on yourself way out of proportion to what happened; on the highly technical 0-10 Messing Up Silly Scale (MUSS), what you did was a 2 but on the related 0-10 Fiercely Undoing Self-worth Scale (FUSS), you are lambasting yourself at a 5 or even 10: not fair at all. Or ignoring all your many other good qualities – the other 99 tiles – while ruminating about the criticism.

We also jab ourselves with needless pain when we brace ourselves against possible future criticism, or play needlessly small to avoid it. In many cases, the criticism is never going to happen or it’s very unlikely or even if it did happen it would not be a big deal. We tend to transfer into adulthood expectations we acquired as children, or as younger adults. Maybe there was a lot of criticism from someone back then but you’re probably in a different place today. I’ve spent way too much of my life hunkering down or over-preparing to preempt an anticipated shaming attack . . . that would not occur anyway.

And even if the criticism does come, will it actually be the terrible experience you dread? Usually not. You can roll with it, take what’s useful, form your own conclusions about the person making the criticism, learn and move on. Accepting criticism as inevitable and refusing to live under its shadow will free you up and make you happier.
How?

When criticism, even subtle, comes your way, pause and try to sort it out in your own mind so you’re sure you understand it. Sometimes criticism is narrow and specific, but often it’s vague, general, and has multiple things mixed up in it (e.g., some statements are accurate but others are exaggerated, tone, content, rationale, values). Slow down the interaction so it doesn’t go off the rails. The ancient emotion centers in the brain get about a two second head start over the more recent logical centers, so buy yourself some time for all the resources inside your head to come on line. Meanwhile, shore yourself up by thinking about people who like or love you, and by remembering some of the many ways you do good and are good.

Once you understand the criticism in its parts and aspects, make your own unilateral decision about it. A fair amount of the criticism that comes your way is flat out mistaken. The other person is wrong on the facts or doesn’t understand the larger context. Think of the many scientific theories that were initially scorned but have proven correct over time.

Of the criticism that remains, some is preferences or values disguised as thoughtful suggestions. For example, when you’re driving, suppose the passenger says you should slow down or speed up when actually you are perfectly safe and the other person just likes it slower or faster. Some people value closeness more than others; just because you like more cave time than your partner doesn’t make you cold or rejecting; nor is your partner smothering or controlling; it’s just a difference in values: grounds for inquiry, compassion, and negotiation, but not criticism.

Another chunk of criticism coming at you is thoughtful suggestions disguised as moral fault finding; now your passenger says you should be ashamed of yourself for endangering others when in fact all you need to do is back off another couple of car lengths from the car in front of you on the freeway; you’re not reckless but could be more skillful.

Then there is that which is worthy of healthy remorse. It’s up to you to decide what this part is. Feel what’s appropriate, learn the lesson, make amends if they’re called for, know that you’ve done what you could, ask yourself how much remorse or shame you’d want a friend to bear who did whatever you did, and then see if you can ask no more or less from yourself.

Knowing that you can handle criticism in these ways, let yourself be more open to it. Don’t stonewall or intimidate others who have a criticism for you; then it just festers or bursts out in other ways.

But also don’t walk on eggshells to avoid trouble (unless you’re in a dangerous situation, which is a different sort of problem) or obsess or over-plan to make sure you make no mistakes. A close friend is an extremely successful professor at a top-of-the-food-chain elite university, and I asked him once what led to his success. He said that while his colleagues/competitors were perfecting their one paper, he was finishing three of his own; one of these would be rejected for publication, one would come back with corrections he could make, and one would be accepted immediately; then when the inevitable criticisms did come down the road, he’d already moved on to his next three papers.

Mostly, just recognize that criticism in its various forms and flavors (and smells) is a fact of life. So be it. Our lives and this world have bigger problems, and much bigger opportunities. Time to live more bravely and freely.

Reflections on pleasure, beauty and blessings

January 1, 2012

Saddhamala

on practice

We live in a culture where the pursuit of pleasure is alive and flourishing. We work hard and we seek relief and escape that we find in many different ways, many pleasurable ways.

For some, pleasure is defined as freedom from work, unstructured time, travel, leisure activities, not following a proscribed plan, or leaving responsibilities behind.

Pleasure can be seen as an escape from:

our responsibilities (recreating rather than working)
things that are “good” for us (eating chocolate rather than a salad) or
things that benefit us (taking a day off from exercising).

We many see exercise or meditation in this way, activities that we “should” do.

For many years I struggled in my meditation practice. I struggled because I believed that meditation should be a way to free my mind of thoughts and I should enter a state of bliss. My meditations were not like that.

Rather than a quiet mind, my sitting meditations consisted of list-making, obsessive thinking and attempting to follow a structure, like counting breaths, letting go of thoughts, and putting thoughts aside until the meditation was finished.

Those forms of meditation were not helpful for me. I felt frustrated and I felt as though I had failed to meditate correctly.

I started thinking about mindfulness and how to apply it in my daily life. As I practiced mindfulness off the cushion, my intuition told me it was a form of meditation that suited me. I instinctively knew that I would benefit by practicing mindfulness, that I would learn about myself and become more aware, kinder, more honest and more generous to myself and others.

Then I read a comment about mindfulness that helped me to commit to this practice without feeling like I should do it but rather I want to do it. I read that mindfulness is pleasurable in itself, and I found it to be true.

Tasks previously considered mundane, repetitive or unimportant, when done mindfully, became pleasurable. Sitting with a friend is pleasurable. Driving to work early in the morning became pleasurable. Even sitting in meetings, when mindful, became pleasurable.

Mindfulness, being fully in the present moment, giving full attention to what I do is truly pleasurable. Mindlessness, running on automatic pilot, doing one thing and wishing to do something else or be somewhere else is the opposite of pleasurable.

Being a person who loves pleasure, and experiencing the pleasure of mindfulness made the practice something I wanted to commit to and has become a way of life for me. When I am mindful, I am living life fully, in the present moment and even during difficult times, I see beauty, blessings and wisdom that is always present.

When I am mindful, my mind is quiet and my heart is open and I find great pleasure in that. I wish the same for you.

Is there a link between gratitude and happiness?

February 5, 2011

Saddhamala

on practice

Research suggests that people who feel gratitude benefit in the following ways. They’re:

1. happier
2. less depressed
3. less stressed
4. more satisfied with their lives and social relationships
5. aware of their purpose in life
6. self confident
7. positive
8. able to cope with the difficulties in positive ways
9. more likely to seek support from other people, and
10. able to learn and grow from their experiences.

It has been said that gratitude is strongly linked with mental health. Several times in my life I have kept a gratitude journal, in which I have written about five things I was grateful for each day. I kept this journal on my computer in the form of writing an email to a friend each evening with my list of things I was grateful for. Many times I felt grateful for more than five things.

It is so easy to focus on circumstances or people whom we are disappointed in. Continually thinking about negative people and situations results in feeling depressed, angry, annoyed, irritable, and generally cranky. We talk to our friends looking for justification for feeling this negativity which just makes us feel worse.

The habit of writing in a gratitude journal each evening is a way of focusing our attention on what is positive in our lives. It also helps us to look for things to be grateful for during the day. Gratitude enters our consciousness and directs our minds towards positivity.

Some of the items in my gratitude journal are: healthy children, dear friends, a sweet cottage to live in, the pond by my cottage, freedom to explore creativity, work that I have enjoyed or not enjoyed but learned from, finding spiritual practice that inspires me, appreciation for beauty in nature and in people, a sense of aesthetics, enjoying simple pleasures, simplifying my life, taking time to really listen to people, cooking for myself and my friends, good movies, good popcorn to munch while I watch the good movies, instances which have been very difficult that have taught me about myself, kayaking, dancing, sunsets, small acts of kindness, strolling through museums, looking at a photograph of the Dalai Lama, availability of books, the ocean, pristine snow covered woods, giving and receiving gifts and especially gifts from the heart, observed acts of generosity and kindness.

Remembering all these things lifts my heart. It is easy to understand how gratitude is responsible for the positive and healthy characteristics of people who feel it. We spend so much time looking for things to make ourselves happy – and all we really have to do is appreciate what is all around us each and every day.

freedom

First, the calamity

Next, the gratitude

Democracy Is Under Threat

Reasons to Have Faith In Democracy

1. Liberal Democracies Are More Peaceful

2. Liberal Democracy Allows for Material Flourishing

3. Liberal Democracy Allows for Emotional and Spiritual Flourishing

4. Liberal Democracies are Tolerant of Spiritual Exploration

We Are the Majority

Moral compasses can shift

Also see:

Shift happens

Binding our minds to the good

Ethics as a free choice

Ethics as a mirror

Keep looking up

Our crumbling democracy

Aim higher

The Buddha Often Taught In Terms of Contrasting Options

The Buddha Explained In Detail How Choice Happens

Choice Is Karma

He Pointed Out That Our Choices Are Limited

Choices Are Limited By the Preceding Conditions

This Principle Is Called Conditionality (Paṭicca Samuppāda)

How Does Choice Happen Within Conditionality?

See also:

What Is Freedom?

Wiggle Room Within Conditionality

There Is No Self To Have Free Will

Ignore Free Will