![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
8 worldly dharmas
Apr. 29th, 2025 07:22 amIt turns out that the rest of The Miracle of Mindfulness is just excerpts from Buddhist sutras, so I went back to Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart.
This chapter is on the 8 worldly dharmas, 4 pairs of opposites: pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and disgrace, gain and loss. It is becoming entrapped in these 4 pairs of opposites that keeps us stuck in samsara. She points out, though, that our emotional reactions to certain things are all subjective; if someone says you are old, we might feel good if we are in a space where we want it to feel old, or we might feel bad if we've recently noticed wrinkles and Gray hair. “If we look closely at our mood swings, we'll notice that something always sets them off. We carry around a subjective reality that is continually triggering our emotional reactions.... the irony is that we make up the 8 worldly dharmas. We make them up in reaction to what happens to us in this world. They are nothing concrete in themselves.... we might feel that somehow we should try to eradicate these feelings of pleasure and pain, loss and gain, praise and blame, fame and disgrace. A more practical approach would be to get to know them, see how they hook us, see how they aren't all that solid. Then the 8 worldly dharmas become the means for growing wiser as well as kinder and more content.”
She talks about paying attention to our emotions when we get caught up in drama and when we feel that energy, “to do our best to let thoughts dissolve and give ourselves a break. Beyond all that fuss and bother is a Big Sky. Right there in the middle of The Tempest, we can drop it and relax... Instead of automatically falling into habitual patterns, we can begin to notice how we react when someone praises us. When someone blames us how do we react? When we've lost something how do we react? When we feel we've gained something how do we react?... When we become inquisitive about these things, look into them, see who we are and what we do, with the curiosity of a young child, what might seem like a problem becomes a source of wisdom. Oddly enough, this curiosity begins to undercut what we call ego pain or self-centeredness, and we see more clearly. Usually we're just swept along by the pleasant or painful feelings. We’re swept away by them in both directions; We spin off in our habitual style, and we don't even notice what's happening. Before we know it, we've composed a novel on why someone is so wrong, or why we are so right, or why we must get such and such. When we begin to understand the whole process, it begins to lighten up considerably....
“This letting things go is sometimes called non attachment, but not with the cool, remote quality often associated with that word. This nonattachment has more kindness and more intimacy than that. It's actually a desire to know, like the questions of a three-year old. We want to know our pain so we can stop endlessly running. We want to know our pleasure so we can stop endlessly grasping. Then somehow our questions get bigger and our inquisitiveness more vast. We want to know about loss so we might understand other people when their lives are falling apart. We want to know about games so we might understand other people when they are delighted or when they get arrogant and puffed up and carried away.
“When we become more insightful and compassionate about how we ourselves get hooked, we spontaneously feel more tenderness for the human race. Knowing our own confusion, we're more willing and able to get our hands dirty and try to alleviate the confusion of others. If we don't look into hope and fear, seeing the thought arise, seeing the chain reaction that follows- if we don't train in sitting with that energy without getting snared by the drama, then we're always going to be afraid.”
This chapter is on the 8 worldly dharmas, 4 pairs of opposites: pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and disgrace, gain and loss. It is becoming entrapped in these 4 pairs of opposites that keeps us stuck in samsara. She points out, though, that our emotional reactions to certain things are all subjective; if someone says you are old, we might feel good if we are in a space where we want it to feel old, or we might feel bad if we've recently noticed wrinkles and Gray hair. “If we look closely at our mood swings, we'll notice that something always sets them off. We carry around a subjective reality that is continually triggering our emotional reactions.... the irony is that we make up the 8 worldly dharmas. We make them up in reaction to what happens to us in this world. They are nothing concrete in themselves.... we might feel that somehow we should try to eradicate these feelings of pleasure and pain, loss and gain, praise and blame, fame and disgrace. A more practical approach would be to get to know them, see how they hook us, see how they aren't all that solid. Then the 8 worldly dharmas become the means for growing wiser as well as kinder and more content.”
She talks about paying attention to our emotions when we get caught up in drama and when we feel that energy, “to do our best to let thoughts dissolve and give ourselves a break. Beyond all that fuss and bother is a Big Sky. Right there in the middle of The Tempest, we can drop it and relax... Instead of automatically falling into habitual patterns, we can begin to notice how we react when someone praises us. When someone blames us how do we react? When we've lost something how do we react? When we feel we've gained something how do we react?... When we become inquisitive about these things, look into them, see who we are and what we do, with the curiosity of a young child, what might seem like a problem becomes a source of wisdom. Oddly enough, this curiosity begins to undercut what we call ego pain or self-centeredness, and we see more clearly. Usually we're just swept along by the pleasant or painful feelings. We’re swept away by them in both directions; We spin off in our habitual style, and we don't even notice what's happening. Before we know it, we've composed a novel on why someone is so wrong, or why we are so right, or why we must get such and such. When we begin to understand the whole process, it begins to lighten up considerably....
“This letting things go is sometimes called non attachment, but not with the cool, remote quality often associated with that word. This nonattachment has more kindness and more intimacy than that. It's actually a desire to know, like the questions of a three-year old. We want to know our pain so we can stop endlessly running. We want to know our pleasure so we can stop endlessly grasping. Then somehow our questions get bigger and our inquisitiveness more vast. We want to know about loss so we might understand other people when their lives are falling apart. We want to know about games so we might understand other people when they are delighted or when they get arrogant and puffed up and carried away.
“When we become more insightful and compassionate about how we ourselves get hooked, we spontaneously feel more tenderness for the human race. Knowing our own confusion, we're more willing and able to get our hands dirty and try to alleviate the confusion of others. If we don't look into hope and fear, seeing the thought arise, seeing the chain reaction that follows- if we don't train in sitting with that energy without getting snared by the drama, then we're always going to be afraid.”
