Categories: Maintaining Mindfulness
May the blessings of the Triple Gem be with you all!
Welcome. In our spiritual journey together, we often explore how to apply ancient wisdom to our modern lives. Many of you who have been following these teachings on developing mindfulness are already seeing its practical benefits. This article is dedicated to deepening that practice, showing you how the simple act of maintaining mindfulness can become your greatest tool for navigating the daily problems we all face.
As we practice, our wisdom what in Buddhism we call Prajñā begins to mature. This isn’t just an intellectual understanding; it’s a deep, intuitive knowing that grows within us. With this maturing wisdom, you’ll find that you can use mindfulness to face life’s challenges head-on. You’ll discover a newfound strength to confront difficulties, even if immediate answers aren’t available.
The pressure that once felt crushing begins to ease. If this sounds abstract now, I invite you to read on. By the end of this article, the profound simplicity of this practice will become clear. For those already on this path, you may recognize your own experiences in these words and understand your journey even more deeply. And if you haven’t yet faced a major challenge with this tool, you will now have a guide for when you do.
Understanding Our Universal Struggle: The Truth of Dukkha
I am moved to share these teachings because so many people from all walks of life, from Sri Lanka and across the world, reach out to me. They share their struggles, the many different problems they face.
In Sri Lanka today, many people speak of overwhelming economic hardship. They say, ‘Venerable Sir, there’s no way to live,’ or ‘I can’t find the money to support my parents’ or my children’s education.’ People are in great difficulty, feeling utterly helpless. While the very wealthy may enjoy comfort, the middle class and the poor are enduring immense suffering. This is a heavy burden to bear, leading to chronic headaches, stress, and even migraines.
This constant mental pressure affects physical health, causing high blood pressure and other illnesses to worsen. For some, the strain becomes so unbearable that it leads to heart attacks or strokes. Many lie awake all night, unable to find sleep.
This universal experience is precisely what the Buddha pointed to in his first great teaching on the Four Noble Truths. This fundamental stress and unsatisfactoriness of life is called Dukkha Sacca, the Truth of Suffering. The Buddha explained this clearly in discourses like the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta. After perfecting himself over countless lifetimes, this is the reality the enlightened one, formerly Prince Siddhartha, revealed to us.
This is the nature of the human world: things rarely go the way we want. We cannot force life to conform to our desires. If it does, it’s only for a short while before it changes again. This inability to secure permanent satisfaction is a fundamental law of nature.
The Path of Insight: Seeing Reality as It Is
Understanding this law of nature is the heart of insight meditation, or Vipassanā. It means seeing things as they truly are. The greatest aid in this practice is mindfulness, which in the Pali language is called sati. It is through the combination of mindfulness and the growing wisdom it cultivates that we can truly begin to understand ourselves and the world around us.
As I have taught before, the only way to grasp these profound truths is to walk the path the Buddha laid out the path of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (Satipaṭṭhāna). By journeying with continuous mindfulness, we can begin to see clearly.
The examples of this struggle are everywhere. University students tell me their parents can no longer afford to support them, and even those in public universities sometimes lack food. Others in private education can’t pay their fees. Schoolchildren lack money for classes, and many families have been forced to cut down to two meals a day.
This is especially hard for city dwellers, who cannot simply pick a jackfruit from a tree as someone in a village might. I hear stories of parents who go to bed hungry so their children can eat, or who eat only one meal a day to provide for their family. People have stopped buying clothes, some saying they haven’t bought a new item in two or three years.
This suffering is, in many ways, a result of poor governance. It is also connected to our collective unwholesome actions, or akusala. The way to change this is to increase your wholesome actions, your kusala, through practices like meditation and acts of merit. By doing so, we create the conditions for better leadership to emerge. If we behave as unskillfully as our leaders, we cannot expect a positive outcome. It is a law of nature.
If the person at the top steals, and the person at the bottom decides to steal too, society becomes corrupt. We cannot always stop the person at the top, but we must strive to be righteous ourselves. We cannot simply blame those above while we ourselves are not acting with integrity. This is not a political statement, but an illustration of the human world’s suffering the Dukkha the Buddha taught.
The Body’s Truth: Aging, Sickness, and Lack of Control
This suffering isn’t just external. The Buddha also pointed to the suffering inherent in our own bodies. No matter how hard you try to stay young, you cannot. You can visit salons and spas, and there is nothing wrong with wanting to look beautiful the Buddha never said we shouldn’t. If you have the means, dress well, wear nice things, and be presentable.
But despite all our efforts, we cannot stop the aging process. We can use makeup to maintain a youthful appearance, but our age is still visible. There are some whose youthful look persists even into their forties or fifties; this is the result of past meritorious deeds, a kind of ‘karmic energy’ or puñña shakti from previous lives.
But ultimately, this body is a source of suffering. If a disease like cancer develops, even with the best medical care, a cure is not guaranteed, especially if it’s discovered late. Think about our relationship with food. We love to eat delicious things, often full of artificial flavors. People go to fancy hotels, take selfies, and post them on social media to show off their experiences. But what happens after years of this? They develop serious illnesses.
Sri Lanka, as you may know, is a country where many consume food with toxins. The consequences come later. People develop high blood sugar, and eventually, a small wound won’t heal. A tiny scratch from a pin can become a spreading sore. Some even face amputation of their fingers or toes.
If this body were truly ‘me’ or ‘mine,’ if it were our soul, shouldn’t we be able to control it? Shouldn’t we be able to eat whatever we want without consequence? But you can clearly see the negative results when we go too far. Some people, even after losing a limb, might say, ‘It’s okay, at least I enjoyed eating.’ They try to console themselves.
But the one who truly knows the pain of the wound is the one who endures it. They might say such words, but their suffering is real, and it often comes out in other ways. People say many things to make peace with the consequences of their actions, claiming they ‘experienced the world.’ But before you seek to experience the world in this way, think twice, because the consequences are often far more severe than the fleeting pleasure.
The Myth of Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
These health issues are also problems, just like the economic ones. Problems are everywhere. People in difficult financial situations often think, ‘If only I had money, I would have no problems.’ But ask a very wealthy person if they are free from trouble. They may not have financial worries, but they have others. They might be stressed about reaching the top 100 billionaires list. They might struggle to manage their employees.
Competitors may try to sabotage their business. They may have made enemies. And even with all the money, they might have family problems children who don’t listen, a spouse who isn’t what they hoped for. They live in a state of constant fear: ‘When will my business collapse? When will I lose my rank?’ Look closely and ask yourself, do they have true peace?
I am not saying you shouldn’t earn money. The Buddha taught this as well. The foolishness, the ignorance or aññāna, lies in trying to find lasting peace and happiness through money. That is impossible. Money can give you a temporary sense of relief, but never permanent peace.
If you earn a thousand rupees today, you might seek a pleasure that costs a thousand rupees perhaps through intoxicants, sensual indulgence, or a favorite meal. You experience a temporary happiness. But the next day, you crave that happiness again, and you must work hard to earn more money to get it. It’s a cycle.
Imagine you love pizza. A pizza might cost two or three thousand rupees today. Think how hard you have to work to earn that money to treat your family. Then, you consume it in fifteen minutes. Afterward, you feel bloated and uncomfortable. To have that experience again tomorrow, you must work just as hard.
This is why I say if you are searching for permanent happiness in worldly things, you are being unwise. Worldly pleasures last only for a few moments. They are all temporary. If you practice mindfulness, you can observe this for yourself.
When you indulge your five senses sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch watch the feeling of happiness. You will see for yourself how fleeting it is. Even love if you are mindful when you feel love, you can ask, ‘Am I truly experiencing and receiving love?’ You will realize the moments you feel it are brief compared to the moments you don’t.
Mindfulness reveals the temporary nature of all these experiences. You can never expect complete, lasting satisfaction from worldly things. And that is why we have problems because we are looking for something permanent in a world where nothing lasts.
The Unskillful Escape: Why Running from Problems Is Not the Answer
Because we cannot find lasting happiness, we face problems until the day we die. There is no human life without problems. The goal, then, is not to eliminate all problems that is impossible. The goal is to find a way to live with mental peace and happiness, as the Buddha taught, even while problems exist. We cannot stop challenges from coming. We will face financial troubles, we will get sick, our children will get sick or have their own issues. All the problems I mentioned will come to you; you know this from experience.
So, what should we do? Let’s take our example of being in debt. The pressure can become so immense that weaker individuals contemplate suicide. Many people have told me they feel this way thinking of hanging themselves, taking poison, or finding another way to end their life. My advice is always to listen to these teachings and apply them, because these thoughts will fade away. Many have later told me, ‘I was on the brink of giving up, but your teachings saved me.’ The Buddha’s path offers a definite refuge.
From a Buddhist perspective, running away from a problem like debt through suicide is not a solution. It is an escape. According to the law of kamma (intentional action and its consequences), that debt must be repaid. In a future life, you may be reborn as a servant or worker for the person you owed money to, and you will have to work to repay that debt, often manifold. You might hear people say someone is ‘eating salt’ for another, a colloquialism for being karmically indebted.
This is the consequence of evasion. You cannot escape the laws of kamma. You will have to pay it back by washing their clothes, cleaning their filth enduring great hardship. Instead of choosing that path, or destroying your life, there is another way.
The Practical Path: How Mindfulness Transforms Your Relationship with Pain
The Buddha’s teaching shows you how to hold your mind steady so you don’t have to die, even if you can’t repay the loan right now. It teaches you how to live happily, without harming yourself, even while the problem persists. When you are happy, your mind becomes clearer.
Furthermore, by following this noble path, your store of wholesome merit, or kusala, increases. As your merit grows, you may find a skillful, ethical way to solve the problem over time. This applies to all your problems economic, romantic, family, work, social, and even national issues.
So, let’s get practical. Let’s say you are in debt for a large sum of money. This is a problem, isn’t it? It torments your mind. You can’t sleep or eat properly. You suffer from headaches, pressure in your temples, and brain fog. You feel on edge, and simple things make you angry a comment from your spouse, a child playing too loudly. Whenever someone is excessively irritable, they are usually dealing with a problem. They are in turmoil, and that turmoil spills out onto others, often unconsciously.
The brain has a limit to what it can bear, like a vessel that can only hold a certain amount of water. When it overflows, you feel immense pressure. At that point, you might feel an overwhelming urge to sleep, a kind of mental shutdown. Your face might darken, your body might seem lifeless. An experienced practitioner can often see this suffering in a person’s face.
Here is what you must do when you face such a problem. Every time the thought of the debt torments you, every time the creditors harass you, at that very moment, turn your attention inward and look at your own mind.
1. Be Honest: Acknowledge that the debt must be paid someday. Hold the sincere intention to repay it to avoid negative karmic consequences in the future.
2. Observe the Mind: Look at your mind and see the pressure. See the physical and mental pain it is causing you. See everything I’ve described and more.
3. Watch the Sensation: You will realize, ‘This problem is causing me incredible pain.’ Now, stay with that pain. Watch it with clear mindfulness. It is your wisdom that allows you to recognize this, and that wisdom is activated by mindfulness.
4. Witness the Shift: As you continue to watch the problem’s pressure, you will notice a change. Let’s say the ‘energy’ of the problem is at 80%. As you observe it with steady, non-judgmental mindfulness, that pressure will begin to decrease, perhaps to 75%. It won’t disappear instantly. The pressure might rise again, but don’t get discouraged and think the teaching isn’t working. The mind cannot be tamed all at once. When it intensifies, simply continue to watch it with mindfulness.
The problem the debt manifests in your mind as a thought. That thought, ‘How will I ever pay this back?’ is what torments you. Keep watching it. As you do, the pressure will drop again, perhaps even further, to 70%. That 10% reduction will feel like a massive relief. Over days, weeks, and months of practice, the pressure from all your problems relationships, work, health, education will continue to diminish as you watch them.
A New Way of Living: Finding Freedom in the Midst of the Storm
Let’s say it will take you three years to repay your debt. Do you want to spend those three years in agony? Or do you want to strengthen your mind and pay it back with peace? This practice makes that possible. When you face a problem, whether you are sitting in a meditation posture or busy with your daily activities, you can practice. As you feel the pressure rise, watch it with mindfulness while you sweep the floor, cook a meal, or do your job. It may seem difficult at first, but for those who have been practicing, it becomes second nature.
As you progress, you will begin to see deeper truths. You will see Paṭiccasamuppāda, or Dependent Origination how this suffering arises from causes and conditions. You will see the Tilakkhaṇa, the Three Marks of Existence: that the experience is impermanent (anicca), unsatisfactory (dukkha), and not-self (anattā). Your wisdom will grasp this directly.
This practice also purifies your character. When you started, you may have been a dishonest person looking for a way out of paying. But as you practice mindfulness, you begin to see your own faults and unwholesome tendencies. You see that dishonesty is an unwholesome state (akusala) and honesty is a wholesome one (kusala).
A deep resolve will form within you: ‘I must be a correct person. I must repay this debt.’ Your fraudulent nature, which is a mental defilement or kilesa, will be cleansed, and you will become determined to do the right thing. This is the nature of the Dhamma. The Buddha did not teach these things lightly; it is why enlightened beings appear in the world to share this profound, liberating truth.
So, for those three years, instead of suffering, you can live with a profound sense of peace. You can eat, sleep, and be happy until the day you can finally settle your debt. Many people, lacking this method, turn to worldly solutions like drugs, alcohol, or promiscuity to numb their pain. But those methods only provide temporary escape and create more suffering in the form of addiction, disease, and other social ills.
This path, the path of looking at your own mind, heals you from within without any harmful side effects. This teaching is for everyone the businessman under stress, the young person bedridden after an accident, the elderly person confined to their home, the married couple facing challenges. It doesn’t matter what your physical condition is. Even if your entire body below the neck is paralyzed, as long as you can observe your mind, you can do this practice.
Your Path Forward: A Final Blessing
As I speak these words, you may already feel a sense of relief. But this feeling is magnified tenfold when you put it into practice. For those of you who have already applied this wisdom and found this peace, you are likely nodding in recognition, remembering your own liberation from suffering. You now know that true happiness is possible.
If you have had such an experience, I encourage you to share it in the comments. Your story can be a great help to others, inspiring them to begin their own journey. There is no cost to this practice, only the data you use to access these teachings. But the benefit lasts a lifetime. You won’t need to spend money on counselors or escape into harmful habits. You become your own therapist, using the timeless method the Buddha gave us.
So, to summarize: the essential practice is to watch with mindfulness. Identify the nature of the problem, recognize the pain it causes, and see how that pain affects your life, causing anger and missed opportunities. Mindfulness is the tool that helps you see this.
Your wisdom is what understands it. As you understand, the pressure the 80% I spoke of gradually and systematically decreases. This practice is not just for life’s great tragedies but for the Eight Worldly Conditions we all face: gain and loss, fame and disgrace, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. Use this for everything, and you will gain a profound understanding of yourself and the world.
I brought this teaching forth today because people from all nations, religions, and economic backgrounds rich and poor have shared their struggles with me. No matter your faith, you can benefit from this practice. I will conclude the teaching for today.
May the power and blessings of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha the Triple Gem be with you. May you understand these teachings well, develop them in your life, and achieve the practical results and liberating experiences they offer.
We invite you to walk this path with us. Read our teachings, and most importantly, apply them practically in your own life. as you practice, questions will naturally arise. Please feel free to share your experiences and questions in the comments below, via email or contact form. I will do my best to offer guidance in future talks based on your progress. For now, begin this practice with an open heart and a mind free from expectation. Cultivate it correctly, and may you find the clarity and peace you seek.
Thank you for joining us. We hope this blog will be of great benefit to your spiritual journey.
May you all be well and happy.
May the blessings of the Triple Gem be with you all!
