Eight Worldly Conditions (video)

Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Shambhala), p. 46

"Slutwalks" sweep the nation to fight for sexual equality (HuffingtonPost.com)

We might feel that somehow we should try to eradicate these feelings of [1] pleasure and [2] pain, [3] loss and [4] gain, [5] praise and [6] blame, [7] fame and [8] disgrace.

A more practical approach would be to get to know them, see how they hook us, see how they color our perception of reality, see how they aren't all that solid.

Then the eight worldly dharmas become the means for growing wise as well as kinder and more content.

Success and Failure

Wisdom Quarterly; Jack Brewer

(morbokat/flickr.com)

It will come to pass that we will all meet eight worldly conditions. Elated by some, dejected by others, we hang ourselves then dangle, hoisted by our own petard. For all is impersonal (anatta), yet intoxicated and under the influence of illusion, we fail to see. "Success and failure," Jack Brewer (ST) laments: "Delicate moment, saw you again, leap year summer, presence drew in, flies of success squandered about, ritual fashion leaving no doubt. You were a hit, plain to see, busy boulevard, hidden street. I prayed lightly, weaved my path, raise no question how I survived the aftermath. But I see no reason to covet cause I'm just thinking, it all seems too amusing. Failure and success, laugh the day, meet again, end up on the park bench, exactly where I'm at now, unnoticed, wonder how. Bargained your way, packs that bleed you, no thoughts what they've made you. Success has sewn a hand to your back. Paid what price for the path we traveled. But I see no reason to covet cause I'm just thinking, it all seems too amusing. Failure and success, success and failure..."


 

(kosijenka.deviantart.com)

Recently Bhikkhu Bodhi was giving a talk at a Buddhist college, University of the West, in Los Angeles. He mentioned the importance of relationships, and many of the monastics in the audience broke out in laughter. He warned, "No, don't laugh. For non-monastics that is really important." It is amazing that he knew and could appreciate just how important they are to lay people. The same amazing point was made in "Eat Pray Love," the movie. Almost entirely bad and nothing like the book, there was nevertheless that moment when Julia Roberts gets to Bali and meets her guru: What does she ask him? She finds herself only wanting to talk about her relationship(s) as if she were back home. Who understands this impulse better than Of Monsters And Men in "Little Talks."