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How to overcome your difficulties
How to Overcome your Difficulties
By
K. Sri Dhammananda
Worry and fear
Are you worried? Are you miserable? If so, you are invited to read this booklet. The
theme of this booklet is dedicated to you and to those who worry themselves unduly –
even unto death!
Worries and miseries are twin evils that go hand in hand. They co-exist in this world. If
you feel worried, you are miserable! If you are miserable, you are worried. We must face
facts. Although we cannot run away from them, we must not let these twin evils of worry
and misery overcome us. We must overcome them. We can do so by our own human
efforts, correctly directed with determination and patience. With proper understanding
and carefully applied intelligence, we should be able to subdue our emotional feelings
and do away with worries and miseries.
Our worries are of our own making. We create them in our own minds, through our
inability or failure to understand the danger of our egoistic feelings and our inflated and
false values of things. If only we could see things in their proper perspective in that
nothing is permanent in this world and that our own egoistic self is our wild imagination
running riot in our untrained mind, we should be going a long way to finding the remedy
to eradicate our worries and miseries. We must cultivate our minds and hearts to forget
about self and to be of service and use to humanity. This is one of the means whereby
we can find real peace and happiness.
Many people have longings and hankering, fear and anxieties which they have not learnt
to sublimate and are ashamed to admit them even to themselves. But these
unwholesome emotions have force. No matter how we may try to bottle them up they
seek a release by disordering the physical machinery resulting in chronic illnesses. All
these can be repelled by correct methods of meditation or mental culture, because the
untrained mind is the main cause of such worries.
Whenever you have worries in your mind, don’t show your sulky face to each and every
person you come across. You should reveal your worries only to those who really can
help you. How nice it would be if you could maintain your smiling face in spite of all the
difficulties confronting you. This is not very difficult if only you really try. Many teenagers
worry too much when their friendship with the opposite sex is lost. They often plan even
to commit suicide compelled by the plight of frustration and disappointment. Some find
place in lunatic asylums. Many such broken-hearted youths lead miserable lives. All
these unfortunate events happen due to a lack of understanding the real nature of life.
Somehow or other departure or separation is unavoidable. This may happen sometimes
at the beginning of a life career; sometimes in the middle and sometimes at the end; it is
certainly unavoidable. When such things happen one must try to find out where the
cause lies. However, if the separation is beyond control one must have the courage to
bear it out by realising the nature of life. But on the other hand it is not difficult for anyone
to find new friends, to fill the vacuum if one really wants to.
1
“Wheresoever fear arises, it arises in the fool, not in the wise man”
says the Buddha.
Fears are nothing more than states of mind. One’s state of mind is subject to control and
direction; the negative use of thoughts produces out fears; the positive use realises our
hopes and ideals, and in these cases the choice rests entirely with ourselves. Every
human being has the ability to completely control his own mind. Nature has endowed
man with absolute control over but one thing, and that is thought. This fact, coupled with
the additional fact that everything which man creates begins in the form of a thought,
leads one very near to the principle by which fear may be mastered.
A noted British anatomist was once asked by a student what was the best cure for fear,
and he answered,
“Try doing something for someone”.
The student was considerably astonished by the reply, and requested further
enlightenment whereupon his instructor said,
“You can’t have two opposing sets of
thoughts in your mind at one and the same time”.
One set of thoughts will always drive
the other out. If, for instance, your mind is completely occupied with an unselfish desire
to help someone else, you can’t be harbouring fear at the same time.
“Worry dries up the blood sooner than the age.” Fears, worries and anxieties in
moderation are natural instincts of self-preservation. But constant fear and prolonged
worry are unfailing enemies to the human organism. They derange the normal bodily
functions.
If you have learned how to please others, you always will be in a good mood. This is
because your mind does not allow worries to be accommodated in it.
The voice of nature
For the sake of material gain modern man does not listen to the voice of nature. His
mental activities are so preoccupied with his future happiness that he neglects the needs
of his physical body and entirely forgets the present moment for what it is worth. This
unnatural behaviour of contemporary man is that immediate result of his wrong
conceptions of World Order, of human life and its ultimate purpose. It is the cause of all
the frustration, anxiety, fear and insecurity of our present times. One who really likes to
have peace should not disturb another man’s freedom. It is a wrong method to seek
happiness by disturbing and deceiving others.
“You can deceive some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but
you cannot deceive all of the people all of the time.” (Abraham Lincoln)
If man is cruel and wicked, always lives against the laws of nature and the cosmos;
through his acts, words and thoughts, he pollutes the whole atmosphere. As a result of
such misdeeds and thoughts, nature may not produce things which man requires for his
living but instead man may be faced with epidemics and various kinds of disasters.
If, on the other hand, man lives in accordance with this natural law, leads a righteous
way of life, purifies the atmosphere through the merits of his virtues and radiates his
loving kindness towards other living beings, he can change the atmosphere in order to
bring about better results for the happiness of man.
2
You may be a very modern busy man, but don’t forget to spend at least a few minutes a
day in reading some valuable books. This habit will give you a lot of relief and enable
you to forget your worries and to develop your mind. At the same time you have to
remember that you have a religion also. Religion is for your own benefit. Therefore it is
your duty to think about your religion and to spare a few minutes a day for the
performance of your religious duties.
Mental health and criminal tendencies
In relation to health, it is not T. B., or even cancer, that is the most alarming of the
ailments of our age. T. B. is now almost under control, and there is every hope that a
cure for cancer will be found in the near future. Actually, the most alarming of all is the
prevalence and increase in all kinds of mental ailments and disturbances. We are forced
to build more and more hospitals and institutions for the mentally sick and neuroses of
various kinds. There are many more who do not receive any treatment, but who are in
need of it badly.
It may be asked why the criminal element within our society is mentioned in the same
breath with the mentally afflicted. One of the positive and far-reaching results stemming
directly from the research work of Freud is the recognition that criminals and delinquents
are also mentally sick people, more in need of treatment than punishment. It is this
liberal outlook on the problem that lays the basis of all “progressive” social reform, and
opens up the way for reclamation rather than revenge.
Know Thy neighbour
We never see how other people live; we may not even know anything about the lives of
people of different social levels from ourselves or of lesser or greater wealth. If we are
healthy we cannot know what it is like to be sick and if we are invalids we cannot
understand the energy of the strong.
Such lack of experience makes for intolerance, because tolerance is born only of
understanding and without experience there can be no understanding. Hence it is a
good thing for us to get as wide an experience as is possible of all aspects of life, and
especially to travel and let us make sure we do not always travel in luxury!
Man’s unhappiness
Buddha taught that all man’s unhappiness comes from wanting the wrong sort of things,
the pleasures that money can buy, power over other men, and, most important of all, to
go on living forever after one is dead. The desire for these things makes people selfish,
he said, so that they come to think only of themselves, want things only for themselves,
and not mind overmuch what happens to other people. And since they do not get all their
wishes, they are restless and discontented. The only way to avoid this restlessness is to
get rid of the desires that cause it. This is very difficult; but when a man achieves it, he
reaches a state of perfection and calm.
3
* We did not enjoy pleasures but were ourselves overcome by pleasures (i.e. by endless
anxiety in seeking those pleasures all our energies were sapped). We suffer more than
we enjoy in seeking the pleasures of this phenomenal world.
Time will heal our wounds
Trouble passes. What has caused you to burst into tears today will soon be forgotten;
you may remember that you cried but it is unlikely that you will remember what you cried
about! As we grow up and go through life, if we remember this we shall often be
surprised to find how we lie awake at night brooding something that has happened to
upset us during the day, or how we nurse resentment against someone and keep on
letting the same thoughts run through our minds about how we are going to have our
own back against the person who has harmed us. We may fall into a rage over
something and later wonder what it was we were so angry about. And being surprised,
we can realise what a waste of time and energy it has all been, and how we have
deliberately gone on being unhappy when we could have stopped it and started to think
about something else.
Whatever our troubles, however grievous they may appear, time will heal our wounds.
But surely there must be something we can do to prevent ourselves from being hurt in
the first place. Why should we allow people and troubles to drain our energy and make
us unhappy? The answer is, of course, that they do not, it is we who make ourselves
unhappy.
You may have had some trouble in your office or the place where you work but you
should not bring or extend such troubles to your home and create a bad atmosphere.
You should realise that there is a cure or an end to those problems and troubles which
are to be found by achieving freedom from our selfish desires and by eradicating all
forms of confusion and ignorance.
Whenever we fail to find a solution to any problem, we are inclined to find a scapegoat,
someone against whom we can vent our grievance. We are not prepared to admit our
own shortcomings. We feel it is easier to put the blame on others and to nurture a
grievance against someone. In fact, some of us take pleasure in so doing. This is a
completely wrong attitude. We must not show resentment or to be angry towards others.
We should do our utmost, painstakingly and calmly, to resolve our own problems. We
must be prepared to face up to any difficulties that we may encounter.
Happiness and materialism
Many people believe they can solve all their problems if only they have money; but they
fail to realise that money itself has its attendant problems. Money alone cannot solve all
problems.
Many people never learn this and all their lives they rush about using all their energy
trying to collect may more “gadgets”, and when they have them they find that these do
not satisfy them, but they must have other “things and more gadgets”. In fact, the more
they have the more they desire to have; so they can never be happy or content.
4
The following advice gives us tremendous consolation to make up our mind when we
lose something:-
“Say not that this is yours and that is mine,
Just say, this came to you and that to me,
So we may not regret the fading shine,
Of all the glorious things which ceased to be.”
Wealth is not something for you to dump somewhere and to crave for. It is for you to
make use of for your welfare as well as others. If you spend your time by only clinging to
your property without even fulfilling your obligations towards your country, your people
and your religion you may find that when the time comes for you to leave, this world will
still be plagued with worries. You will not be benefited with that property which you have
so painstakingly collected.
To hope for wealth and gain through gambling is like hoping for shelter from the sun
through the clouds, whereas to hope for progress and prosperity through diligence in
work is like building a permanent house as a shelter from the sun and rain.
“Your property will remain when you die. Your friends and relatives will follow you up
to your grave. But only good or bad actions you have done during your life-time will
follow you beyond the grave.”
Many things that we hope will give us pleasure are disappointing when we get them, like
the three wishes in the fairy tale, it sounds nice to have a lot of money but if we get it we
may find that it brings us worry in deciding how to use it or how to protect it, or we may
be led to act foolishly. The rich man begins to wonder if his friends value him for himself
or for his money, and this is another form of mental sorrow. And there is always the fear
of losing what we have, whether it be possessions or some beloved person. So when
we are honest and look closely at what we call “happiness” we find that it is a kind of
mirage in the mind, never fully grasped, never complete, or at the best, accompanied by
fear of loss.
Your wealth can decorate only your house but not you. Only your own virtue can
decorate you. Your dress can decorate your body but not you. Only your good conduct
can decorate you.
The method that people should adopt to gain happiness must be a harmless one. There
is no meaning in enjoying happiness by causing suffering to another person or any other
living being. Buddha says:
“Blessed are they who
earn their living without harming
others.”
“Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on
yourself.”
You may not be able to change the world according to your wishes but you may be able
to change your heart to find happiness.
It is only when you have suffered through doing good that you can achieve a greater
happiness than others.
5
Plik z chomika:
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