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Accepting the Rain to Accept the Sunshine
The human mind has moments when it is as clear as a cloudless blue sky, but also times when it is gloomy, filled with anxiety and sorrow. When facing an unpleasant mental formation, we can practice the method of changing the peg by bringing up another, positive mental formation to replace it, similar to a carpenter replacing a rotten wooden peg or a television viewer using a remote control to change the channel. In our consciousness, there are up to 51 different channels, and this switching can be done by ourselves through the breath, sutras, poems, or with the help and watering from fellow practitioners in the Sangha.
Instead of hastily chasing away or exiling feelings of sadness, the practitioner should choose to embrace and make friends with them based on the insight of non-duality. A good gardener always knows how to keep the garbage to make compost to nourish flowers and fruits, because if there are flowers, there must be garbage. Happiness is not the complete absence of suffering; on the contrary, suffering and pain are the very materials needed for us to experience the value of peace and liberation.
The attitude of not running away helps the mind become at ease even during the stormy days of our emotions. As taught by Bhikkhuni Dieu Nhan, hastily seeking liberation from the natural course of things only makes us more bound:
- Birth.
- Old age.
- Sickness.
- Death.
When we know how to accept and smile at all mental states as a natural occurrence, we can find happiness right in the heart of our gloomy feelings without having to destroy or run away from them.
