What You Can Learn from 2,500 Years of Buddhist Wisdom

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Arguably the most important figure in Western psychology was Sigmund Freud, who developed his psychoanalytic theory of the mind about 130 years ago. And arguably the most important figure in Eastern psychology was a man we call the Buddha, who lived and taught in Northern India around 2,400 years before that. Let’s think about that for a moment. Over two millennia before Freud saw his first patient, the Buddha and his followers had created a rich, sophisticated theory of the mind and how it worked.

Long before Freud’s ideas about neuroses and how to cure them, Buddhist psychology gave us a step-by-step guide to freeing ourselves from dukkha, which is the Pali (the language of the Buddha) word for suffering. As the Buddha himself said: ‘I teach one thing and one thing only – dukkha and the end of dukkha.’

It’s important to note at this point that you don’t have to be a Buddhist to find these ideas helpful. In fact, you don’t need to have any interest in Buddhism at all! One of the reasons I am so enamoured with Buddhism is that it’s very different from religions like Judaism or Catholicism. For starters, the Buddha was just a human being, not a god. And although many Buddhists do believe in transcendent ideas like karma, heaven, hell and reincarnation, I don’t think that was the Buddha’s point, really. It was more that he existed in a time when these ideas were normal and universally accepted, like we believe in gravity, or the nutritional benefit of vitamins. They were the zeitgeist of his age.

As I have written before in these posts, if I had to name my particular brand of spirituality it would be to call myself a Buddhist atheist. I believe in Buddhism. I think it’s a wonderful theoretical framework for understanding the mind – and especially what can go wrong with it. I also believe that the Buddha was a real person, a great psychologist, teacher and healer, like Jesus. But I don’t believe in heaven and hell, or reincarnation, or any of the more mystical, religious stuff. If you do believe in those things, of course that’s absolutely fine – I’m not saying I am right, it’s just how I was raised and educated to perceive the world.

How Buddhist psychology can help you

Most of my readers are either struggling with mental-health problems, or trying to help people with these problems. And whether you are a client, therapist or concerned family member, there is so much in Buddhism you might find helpful. Let’s circle back to that idea of dukkha – like all Pali words, there is debate about the exact English translation, but suffering is close enough. In his Four Noble Truths, the Buddha taught (not wrote, as his was a time before books and paper) that to live a human life is inherently painful. Pain is unavoidable, for a whole host of reasons, but one of the simplest is that we are all mortal. We will all age, get sick and eventually die. This is, of course, the hardest truth we all have to face – but facing it is both important and healthy, as once we accept this idea we can get on with maximising our brief but wondrous existence on this planet.

So we can’t avoid pain. But the Buddha then explained that we can avoid suffering, because most suffering is human-made. He gave the famous example of twin arrows – the first arrow is something painful, like injuring your knee playing football. This just hurts – it’s called ‘the pain of pain’ – so there’s not much we can do about that except to rest it, use ice, see a physio, and so on. But what the human mind does is then create more pain by trying to avoid or push away the original pain. We think, ‘Why is this always happening to me? I’m so unlucky! God, I hate my life,’ or ‘I can’t stand this pain, it’s unbearable! These painkillers aren’t touching the sides, let me go back to the doctor and get some oxycontin, quick.’

In the first example, we now add feelings of frustration, anger and bitterness to the physical pain. In the second, we are desperately trying to avoid the pain at all costs, which can be a slippery slope to addiction – especially with opioids. In the Buddha’s teaching, it’s like we then shoot ourselves with a second arrow. And so physical pain becomes emotional suffering.

If not the arrow, then what?

Another wonderful thing about Buddhism is the emphasis on developing positive mental states, which anyone can do with enough persistence and determined effort. These include metta (loving-kindness), karuna (compassion), mudita (sympathetic joy) and upekkha (equanimity). These four ‘sublime states’ build on each other, offering a profound sense of peace, calm and protection from the inevitable pain of life. If you would like to know more, I strongly recommend the wonderful Sharon Salzberg’s classic book, Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. Sharon is a world-leading expert on metta and how to develop it – it’s her USP.

She explains that, instead of shooting ourselves with that second arrow whenever life hurts or disappoints us, we can learn to treat ourselves kindly, patiently and warmly. This is like a soothing balm for the first-arrow wound, which helps it heal. Of course, this is not easy! Take it from a long-term meditator and student of Buddhism. Developing these beneficial mental states is not a simple thing, or I wouldn’t have to meditate every day.

But it is possible. And this is another great gift from that remarkable teacher 2,500 years ago – he gave us concrete tools and strategies we could all use – monastic or lay Buddhist, Christian or atheist – to transform our mind. Two of the (deceptively) simplest of these tools are developing mindfulness and metta, so here are two of my Insight Timer practices for doing just that:

• Mindfulness of Breath: 10 Minutes (a good place to start if you’re fairly new to mindfulness practice)

• Loving-Kindness Meditation: Three Stages (also useful if you’re new to metta practice)

I hope you find them helpful – and wish you ever-increasing peace and happiness as you follow your own unique path to healing, whatever that may be. And this is my last post before Christmas, so wishing you all a wonderful holiday season. Rest, recuperate, recharge and I will be in touch in the new year.

Love,

Dan ❤️

To Find Greater Inner Peace, Let Go of Hate

Image by Mattia Faloretti

I have long been interested in Buddhism, both personally and professionally, because the Buddha’s teachings offer such a rich, deep seam of wisdom, knowledge, love and compassion. And you can draw on that wisdom even if, like me, you are not a religious person. It seems clear that the Buddha was a real person, living in northern India around 2,500 years ago. He was a teacher, psychologist and healer, who laid out a system of thought and principles for living that offered freedom from suffering – which all humans naturally seek, Buddhist or not.

Despite my longstanding interest, having been raised as an atheist, it’s hard for me to fully immerse myself in Buddhism. I don’t believe in the afterlife, heaven and hell, reincarnation or many of the more esoteric practices that some schools of Buddhism embrace. One of the best descriptions for my particular spiritual path is that I’m a ‘Buddhist atheist’, a term coined by the former monk and brilliant teacher Stephen Batchelor (if you haven’t read his books, I strongly recommend them – his Confession of a Buddhist Atheist is a great place to start).

But I do try to live my life according to the five Buddhist precepts, which are:

1. Not killing (anything at all, which is why most Buddhists are vegetarian).

2. Not stealing (anything from committing major fraud to avoiding paying tax).

3. Not misusing sex (having affairs, using pornography, being sexually inappopriate in any way).

4. Not engaging in false speech (not lying, essentially).

5. Not indulging in intoxicants (not drinking alcohol or taking drugs that lead to ‘heedless behaviour’, meaning saying or doing something you would not do when mindful and sober).

These deceptively simple guidelines are incredibly helpful if you are trying to live an ethical life, and be a force for good in the world. One of the many reasons I like Buddhism is that these precepts are guidelines, not commandments – it’s a good idea to follow them, but if you make a mistake there’s no need to beat yourself up. The Buddha would definitely not want that.

Try letting go of hate

We live in a world where hatred and anger seem to proliferate, from the many awful wars raging across the globe to the rise of the far right, hating, demonising and othering refugees and people of colour, the LGBQT community and anyone who seems somehow different to them. As I elaborated in a recent post about the far-right riots in the UK this summer, this fear gets ruthlessly exploited by unscrupulous politicians and other bad actors. On my less-optimistic days, I despair about the levels of anger and fear we see around the world.

But there is a small, positive act you can take, today, both to help yourself and create a ripple of positivity in your family, community, society and the world. And that is to delete the word ‘hate’ from your vocabulary. I did this a few years ago and it really seemed to help. As I adopted the five precepts and thought deeply about how I operated in the world, I started noticing how often I thought or said I hated things. Those unscrupulous politicians. Traffic. People who hurt animals. Racism. Violence. Bullying.

Just a constant stream of micro-hatreds throughout the day. Often in my own head, so the only person I was hurting was myself. The Buddha called hatred a ‘poison of the mind’. Such a powerful phrase, because if you think about what’s going on inside when you are hating, it really feels that way, doesn’t it? Hatred is a corrosive emotion that feels bitter, hostile, dividing the world into people or things that are good, lovable, to be embraced and approved of; and people or things that are bad, wrong, to be rejected and hated.

I really got what the Buddha meant, on a deep level, so I just stopped using the word hate, in my thoughts and speech. And I felt a little lighter. A bit less angry, frustrated and tense. With less of a tendency to see everything through binary lenses of good vs bad, like vs dislike. Even far-right politicians – who are definitely not my favourite people – are just scared. Scared of change, of losing power and control, of the beautiful and unstoppable forces of multiculturalism, progress and change. They know the world is changing and they really, really don’t like that, because it makes them feel powerless and frightened. So they use hate as a way to feel powerful again.

The practice

If you would like to stem the flow of poison in your mind, try changing your language today. Another simple change is to stop using any bad names about yourself, like stupid, weak, useless or failure. This is another poison, which constantly saps your self-esteem and self-worth. You are none of those things – you are a complex, beautiful, multifaceted human being doing the best you can to navigate this tricky thing we call life.

You have strengths and weaknesses, good days and bad, areas in which you thrive and others where you struggle. Just like me – and the eight billion other humans with whom we share the planet. Let go of hating others, but also let go of hating yourself. You don’t deserve it. In fact, as the Burmese monk Mahasi Sayadaw says, ‘A person who deserves more love and affection than one’s own self, in any place or anywhere, cannot be found.’

I hope that helps. And that you have a blessed day.

Love,

Dan ❤️

The Buddha Taught Us How to Avoid Turning Pain into Suffering

Image by Abhijeet Gourav

I turn 56 in a couple of months and, although there are many things I like about growing older, there are some definite drawbacks. Wrinkles, back pain and various minor health ailments – none of these are much fun. But the biggest drawback for me is the change in my sleep pattern. And especially my brain’s newfound trick of waking me up at 5am every day, for no apparent reason.

I really need my sleep. Eight hours every night would be good, but nine is probably my sleep sweet spot. Six hours, which I got last night, really doesn’t do it for me. I’m currently on my fourth coffee of the day, which helps, but is no substitute for a good night’s sleep.

My eyes feel kind of scratchy, everything is a bit of a struggle and it’s hard to escape the feeling that you’re dragging yourself through the day, waiting for that glorious moment when you can go back to bed and hope for a better slumber tonight. This is all a bit painful, especially because I understand the increasingly persuasive science around the importance of sleep for our mental and physical health.

Turning pain into suffering

Luckily, I know enough about Buddhist psychology to understand how not to turn this pain into suffering. This was one of the Buddha’s many great insights – he taught that human life is inherently painful. We all get older, every day. There is nothing we can do about that, however much we might dislike it or slather on anti-ageing potions to hold on to our youthful looks. And with age often comes illness. Again, there is a lot we can do to prevent that, but some illnesses will inevitably come with advancing years.

The biggest, scariest truth we all have to face is that one day this will all come to an end. This is the hardest thing that any human has to grapple with – we are not immortal and so our time on this planet is finite.

All of this brings pain in the form of stress, worry, anxiety, sadness and other difficult emotions. And this pain is inevitable, to a greater or lesser extent – we can’t get rid of or avoid it completely, however hard we try. But the Buddha also taught that we then turn this inevitable pain into avoidable suffering through the way we respond to the initial discomfort.

He famously used the metaphor of a first and second arrow to explain this to his followers. When we feel pain, it’s as if we are hit by an arrow – this hurts, of course. But when, for example, we feel loneliness as our ‘first-arrow’ pain, but then start thinking, ‘I can’t stand feeling lonely, it’s the worst feeling in the world,’ or, ‘God, I’m so lonely – and I always will be. I just know I will never find someone to love,’ we add the second arrow of suffering.

Just feeling the pain is enough

Knowing this, I have become much more skilled at not turning my first-arrow pain of tiredness into second-arrow suffering. I used to think, ‘Oh man, I am so tired. I just hate this. I know I will feel terrible all day, it will affect my work and I won’t be 100% in my sessions today, which means I am letting my clients down…’ and on it would go, until I felt thoroughly depressed, on top of the tiredness.

Now – today, for example – I just think, ‘Oh well, I’m just tired. It’s not the worst thing in the world. Many people are suffering greatly right now, so this isn’t that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.’ And… I just feel tired. No depression. No unpleasant rumination. I just get on with the day, which seems to go much better.

Now I’m not saying this is easy, especially if the pain you feel is far greater than my relatively mild tired-and-scratchy feeling. Struggling with the impact of trauma, being highly anxious and panicky, or deeply depressed, are clearly much worse and harder to manage. But the same principles do apply – if you can just feel the pain, whatever it is, without piling on a whole load more mental and emotional suffering, you will feel less anxious, less panicky, less depressed.

And if you are feeling some kind of emotional pain right now, this practice I recorded for Insight Timer might help: Soothing Painful Emotions with the Breath.

I hope you do find it helpful – sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

Hatred is a Poison – Don't Let it into Your Heart

Image by Nathan Lindahl

Watching events unfold in Ukraine, our natural empathic response as humans is to feel shocked, upset and overwhelmed at the images we see and stories we read about this terrible war. These are normal, natural emotional responses, so allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling right now. I feel those things too.

It’s also completely natural and understandable to feel angry about what’s happening. And that anger can be a kind of healthy energy that fires us up to help in any way we can, whether that’s donating money, clothes, food or time; signing petitions and writing to our leaders, urging them to act on our behalf; welcoming refugees to our shores in any way we can; or sharing messages of support for the Ukrainian people on social and mainstream media.

Anger is like rocket fuel at times like this, as we refuse to be frightened or cowed and stand up to brutality and injustice – as our parents and grandparents did in the Second World War.

Why hatred doesn’t help

But there is one emotion that, although easy to feel at times like these, is not helpful – and that’s hatred. It can be easy to hate Putin, his inner circle, or the oligarchs who have made vast riches by stealing from the Russian people. We can find ourselves hating the soldiers who drop bombs on helpless civilians. You may find yourself hating people on social media, who express pro-Putin or pro-war sentiments.

It’s easy to do. But, however seductive hatred may be, it won’t help anyone or anything. The Buddha taught us this vital message 2,500 years ago. He called hatred a ‘poison of the mind’, because although it’s easy to feel and can be addictive at times of conflict or strife, it’s also toxic, corrosive and highly destructive to both the hater and hated.

Don’t believe me? Try this thought experiment. Think about a time recently when you hated someone – really hated them, deep down in your guts. If it helps, you can close your eyes and imagine you are right there, living through that experience again. Play it out, moment by moment, reliving everything that went through your mind – all the angry, vengeful or even violent thoughts you had about this hated person.

As you do, see if you can feel what it’s like to hate, in your body. You might feel a great upsurge in energy, a burning sensation in your gut or chest, or a bitter taste in your mouth. Your muscles will be hard and tense, ready for action. Your jaw might be clenched and fists tight. Millions of years of evolution are preparing you to fight, possibly even kill, this person you hate so much.

(I know – or at least very much hope – you have no intention of acting on these feelings, but it’s helpful to remember that this is why we feel them, in evolutionary terms. Hatred is inextricably linked to the fight part of your fight-flight-freeze response.)

The cost of hatred

Doesn’t feel so good, does it? This is what the Buddha meant by hostility and hatred poisoning our minds, because they feel so awful when we experience them. They really do feel poisonous in your mind, heart and body. And when we hate it also distorts everything, focusing all of your energies on the hated person’s negative traits, words or actions, forgetting that they are human too, with a mother and father, friends, perhaps a partner and children. They love and are loved. They’re not evil, or a monster, or some kind of subhuman creature. Even Putin. Even Hitler, Stalin or Mao.

Deeply damaged and so damaging of others? Of course. People who need to be stopped, with every non-violent tool we have at our disposal? Absolutely – we need to stand up to Putin, or he will do even more damage. Personally, I would like to see him tried for war crimes at the International Criminal Court, as well as every other tyrant causing suffering around the world.

Anger? Yes. hatred? No

But I refuse to hate him for what he’s doing in Ukraine, because if I do, he has won. The Dalai Lama teaches that we should never let another person’s behaviour disturb our inner peace. And I am trying to be guided by that wisdom, doing everything in my power to help the Ukraininan people, feeling anger, upset, outrage – but never hatred.

I feel so strongly about this that I long ago made a commitment to stop using the word ‘hate’ in my thoughts or speech (around the time I started learning about Buddhism, by the way).

I won’t let Putin or anyone else make me feel that, or break the commitment I made to myself. I refuse to let my mind be poisoned.

Instead, I am sending deep love, compassion, and a heartfelt hope for peace and an end to their suffering to the people of Ukraine.

And my warmest wishes to you, wherever you may be in the world,

Dan

Please donate to Unicef, who are helping children in Ukraine and those fleeing from the conflict in their country