The Art of Transforming Suffering 9 Saying Hello 21 Looking Deeply 31 Ease 45 Five Practices for Nurturing Happiness 55 Happiness Is Not an Individual Matter 73 Looking Deeply the pain of our ancestors Some of our ill-being comes from hurt and pain in our own life; but some has been transmitted to us by our ancestors. Think of a stalk of corn that grows from a seed. Each ear of corn, each leaf, contains that initial seed. In every cell of the plant that seed is there. And just as the plant of corn is the continuation of the seed of corn, you are the con- tinuation of your parents. When you see a picture of yourself as a five-year-old child, you may ask yourself, “Am I the same person as that child?” The answer isn’t “Yes” or “No.” Your form, your feelings, your mental formations, your perceptions, and your consciousness are quite different from when you were that child. It’s clear you aren’t exactly that same person. But if you say that you are a completely different person, that’s equally wrong. You and that young child inter-are with each other. Before my mother gave birth to me, she had a miscarriage. The child who didn’t arrive that time—was he my brother or was he me? We aren’t the same, but we aren’t totally different. My feet have been transmitted to me by my ancestors. When I walk, I walk with my own feet, but these feet are also theirs. I can see the hand of my mother in my hand. I can see the arms of my father in my arms. I am my parents continuation. There are those who have lost their biological parents, or never knew them, and have no chance to connect with them in person. There are also people who grew up with their blood relatives, whose parents are still alive, yet they are unable to communicate with them. In all these situations, even if you don’t have a regular interpersonal rela- tionship with your parents or your ancestors, your body and mind con- tain their suffering and their hopes as well as your own. 33 Everybody hurts from time to time and allowing ourselves to feel these strong emotions connects us together in a web full of compassion. The dictionary defines compassion as a “deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it,” but the only way we can gain a deep awareness of the suffering of others is by having suffered ourselves. To truly know what suffering is, we need to experience it. It is stated that suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make a leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person. Then it is in these moments, that we know other people’s sorrows and joys, and we can then care about their concerns as if they were our own. This allows us to fully understand one another.

Thich Nhat Hanh , who passed away peacefully at the age of 95 on January 22, was a spiritual revolutionary who brought Buddhism out of Vietnam and introduced it to the wider world. The author of more than 100 books, Nhat Hanh wrote extensively about the principles and everyday applications of Engaged Buddhism . In the wake of his death, Thich Nhat Hanh’s writings on grief and suffering in No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering strike a particularly resonant chord. Filled with practical techniques and the Zen master’s signature warmth, the book is a powerful reminder that, through mindfulness and meditation, self-compassion and gratitude, we can find our way through the darkest of times. Everyone experiences challenges and disappointments– therefore negative emotions are an unavoidable part of life. In my book, Authentic Strengths, I have synthesized evidence-based techniques to manage negative emotions into an easy to remember, three-step tool that I call: “Connect-Care-Create.” This tool can help you process common negative emotions associated with personal and professional disappointments, losses or failures. Write a poem or short story from the point of view of the lotus flower, perhaps using the first person point of view. Begin the writing journey at the bottom of the water, and see where it takes you. Cold air can be painful if you aren’t wearing enough warm clothes. But when you’re feeling overheated or you’re walking outside with proper clothing, the bracing sensation of cold air can be a source of feeling joy and aliveness. Suffering isn’t some kind of external, objective source of oppression and pain. There might be things that cause you to suffer, such as loud music or bright lights, which may bring other people joy. There are things that bring you joy that annoy other people. The rainy day that ruins your plans for a picnic is a boon for the farmer whose field is parched. Practice stopping while you’re walking. If you can stop while walking, then you’ll be able to stop when doing your other daily activities, whether that is cleaning the kitchen, watering the garden, or eating breakfast.When we’re creating change there will be mud and all its discomfort and messiness. Perhaps this is a more useful wisdom than “fail fast” for those creating change inside of big organizations.

Ea s e want to do it at all. But he went and got tea for Mara, hoping that Bud- dha and Mara would have a short conversation. In fact, the conversa- tion ended up being very long. Buddha and Mara spoke as if they were the best of friends. Buddha said, “Mara, how has it been for you? How are you doing?” Mara said, “Not very well.” “What happened?” the Buddha asked. Mara answered, “My disciples aren’t listening to me anymore. They used to do everything I told them to, but nowadays they want to rebel. All my generals, all my soldiers, all my disciples, they want to practice mindfulness. They want to practice walking meditation. They want to practice eating in silence. They want to protect the Earth. I don’t know who got to them. Dear Buddha, I’m just so tired of being Mara; I want to be someone else. Don’t think that being Mara is all wild parties, fun, and games.” The Buddha laughed. “You think being a Buddha is such a lark? Do you know that people say things that I have never said and then they say it is I who said that? They do things that I have never done or encouraged them to do, but they say that I encouraged them to do those things. “I let go of my exalted reputation, my princely position, and an endless availability of sensual pleasures. I abandoned my throne, my beautiful wife and baby, future children, and wealth, all so that I could realize liberation. But now people come to the temple to pray and plead with me to give them all the very things I have renounced! They don’t ask for peace or joy; they just ask for lots of money, power, or for their children to have good grades on their exams. “They build a big house and they say it’s my house. But it’s only a place where people come to pass by and offer food, bananas, sweet rice, and money, so that they can have more money to spend on themselves. 51 We shouldn’t wait until the strong emotion comes to begin learning. That may be too late; the emotion may carry you away. But you can learn now. Then, if the day after tomorrow you have a strong emotion, you’ll have confidence that you can handle the strong emotion. The funny thing is that when I can really face the shame of not being a good enough parent, or not being a loving enough person, and bring that level of inner kindness to it, something interesting happens. I find I have a little more space for my kids. I have a little more patience for all of us struggling together. And I feel more motivation and energy to understand and change the structures that enable and profit from our collective suffering (albeit in wildly disproportionate ways) – within and without. Both suffering and happiness are of an organic nature, which means they are both transitory; they are always changing. The flower, when it wilts, becomes the compost. The compost can help grow a flower again. Happiness is also organic and impermanent by nature. It can become suffering, and suffering can become happiness again. Begin this practice by looking deeply into your body. Ask, How is my body in this moment? How was it in the past? How will it be in the future? Look into your body to see whether it is at peace or is suffering. Look at the condition of your lungs, your heart, your intestines, your kidneys, and your liver to see what the real needs of your body are.If you suffer from depression, your depression won’t be able to go away until you know how to stop. You’ve lived in such a way that depression has become possible. You’ve been running and not allowed yourself the time to rest, to relax, and to live your daily life deeply. Spending time each day doing mindful walking can help. Arrange your life so that you can do mindful walking every day. It’s good to walk alone, but it’s also good to practice walking meditation with the Sangha, to get support. You can ask a friend to go with you, or you can even take the hand of a child and walk with him or her. The Collective energy of mindfulness and compassion with and among others, can be very strong. Be an example to others. Water the seeds of others and watch them bloom, while feeling joy bloom within you at the same time. We can draw strength from examples of people who emerged triumphantly from the murky waters of loss and shifted their focus to what they “have” instead of what they “lost.” An inspiring example is blind architect Chris Downey. He began to lose his sight two days after surgery to remove a brain tumor, and on the third day, it was completely gone. Yet, despite the painful challenges that ensued, Downey claims he never once considered giving up his work in architecture. According to Downey, at the age of 45 waking up blind and with no sense of smell (also lost in the surgery), was “quite frankly, really terrifying.” But, when interviewed about the resulting development of his architectural skill to design buildings with much needed accommodations for the blind, he replied “I’m absolutely convinced I’m a better architect today than I was sighted.” And when asked if he could regain his sight tomorrow, would he still want to use his newfound way to “feel” the designs he creates, he replied, “There’d—be some logistical liberation to it. But will it make my life better? I don’t—I don’t think so.” Building Resilience Both suffering and happiness are of an organic nature, which means they are both transitory, always changing. The flower, when it wilts, becomes the compost. The compost can help grow a flower again. Happiness is also organic and impermanent by nature. It can become suffering and suffering can become happiness again. Being mindful leads to truthful, authentic living. It is the first step in transforming our negative emotions and creating a better future. When we deal honestly with our emotions, we can extend compassion to ourselves. Self-compassion requires first taking a balanced, mindful approach to our negative emotions so that our feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. And it is from this place that learning and growth emerge.

Some of the situations and accidents that cause us the great- est suffering, when seen objectively, do not look very big. But because we don’t know how to manage them, they feel enormous. If we lose a loved one, that is of course a major loss. There is real pain there, and we feel it mightily. But we also can spend days worrying that some- one doesn’t like us, or that we didn’t say or do the right thing, or that we won’t get the promotion we want. These are small sufferings, rela- tively speaking, but we magnify them until they seem to take up all our mindspace. If we know how to handle the little sufferings, we don’t have to suf- fer on a daily basis. We can practice letting go of what the French call les petites miseres, the little miseries, and save our energy to embrace and soothe the true pains of illness and loss that are unavoidable. releasing the arrow There is a Buddhist teaching found in the Sallatha Sutta, known as The Arrow. It says if an arrow hits you, you will feel pain in that part of your body where the arrow hit; and then if a second arrow comes and strikes exactly at the same spot, the pain will not be only double, it will become at least ten times more intense. The unwelcome things that sometimes happen in life—being rejected, losing a valuable object, failing a test, getting injured in an accident—are analogous to the first arrow. They cause some pain. The second arrow, fired by our own selves, is our reaction, our storyline, and our anxiety. All these things magnify the suffering. Many times, the ultimate disaster we’re ruminating upon hasn’t even happened. We may worry, for example, that we have cancer and that we’re going The Tibetan monk Khenchen Rinpoche discusses four benefits of suffering: wisdom, resilience, compassion, and deep respect for reality. Wisdom emerges when we experience suffering. We rarely stop to ask ourselves questions about our lives when things go well. However, when we’re faced with a difficult situation, we often get out of our mindless state and start thinking about our experiences. To be able to look deeply, to develop what Solomon referred to as a “wise heart,” we must face the eye of the storm (the storm of life). Of course we all yearn for for predictability, and faster if not instant-gratification. It would be nice to fail fast because we would minimize the duration of the “making something new work” suffering.

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We all want to be happy and there are many books and teachers in the world that try to help people be happier. Yet we all continue to suffer.

Thay shares how the practices of stopping, mindful breathing, and deep concentration can generate the energy of mindfulness within our daily lives. With that energy, we can embrace pain and calm it down, instantly bringing a measure of freedom and a clearer mind. Next, observe your mental formations, the ideas and tendencies within you that lead you to speak and act as you do. Practice looking deeply to discover the true nature of your mental formations—how you are influenced by your own individual consciousness and also by the collective consciousness of your family, ancestors, and society. Unwholesome mental formations cause so much disturbance; wholesome mental formations bring about love, happiness, and liberation. Care: Practice self-care. Relax the area where you are holding the negative emotion. It can be helpful to place your hand on the location of your emotion with a healing intention. With each exhalation, imagine it releasing in that area of your body, dissolving like an ice cube in warm water. Send yourself compassion, reminding yourself that everyone experiences difficult moments, loss, mistakes and failure. Reassure yourself that all will be well, that you will give yourself the support you need to get through this experience and that you will take the steps to better the situation. It’s also helpful to engage in a positive ritual that releases the emotion such as talking to someone you trust who will be compassionate with you, taking a walk, practicing yoga, prayer, mediation, listening to uplifting music, reading something inspiring, writing down the emotion and throwing it away, taking a shower, etc.—whatever tends to lift your spirits. Next, observe your feelings—whether they are pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Feelings flow in us like a river, and each feeling is a drop of water in that river. Look into the river of your feelings and see how each feeling came to be. See what has been preventing you from being happy, and do your best to transform those things. Practice touching the wondrous, refreshing, and healing elements that are already in you and in the world. Doing so, you become stronger and better able to love yourself and others.In practicing this tool, people report a sense of relief, liberation, and a freedom from rumination that opens them to real growth. The most encouraging part of this approach is that we can learn to productively process negative emotions. After all, you are the one person in your life that is always around when you are feeling negative emotions, so why not learn to deliver the best antidote?