Viida,

Have you considered talking to him about it? Friendships are better when they are transparent. What I mean is sometimes you just have to jump in and see where it goes. Perhaps you could just tell him what you’re feeling, fear of texting him and all. Why not? If he’s your friend, and himself doesn’t like playing the game, it could be a lot of relief.

Moving from romance to friends is pretty tricky. Are you still interested in him in that way? That might be adding to the fear on your side as well. Or, it might mean that you’re assuming you know his side when you don’t. That’s why its best just to be open!

With warmth,
Matt

Hannah,

It is one thing to know the path, it is quite another to walk it. Many of your books and posters all say “you are great, you are wonderful” and you respond, “yes, but..” as though there is a part of you which is ugly. This is not the case. When we were kids, we knew the alphabet when we were born? Hardly! It was through repetition, setting the letters to song, drawing them over and over, sitting in a circle with other kids and making games out of it. Spiritual development is the same, living a life of peace is the same.

But, you might ask, how do the pieces fit together? How do we embrace the light and love the dark? Said differently, how do we cultivate the peace we wish to have when parts of our personality are painful?

This is far more simple than we want to believe. We give up grasping, making it about “us”. For example, when things are going well, and the mind is fluid, awake, present, such as sitting on a beach and listening to the waves… we think “how great it is to sit on this warm sunny day, pleasant sounds, beauty all around me.” We falsely assume that the day is what is bringing our happiness. This is not the case. We are seeing beauty, and so the mind is able to rest, open to the truth of what is there, and we become aware of the present. From that resting in the moment, happiness arises.

Then we go home and the boyfriend calls us ugly. That is painful, and our mind immediately bounces around in the head, restless. “Am I ugly, does he love me, what can I do, where can I go.” The mind does not easily rest when it is feeling pain. We think that the boyfriend caused our unhappiness, but it was our disturbed mind, pulled away from the present that removes the joy. Said differently, the boyfriend is like the ocean, sending waves on to the shore. If we sat at the beach and hoped the waves were different than they were, here would be no happiness there either. So when the boyfriend sends waves to us, wishing they were different closes down the joy.

We would like to reject this idea, thinking that “no, the boyfriend should not have said those things.” and for awhile that might even work. However, you can’t hide from your own mind. You can push away the people and objects that you consider painful, but you can’t push away the thoughts. No amount of posters on the wall, no amount of reading positive words will help.

What must happen for inner peace is an acceptance that you’re learning the alphabet. Yes there is anger, yes there is happiness, yes there is shame, yes there is the mask you show to others. Those are part of you, part of the waves, and totally acceptable and reasonable. First we learn A, then we learn B. First we find acceptance of who we really are, and then we find out how to drop the parts of ourselves that bring us pain. If we are scared of the pain, we can’t look clearly at the thorn. Said differently, if you can love all of who you are, ignorant Hannah and wise goddess Hannah, you can absorb and put to use all of the books and posters. Until then, they are only pictures, hopes that somewhere in the future you’ll love yourself… ways of trying to use your mask on yourself. Which you have noticed doesn’t work.

That being said, going from beach to ugly to beach to ugly is much like the cycle of the sun and moon. The sun is up and it is bright and cheery. Then the moon comes up and shadows deepen and the inner-hannah comes out. Said differently, the pain makes us alert, sculpts our intuition. As we look deeply at how the words “ugly” triggered our mind to bounce away from the present, we can begin to remove the attachment to being seen as “pretty”. Then, we are happy and peaceful when people call us pretty, and happy and peaceful when they call us ugly. Either way, they are just waves on the shore, have a lot to do with the ocean, with the people who say those words, but very little to do with us.

The same is true internally. The anger and mask (suppression) are just a wave, arising for a reason, and will recede when the reason dissolves. It has very little to do with you… not something inherent to Hannah, it is just you working out the ABCs of inner peace. Flaws, bah. I reject that notion. Who blames kids for not knowing the alphabet?

With warmth,
Matt

Sapna,

I’m sorry for the lonesomeness you’re feeling, and am happy you had a chance to go out for a girls weekend. I hope that you experienced more than envy, as you danced with the other women, was there warm affection along side the jealousy? Sometimes we feel we are an outsider, as though the happy people around us are on the other side of a gate… but the gate has no lock on it.

The advice from my teacher on feeling the feelings wasn’t regarding letting thoughts just bounce around in the head. Rather, we open to the body and mind and observe. “Here are feelings of lonesomeness and thoughts of lonesomeness.” Grieving our loss is inevitable, and suppressing or ignoring just prolongs it. Instead of pushing it away, we let it pass through.

But, in your case, it seems like you keep thinking that HE was the source of your good feelings. So to find them again, you keep looking for him (or another him). Sapna, I want to be gentle, but you have to wake up! He didn’t give you squat. The warm affection was in you the whole time… it wasn’t a gift he offered you, it was the way your body felt. He said nice words to you and you believed him. That gave the nice feelings. It wasn’t him, it was your belief in the version of you he called to.

You have to call to that version of yourself. Say sweet things to yourself, tell others why they are beautiful, talk and care for the people around you (including yourself). Said differently, instead of accepting the thoughts and feelings in our body as “just how it is” and falling into pity, we accept the thoughts and feelings in our body are “just how it is now” and take actions to help them settle. Have you lapsed in self nurturing? Are you still doing metta meditation?

I refuse to join you in your pity of Sapna. You built the prison, and you have the method to become free. There is a goddess inside you, so stop pretending like she isnt… like she is a victim of his apathy, or that she is only alive when others believe in her. She isn’t. She is beautiful, powerful, self sufficient, and carries the light with her. Or, keep crawling under your bed with tissues and self loathing. Its your journey… you have the paintbrush and the blank canvas.

Namaste, sister.

With warmth,
Matt

Sri,

I’m sorry for the agitation you’re experiencing, I know how difficult it can be when the mind turns inward on itself. Sakyong Mipham says in his book Turning the Mind into an Ally that sometimes when people begin meditating, they realize how unkempt their mind is. They say “Meditation is driving me crazy, my mind was not like this before!” He says that when we learn to look deeply at our mind, we begin to see how messy it was. It was messy the whole time, its just that now we’re seeing it as is!

To help with the basic agitation, consider supplementing your meditation with metta practice. When we put mental energy behind wishing for the well being of others, the mind becomes smooth, peaceful. YouTube has many guided metta meditations. For now, you may even benefit from pausing on other types of meditation and shift your focus into metta practice for a few weeks. Namaste.

Ajahn Brahm has a guided metta meditation that is about 30 mins long on YouTube. Even once a day for a few weeks could really provide relief from agitation.

With warmth,
Matt

Ruby,

I’m sorry for the feeling of cold inside, where the thought of being happy feels nauseating. There’s nothing wrong or broken with you, its just some simple associations in the mind. For instance, someone who has been in the cold for a long time feels disoriented when they walk into a warm tub of water. The contrast is painful, and they perhaps grab ice cubes and snow to attempt to cool the tub. It is better to relax, sit with the feeling and let the body get used to being warm.

Said differently, perhaps as you began to feel joy, your body noticed the contrast and tried to sabotage the joy to make it feel more like what you were used to. So you grabbed on to all the reasons why you don’t deserve joy, why others are bastards, and so on. Grabbing ice to cool the tub. If you don’t do that, a couple things happen. First is that there is the pain of the water being warm. The joy is scary, and fear is painful, unsettling. That fades as you notice and let go of the fear. Deep breaths, and the fear (which is just chemicals in your body) fades as you realize you are safe.

The second is that the contrast can inspire regret. If joy is available now, then what did we do with our previous moments! How many lost relationships and opportunities came and went as we turned our back on love, falling into old patterns of avoidance and sabotage. This, just like fear, we can breathe with. Every person’s path toward joy is unique, and therefore we all stumble along the way. There is no one to blame for the past, so we just do our best to honor the past by learning from it, to turn away from old icky ways of acting and thinking and begin anew. Said differently, Buddha taught that ignorance was fundamental, so you act in ways that you were taught by your parents, and they act in a way that they learned from their parents, and so on and on. So instead of blaming the past and feeling regret, we have our light bulb going off in the present. “The past can settle? I can find a stable joy? Let’s do that!”

Consider that when we develop a mindset which wishes for the happiness of ourselves and others, that each of us find that unique path to joy, our mind becomes free from greed, judgement, craving. One way to do this is through cultivating loving positive regard for all beings. Consider watching the following meditation. Its about 30 minutes long, and can help create a foundation of warm feelings for all living beings (including ourselves!)

With time and practice we heal. Remember that first part… it takes time! We cannot rush a flower to bloom, nor a heart to open. However, by acting in certain ways, working certain practices, we can give ourselves the conditions of opening. Metta meditation is much like the sun… shining warmth on our actions so they can produce the heart’s blooming in time.

With warmth,
Matt

Annika,

Someone once told me that when we are at a crossroad, there is a path of love and a path of fear. If we choose the path of fear, we will have regret and pain. If we choose the path of love, we may have regret, we may have pain, but we might have love.

Its a little concerning the “fast hard fall”, because often that is from relief at not being alone any more and sexual desire, rather than love. Be kind to yourself, take it slow. If he and you have a mutual interest, perhaps it will sustain for a short term long distance thing. What my heart intuits is you can either give it a shot and take the risk of pain later, or cut the relationship down and experience pain now.

Either way, consider that love is something we find within and share outward. It isn’t the attraction to an outside being.

With warmth,
Matt

Mary Jane,

I can relate to what you’re describing… surrounded by people with different views, and not sure how to relate to them. I found peace when I realized that Jesus was not a Christian, he was much closer to a Buddhist than modern Christians.

So it is easy and heartfelt when I talk to Christians, because Jesus is one of my heroes. He walked the walk, living a life of compassion, integrity, wisdom and giving. I do my best to do the same. I feel at peace with Jesus and Buddha and Matt sitting, meditating together, letting the heart open to the world. If Christians are stuck on the notion of Church=Jesus, then that is their baggage. Consider picking up a book titled “Living Buddha, Living Christ” by Thich Nhat Hahn. It may help the dualism settle. After all, it doesn’t really matter what you believe vs what they believe, but rather how each of the moments we share with others is full of sincerity and compassion. Sometimes this means it is helpful to learn how to speak the truth of Buddhism in Christian language. Much like we benefit from learning the native language of a country we live in. Namaste.

With warmth,
Matt

Jaydee,

Buddha described the three jewels as the Buddha , the dharma, and the sangha. These three jewels are like three legs of a stool, if one is missing, the stool topples over. Your looking for a community is reasonable! The sangha is important to practice, as is the quality of awakeness inside us and the path of awakening. Said differently, when we connect with other people who are mindful, we have the opportunity to see aspects of ourselves that are otherwise unknown. Namaste captures that well, because the Buddha in one speaks to the Buddha in another, and helps to sustain mindfulness, and offers help in overcoming our projections.

If there are no local temples, consider looking for a retreat. Many temples have retreats that are a few days to a few weeks, and it might be better than uprooting your life to follow a dream. Perhaps it will be wise to find a place with an active temple, but it might be best to see if a Buddhist temple is what seems right before deciding it is a “solution” to the problem of practice.

With warmth,
Matt