This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Suffering the Consequences

Good evening. Welcome, welcome. It is nice to see you all. How is the volume? Does it sound okay? I'm not sure if we're live on YouTube, but if we are, welcome to everybody out there also. I had a little bit of technical difficulty earlier.

Maybe before I turn on the recording, I'll just mention that there are conversations about the Omicron variant and whether IMC should consider closing again. No decisions have been made, and right now the plan is to stay open, but I just want to let you know that might change in the next week or two. Just a heads up about that.

So, a really warm welcome. It's nice to practice together. While we were sitting, sometimes we hear the rustle of somebody shifting their posture, and somehow it just made me happy. There are human bodies here, individuals here together, practicing. So, thank you.

Tonight, I want to talk a little bit about something that seems so obvious. It seems like we shouldn't even have to talk about it, and yet there's a way that there can be a depth about it. There can be some real awakening or some new understanding when we really look at it, unpack it, and explore it.

That is this idea that the actions we take—whether they are of body, speech, or mind—have consequences. Whether they are thoughts (I am putting thoughts in there with this category of actions), actions have consequences. There is cause and effect.

This is not anything new to anybody in this room. In fact, I think there's even a physics law about this, right? For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. It's so fundamental that even physicists talk about it.

We know this. If we are dishonest with a friend, and our friend discovers this—or even if they don't discover it—it affects our relationships. If we spend a lot of time being angry at the news, our minds get filled with angry thoughts, and we tend to have a lot of tension and anger inside of us. Of course, there's this teaching that whatever one ponders becomes the inclination of the mind. We are priming the mind to be more readily angry if we are fueling it all the time.

To be sure, some things have little impact on our lives. Maybe it's a small impact where we have to wait in line a little bit longer at the grocery store, for example. Some things have a large impact. If we find ourselves behaving unethically, this could unfold in a way that has a very large impact. If we do a lot of meditation, that can also have a big impact. So some of the consequences are small—they might even be dismissible—and some are large. But there is nothing that doesn't have an impact, and part of Buddhist practice is to thoroughly recognize and understand this.

Of course, things have consequences. But this simple idea, which is now so commonplace for all of us, wasn't so obvious at the time of the Buddha. In fact, there was another non-Buddhist teacher who is described in a number of different places in the suttas. Makkhali Gosāla^[1] would say, "There is no cause or condition for the corruption of beings. There is no cause or condition for the purification of beings. All beings, all living creatures, all sentient beings lack control, power, and energy. Instead, they are molded by destiny, by circumstance, by nature." There was this idea that something out there was responsible for whatever happened to a person. It didn't matter what a person did—there were no consequences.

The Four Noble Truths and Dukkha

But the Buddha's teaching on the Four Noble Truths is the exact opposite. There are consequences. There are a number of different ways we can approach the Four Noble Truths. We can emphasize different parts, and we can translate some of the words a little bit differently, but one way to look at it is that there is dukkha^[2]—the First Noble Truth.

We can translate dukkha as dissatisfaction. Things are just not quite right, and maybe we can't even put our finger on it. It just feels dissatisfying or not perfect. This ranges all the way up to dukkha being the tremendous physical or emotional pain that humans can experience. So dukkha ranges from something not quite being right to great pain. First Noble Truth: there is dukkha.

The Second Noble Truth: there is a cause. Dukkha is a consequence of something else. There is a reason that it's there. It doesn't mean that we know it, or that it's obvious to us, but it does mean that it's not magic, or happening for some reason that has nothing to do with us.

The Third Noble Truth: there is a cessation of dukkha. And Fourth: there is a way leading to this cessation. Practicing this path requires that we recognize there are actions that bring us dukkha, and there are actions that bring us non-dukkha—we might say freedom, peace, or ease. So much about this practice is just recognizing, "Is this going towards dukkha or not? Is it going towards freedom?" We could interpret the Four Noble Truths this way. Without this understanding, it's really difficult to have our lives unfold in a particular way. Everything has consequences, and we can consider whether those consequences lead to more dukkha or less dukkha.

Maybe you are thinking, "Okay, Diana, we know this. This isn't our first dharma talk. We've heard about the Four Noble Truths; we've heard about dukkha." But something I appreciate so much about the dharma is how much depth and breadth there is. When we really explore, we can find something that meets us wherever we are. We hear teachings, we read suttas, we practice again and again, and then sometimes our understanding starts to shift. The way it touches us starts to shift. Even though we might have seen it so many times, we might see it in a new way and understand something we didn't understand before.

I would like to suggest that our understanding of dukkha shifts as we practice. Probably many of you have this experience. I remember so clearly having a practice discussion, and a dharma teacher said something to me about suffering. I said, "I don't have any suffering!" I had just quit my job at that time, and I was feeling pretty great. I had attributed all my difficulties to having this job.

But as our meditation practice grows and we start to experience more and more calm and peace, our definition of dukkha shifts along with that. We start to notice that there are more subtle experiences and expressions of dukkha. It starts to become that which is less calm, less open, or less quiet. Dukkha can be understood as this tightening or constriction, which can be really subtle. Maybe it shows up primarily in our meditation practice, or maybe it shows up in really obvious, gross ways in our daily life.

We can explore this world of actions and consequences by looking at dukkha. For some people, their suffering, their difficulties, and why things aren't going the way they wish is a bit of a mystery. "Why isn't my life the way I thought it was going to be? Why is there this suffering? Why is there this sense of dissatisfaction?"

The Cycle of Blame and Clinging

Often, we look in the wrong places for the cause. It is a human habit to blame: "Somebody else did something wrong. This has to be fixed. Somebody better fix it. This is not right." We might blame ourselves: "If only I were a better meditator. If only I were better at this or that, then this suffering wouldn't be here." Often, people look outside themselves: "I have to fix this out there. I have to engineer, manipulate, or create different conditions to alleviate the dukkha." Or sometimes people just complain without even having a clear idea of what the source of the dukkha is.

We can bring attention and care to this dukkha without self-pity and without blame. We can look at it to see the action that is underlying it, fueling it, and causing this constriction.

Very often, that action is attachment or clinging. So much of practice can be about loosening the tightening and constriction that causes dukkha. This clinging or attachment can be really subtle. When we find ourselves experiencing dukkha, we can simply ask, "Where is there any sense of tightness, holding on, or clinging?"

It's likely we will discover that this clinging and contraction are related to having a sense of self—wanting things to be a particular way, or wanting them not to be a particular way. There is a particularly strong sense of self when there is blame. Often a sense of self-righteousness arises: "Don't they know who I am? What are they thinking?" Or when we make a mistake or something goes wrong, we most often turn towards blame. There is this exaggerated and inflexible sense of "me" or "you"—the "he said, she said, I said." Often, we are blaming ourselves or blaming others, and then these negative self-views or negative views of others fuel each other, creating a vicious dukkha cycle.

Understanding Conditions

I would like to suggest a way we can find our way out of this and interrupt these dukkha cycles. One way is to re-analyze an experience in which we are having dukkha. Look at it again—maybe on the cushion, or outside of the cushion—as a way to understand the conditions that came together to support this difficulty.

Is there a way we can look at that from a different angle, with a heart of compassion? We can recognize that there are countless conditions that come together for whatever is happening. Us being here together is a consequence of this building being built, information on the internet, the calendar, the transportation you used to get here—countless things coming together.

To illustrate this, I'd like to share a story from Rob Burbea^[3]. Imagine you are with a friend, and your friend is telling you about some difficulty she is going through. You're listening as attentively and sympathetically as you can, but at the same time, you're aware of some disquiet within yourself. You're vaguely worried that maybe you should have a little more empathy or compassion for your friend. As they are telling you this story about difficulty, you somehow feel unmoved, not really touched by what they are saying.

Later, when you reflect on this, it bothers you. You wonder, "Is there something wrong with me? Why wasn't I able to connect with my friend? I've been doing all this practice—am I just a cold-hearted person after all? How come I couldn't connect with this person that I care about?"

Holding only yourself responsible for how things went fails to take into account a whole range of other factors that contributed to limiting the connection you felt.

For example, it could be something really basic. Maybe you had a headache, and you weren't quite feeling like the best version of yourself. Maybe you were tired. We shouldn't underestimate how human beings are not the best versions of themselves when they are tired.

Sometimes, when we put pressure on ourselves to feel something different than what we're actually feeling—like thinking, "I should really be more empathetic or compassionate towards my friend," even when we aren't—we feel disconnected from ourselves and from other people around us. So maybe just having that idea of "I should be different" created the conditions for things to unfold differently.

Or maybe it was something a little more complex. Maybe there was some slight tension between you and your friend that was left unresolved the last time you met—something small that seemed insignificant at the time, but is now affecting your openness. Maybe you're feeling a little more guarded.

Or maybe there was something in the way your friend was relaying the story. Maybe she was exaggerating in a way that felt a little bit off, as if she herself was disconnected from the story. Maybe she felt like she was holding back, or she was hamming it up, or being dismissive.

It's not that we would then definitely blame our friend—"I couldn't feel connected because she was behaving in some particular way"—because there are all these conditions for why she was behaving that way too! The point here is that there are different types of conditions that come together for every single one of our experiences, and they all have an impact. Sometimes when we blame ourselves or others, we're not taking these other conditions into account.

So, we can reconsider, review, and re-analyze an experience in which we feel a lot of blame or constriction. There are some tools that can be helpful. They can feel cumbersome, so I offer them just so they might be helpful. I find I do this when I get stuck blaming myself or blaming others about some difficulty. I use these tools to help flesh out everything that happened:

1. What were the present inner conditions? What was the mind state you had? What was the emotional state? What beliefs or perceptions were really active at that time? In the example I gave, tiredness would be a present inner condition.
2. What were the present outer conditions? In the story, it was the way your friend was relaying the story. Maybe something didn't feel quite right in the environment.
3. What were the past inner conditions? Maybe there are habits of mind or inner states affecting us. In the story, maybe there was something unresolved between you and your friend, or you felt a little bit offended by something she said in the past, so now you're showing up just a little bit differently.
4. What were the past outer conditions? These are impressions or influences from our history or surroundings.

Looking at these different categories helps us see that so many different conditions led to this consequence of not feeling connected.

Rather than blaming, or saying "I'm at fault" or "my friend is at fault," we can soften the idea of blame. We can soften the idea that there's a self at the center of everything. We recognize that so many different things came together for that particular experience, and those conditions are no longer there. It doesn't mean there isn't still some harm or lingering feelings, but now there can be some moving forward. Often, when we're stuck in a sense of blame, we can't find our way forward.

I am not saying that we don't accept responsibility for our actions. We don't just say, "Oh, it's just conditions, there is no responsibility." So much of practice is recognizing that yes, conditions come together, but we also have responsibilities to accept the consequences of our actions. This is a big part of what it means to be a mature practitioner—recognizing that some of the consequences of our actions are uncomfortable; they are dukkha. We practice with patience, forbearance, and equanimity. We learn from these things so that in the future we perhaps will not have as much difficulty.

Looking at actions and consequences without a self at the center softens that stuckness. We see, "Oh, all these things came together. I had a part, there were these other parts, and they have gone away now." Just feel the freedom that is available when we don't have to put ourselves or somebody else at the center, taking responsibility for everything.

We take responsibility for our actions, and we recognize that lots of conditions come together, including clinging. Often, this clinging is rooted in a sense of self. If we can soften the sense of self, if we can soften the clinging, there will be less dukkha. Often this clinging takes the form of blame.

In this way, we might take this commonplace idea that actions have consequences and thoroughly apply it to everything in our lives, helping us find our way with more ease, less dissatisfaction, and less suffering.

Thank you.

Questions and Answers

Question: How do we use meditation to prevent future suffering?

Diana Clark: Thank you, that's a good question. As the mind and the body settle, and as we start to get more quiet with our meditation, we start to notice these movements of the heart and mind. We notice the movements that lean towards constriction and clinging. We start to notice, "Oh yes, when there's this movement towards letting go, there's more ease. And when there's this movement towards clinging, there's less ease."

You have to see that recognition ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times, ten thousand times before we really start to see that this movement of letting go is where the freedom is. In our regular, ordinary life, we often don't see these subtle movements of constriction and selfing because so much of society really supports us to have a strong sense of self and an "us versus them" mentality. But that's not the way towards greater freedom and less dukkha.

Question: The longer I'm in Buddhism, the more I start to get the feeling that even the slightest pursing of the lips, knitting of the eyebrow, clenching of the jaw, or maybe leaning forwards or backwards in social situations can have these subtle effects or consequences. I think it's a good thing to notice and to try to come back to something like "mountain pose" as we go through life, especially in social situations. I find when I'm in front of someone who is really relaxed around me, something in me just relaxes too. I'm trying to pay attention to these subtle little things I do. What do you think?

Diana Clark: I think that's fantastic, Bill. You're highlighting the link between the body and the mind. So often, we don't really know what's going on; there might be some tension, but we don't know it until we notice something happening with our mind.

I know for me, this was a big realization years ago. I found myself standing there with my hand on my hip, and I realized, "Oh, I guess I'm feeling indignant!" I didn't even know I was. Or tapping my foot, feeling impatient. We might not even notice this unless we really know what it's like to be calm and settled. Then, these little ways in which agitation gets expressed really get highlighted.

Question (Follow-up): Just to add, it's been helpful for me to realize that people's antennae are very sensitive. They pick up all this stuff. They may not fully be aware that they're picking it up, but maybe it's just part of evolutionary biology. I think we do notice almost everything that goes on between people.

Diana Clark: I would agree. We communicate so much by our body language in subtle ways. Thank you.

Question: Thank you for your talk. One of the areas I struggle with the most is when you were talking about taking responsibility. Sometimes, I think I rarely consciously take on responsibility; it always seems that the responsibility is laid on me from the outside. I don't know if you've ever had that experience, but I was wondering, how do we work with the dukkha that arises in not meeting our responsibility, or seeing the consequences that come from not meeting it?

For example, at work, I've been assigned certain tasks to do, and I just find a resistance. It's almost like I know it's my responsibility, and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to meet it. I don't know if it's the sense of self—wanting to think of myself as a responsible person. Some of it may be sloth and torpor, just not having the energy to do it. Some of it is just internal, passive resistance to being told what to do. That's the fuzzy edge of practice for me.

Diana Clark: What would it look like if you were to look at the different conditions coming together? What are the conditions inside of you in the present moment when you receive that email, or your boss tells you to do X, Y, and Z, and there's resistance? What's that present moment experience? Maybe there are times when you get responsibilities and you're okay with it, but this time you're not. Or maybe you're always not okay with it.

What are some of the outer conditions? Maybe it's the way you got asked. And then there are past inner conditions. "I have this experience every time I do this; it doesn't turn out in a way that makes me happy."

I'm making these up, Jim, you would know for yourself. But these are ways we can unpack it, so that some of the dukkha flows away. Then we can start to see, "Oh yes, I see how I have this habit of showing up in these situations in a particular way." Then maybe we can work with that one particular habit, instead of something that's bigger and complicated with lots of different aspects playing together.

With a deep bow of appreciation for your practice—it's lovely to practice together and to share this practice. So thank you. Wishing you all a Happy New Year, and wishing you to take care and stay safe.