Many of us have made a Bodhisattva Vow to “I vow to save all beings.” OMG–this is so exhausting! And where am I in this endless process? I propose the Pre-Bodhisattva vow: I vow to be happy. I have discovered that is is very difficult–if not impossible– to do much good for anyone when I am stuck in my own feelings of misery. Sometimes this unhappiness has happened gradually. Like walking in the rain–when did I become so wet. It can also be habitual. I can devise and rely on phrases: “The world sucks right now.” “What’s the point?” “I can’t make a difference anyway.”
This isn’t to say that I can ignore my feelings and pretend to be happy. Those feelings are the weather system I am co-creating and within which I am mucking about. No, I need to feel my feelings, I need to evaluate just how stuck I am. I need to look around to see how far I have fallen. After a an honest look, I need to consider my tool bag. I need to lift some mental weights. I need to exercise my joy building muscles for my sake and incidentally for the benefit of all beings.
Just how you do this will be uniquely personal. Let us first eliminate the harmful pursuits. These are quick fixes that result in hangovers, guilt trips, loss of energy and need for recovery. Instead, the pursuit of your happiness requires mental muscle memory and energy. What is it that fulfills you? What is it that lifts your spirits? What is it that makes you smile? How can you reach out to connect with a friend or loved one that matters to you? Is there anyone, or will you need to find out who that could be? That small reach, that recollection of a spark, of a memory may lead to the formation of a connection. Initiate your reach and join the stars.
Hi Grace. A couple of decades ago, I tried to join your work with prisoners in the Central Valley. I was named Sidney Skinner then, a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, and I lived in Oakland. It didn’t work out. I recently moved out to a small town, 1,000 feet above the Valley, in the Sierra Foothills. As I am unpacking, I am going through books and magazines in an effort to downsize. I’m reading your article from 2014 on the Zen Women Ancestors document in Tricycle. 2014 itself seems like 20-30 years, given the Pandemic, climate changes, MAGA, etc. Anyway, I hope you are thriving and finding those sources of joy you mention in the post above. My joy now is looking out toward the Sierras across the hills and ridges, particularly at dawn.
Love you and your additions to the happiness toolbox. I have my little puppy Dewey who has pulled me out of my darker hours. Inactivity is not good for us, Judith!
Love this Grace, and of course, love you. I do three things in the morning from my tool box: 1. The instant I wake up, after remembering dreams, I find a pulse and think, “Great! Another day.” 2. In 2016 I memorized this by the Dalai Lama and say it every morning: “I am fortunate to have woken up, I am alive, I have a precious human life, I will not waste it. I will use all of my energy to develop myself and to expand my heart out to others.” Not so easy sometimes. Then when I’m doing Tai Chi I say my version of the 3rd Step Prayer (AA): “I offer myself to this day, to build with me and do with me what It will. Relieve me of the bondage of self…”
That plus waking up to Alice B and Arlo and living with them, boosts my happiness quotient.