Judy Lief

Buddhism – Shambhala – Profound Treasury – Making Friends with Death

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Blog 38: Don’t Seek Others’ Pain as the Limbs of Your own Happiness

December 9, 2014 By Judy Lief

38. Don’t seek others’ pain as the limbs of your own happiness.
It is embarrassing realize how much of our own happiness seems to be based on the suffering of other beings. Even worse, we find that at times we go so far as to hope that someone else suffers, because we know that we will benefit from their pain. We hope that someone else will lose, so that we can win. We develop a kind of dog-eat-dog, or your-pain-my gain mentality.

This slogan is about exploitation. It is about taking advantage of others in order to maintain our wealth and privilege. It could also be applied to our attitude to our mother earth. It is about the habit of take take take, with no gratitude, and with blindness as to the consequences.

When we recognize the extent to which we base our own happiness on the pain of other beings, our so-called happiness is threatened. It begins to ring hollow. So we cover up this reality in a cloud of vague ignorance. We act as though our good fortune is simply our due and has nothing to do with any one else’s problems or suffering. But often, in fact, the two are inextricably interconnected.

According to this slogan, if our happiness is based on the suffering of others, if that is the only way to maintain it, it cannot be true happiness. Our so-called happiness is both tainted and flimsy. So once again, as in so many other slogans, the habit of putting ourselves first and looking out for number one is shown to be a completely dysfunctinal approach. It is a false hope, a phony and a fraud.

Today’s practice

Whether you think of yourself as privileged or as underprivileged, contemplate the effect of buying into the paradigm that increasing your happiness depends on decreasing the happiness of others.

 

Upcoming Events: Profound Treasury Retreat

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8th Annual PROFOUND TREASURY RETREAT at Saco, Maine 

June 12-24 at Ferry Beach Conference Center, Saco, Maine

 

Living Dharma: The Joy and Challenge of Joining Practice and Action

 

 

“Mindfulness practice is not just about what is happening to you individually and personally—it is about how much you are going to transmit your sanity and your insanity to the rest of the world.”—Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

 

“If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.”  Charlie Parker

 

Living Dharma

The Joy and Challenge of Joining Practice and Action

 

In these times of turmoil, it’s important to reflect on ways to bring our lifestyle and our actions into greater accord with the dharma.   If your life does not reflect your practice, what is the point of meditation and study?

 

The time spent in sitting meditation is much less than the time spent going about our everyday lives. Therefore, postmeditation practice is essential. The combination of meditation and postmeditation makes our practice complete—running through our entire life rather than something we turn on and off.

 

In this class, we will focus on the challenges of living a dharmic life, and how they are addressed in the three stages of the Tibetan Buddhist path.  We will work with the foundational or hinayana guidelines for living life with simplicity and contentment. We will study mahayana teachings on how to activate compassion and benefit others. Finally, we will explore vajrayana teachings on how to engage more freshly and spontaneously by cutting hesitation and fixed views.

 

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Topics include:

The three essentials: discipline, meditation, and wisdom

Refraining from harm: working with the five precepts

Being of benefit: practicing the paramitas

Overcoming hesitation: engaging with the four karmas

Obstacles, mistakes, and fresh starts

 

From Judy’s Blog

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Judy Lief • 802-598-5832 • judy@judylief.com