Seeking or According with Situations and People: A Follow-up

(This entry is a follow-up to a comment on the September ninth entry. Richard's question is a good one and often comes up in discussions.)

Comment: Dear Venerable Wu Lin, Please could you comment how sui yuan [according with conditions] relates to practices such as goal setting and visualisation. It also seems to me that in Liao Fan's Four Lessons, Liao Fan makes a vow because he wants to attain specific goals.

Response: Yes, at first Liaofan made wishes and with his diligent practice of goodness, he received what he wished for. But he did not wish for a longer life than his predicted fifty-three years or for a second son. Yet he lived to write his book at seventy-four and had another son. We can see that even when Liaofan did not seek what would make him happy, he still gained happiness as a result of his good deeds.

We unawakened ones who are still working at letting go of old habits, like attachments, can still set goals. The trick is to accord as we're letting go and setting those goals.

For example, before I started this blog, I had never thought of writing one. Then one day, I realized I would not be able to leave the apartment as much because of my mother's condition. This meant fewer opportunities to teach. On the spur of the moment, the idea of a blog came to me. I could talk about Buddhism without leaving the apartment!

My ongoing goal, which led me to become a nun, has been to propagate Buddhism. The blog arose on its own—an idea that suddenly occurred to me. I needed to learn how to create a blog and will always be learning how to improve it so I have an additional goal of a better blog. But I’m not trying to force it to happen.

As with so much of the practice, there are many gray areas between the black and the white. According with conditions takes much searching for the right balance between forcing what we wish for to happen and being a couch potato.

Neither too Kind Nor too Harsh

Master Kuang-ch’in said "Treat others neither overly kind nor too harsh."

Yesterday I wrote of according with—not seeking—affinities. The master’s advice shows some ways we can do this. He’s talking about balance, about the middle way.

If we are either too kind or too harsh, we push the extremes in our relationships with others.

On the one hand, if we are too kind, although our kindness may well be sincere, we may stifle others and keep them from growing. If we are too kind while our kindness is not sincere, we are acting falsely and thus misleading others. When the individual learns of our insincerity, it is most likely that he or she will feel negatively toward us.

On the other hand, if we are too harsh we run the serious risk of fostering an enmity. While firmness is necessary at times, we need to temper it with wisdom, not with anger or other negative emotions. Without wisdom, we can force the other person into a corner. He or she might come out fighting and we will have an enmity. Or the individual may simply give up and we will have stifled the other person and hindered their growth.

So acting too kind or too harshly runs the risk of not helping the other person and fostering an enmity. No good karmic consequences. No helping others. No middle way.

Seeking or According with Situations and People

My Teacher, Ven. Master Chin Kung, often speaks about how we should sui yuan, not pan yuan. In other words, we should accord with yuan rather than seek yuan. Yuan is usually translated as either conditions or affinities. By according with and not seeking conditions or affinities, we do not force them.

If the opportunity arises for us to do something or be with someone, we can take the opportunity to do so. But if it feels like we have to force something to happen then we are not according but seeking.

The problem with seeking conditions and affinities is this forcing on our part. If we force something and it is not supposed to happen, we will be setting ourselves up for disappointment as we develop expectations that cannot be met. Expectations unfulfilled, we do not gain the happiness we seek.

Finding the line between according and seeking can be tricky at first. With time and experience we will gradually learn to discover that line intuitively. When it feels like our emotions and desires are overcoming our being at ease with the situation, we may well have found our line, and just stepped over it.

The Elephant and His Old Blind Mother

 

Long ago, in the hills of the Himalayas near a lotus pool, the Buddha was once born as a baby elephant. He was a magnificent elephant, pure white with feet and face the color of coral. His trunk gleamed like a silver rope and his ivory tusks curled up in a long arc.

He followed his mother everywhere. She plucked the tenderest leaves and sweetest mangoes from the tall trees and gave them to him. "First you, then me," she said. She bathed him in the cool lotus pool among the fragrant flowers. Drawing the sparkling water up in her trunk, she sprayed him over the top of his head and back until he shone. Then filling his trunk with water, he took careful aim and squirted a perfect geyser right between his mother's eyes. Without blinking, she squirted him back. And back and forth, they gleefully squirted and splashed each other. Splish! Splash!

Then they rested in the soft muck with their trunks curled together. In the deep shadows of afternoon, the mother elephant rested in the shade of a rose-apple tree and watched her son romp and frolic with the other baby elephants. The little elephant grew and grew until he was the tallest and strongest young bull in the herd. And while he grew taller and stronger, his mother grew older and older. Her tusks were yellow and broken and in time she became blind. The young elephant plucked the tenderest leaves and sweetest mangoes from the tall trees and gave them to his dear old blind mother. "First you, then me," he said.

He bathed her in the cool lotus pool among the fragrant flowers. Drawing the sparkling water up in his trunk, he sprayed her over the top of her head and back until she shone. Then they rested in the soft muck with their trunks curled together. In the deep shadows of afternoon, the young elephant guided his mother to the shade of a rose-apple tree. Then he went roaming with the other elephants. One day a king was hunting and spied the beautiful white elephant. "What a splendid animal! I must have him to ride upon!" So the king captured the elephant and put him in the royal stable. He adorned him with silk and jewels and garlands of lotus flowers. He gave him sweet grass and juicy plums and filled his trough with pure water.

But the young elephant would not eat or drink. He wept and wept, growing thinner each day. "Noble elephant," said the king, "I adorn you with silk and jewels. I give you the finest food and the purest water, yet you do not eat or drink. What will please you?" The young elephant said, "Silk and jewels, food and drink do not make me happy. My blind old mother is alone in the forest with no one to care for her. Though I may die, I will take no food or water until I give some to her first."

The king said, "Never have I seen such kindness, not even among humans. It is not right to keep this young elephant in chains." Free, the young elephant raced through the hills looking for his mother. He found her by the lotus pool. There she lay in the mud, too weak to move. With tears in his eyes, he filled his trunk with water and sprayed the top of her head and back until she shone. "Is it raining?" she asked. "Or has my son returned to me?" "It is your very own son!" he cried. "The king has set me free!" As he washed her eyes, a miracle happened. Her sight returned. "May the king rejoice today as I rejoice at seeing my son again!" she said.

The young elephant then plucked the tenderest leaves and sweetest mangoes from a tree and gave them to her. "First you, then me."

Turn Afflictions to Bodhi

We can view difficult times and situations as troubles and ask "Why me?" Or we can use them as opportunities to help us grow and advance on the path. Afflictions and difficulties will always be with us in the cycle of rebirth because everything is created by the mind.

Consider the anger and greed in the minds of people around the world. Consider how often our thoughts are purely of benefiting all beings—impartially and unconditionally. For most of us, our self-serving thoughts far outweigh our unselfish ones. These are the thoughts that create our world: a world of afflictions.

We can turn these afflictions into Bodhi, into the mind of awakening by learning from misfortune. Instead of feeling sorry for and indulging ourselves, and excusing our wrong behavior, we can understand that others go through difficulties as well. Understand that others suffer and wish for happiness. And understand that only when all beings are free of suffering will we be free as well.