A Spiritual Check-in: Getting Real Tired of My Own Suffering

All Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Venerable Master, Dharma Masters, wise teachers, and Dharma friends: good evening. My name is Thao Amanda Phi.

For me, speaking in the Buddha Hall is like going to the doctor for annual check-up. It requires close examination that reveals ailments that affect my well-being. Instead of a physical examination to determine my state, it is a chance for me to reflect on what is going on internally.

I am still working with Dharma Realm Buddhist University, and I am still a graduate student at the University of San Francisco. I've made progress in both areas but also encountered challenges. The University is thriving with 35 students, and I am less than eight months away from graduating with my own master's degree. The last academic year seemed like a whirlwind, and by the time it was May, I wasn't sure what I had just come out of. DRBU wrapped up its school year with a beautiful commencement ceremony at the Sudhana Center campus, and I completed my first year in graduate school.  

Over the summer I went to Europe for an academic seminar and extended my stay to do some traveling. After the seminar finished, my friends and I were having difficulty deciding where to go next. As we know from living in a community, sometimes people want to do different things and that can cause tension between each other.

Rather than fighting or trying to persuade, I took the middle way. I suggested we go separately and meet in the next country. While it was intimidating traveling alone in a foreign country, it was a chance for me really be on my own.

That evening, I had dinner by myself. The sun was setting and shining golden light through the trees, and birds were chirping in the mild evening sky. The feeling was unfamiliar as it crept up on me. For the first time in a long time, I finally felt truly at peace with myself. I saw that I was fully capable of being complete, happy, and whole on my own.

I continued my travels and vividly remember another illuminating moment. One morning in Italy, I sat outside on the terrace alongside a medieval canal and drank my coffee. I sat quietly, able to have space to listen to myself. The only way I could describe that moment was magical, knowing I was exactly where I needed to be. Slowly but surely I was accumulating moments where I finally felt at peace by myself - and in those moments I was happy and free again.

Being abroad gave me the opportunity to discover myself without the usual conditions to reinforce the story I had been narrating about myself. Without those familiar things, I was forced out of my comfort zone and to create my own experience. And it was in those moments that I understood what it meant to be completely at peace with my own solitude. 

Upon returning to California, I quickly found myself reverting back to old habituations and patterns. I was back to my old ways because I was back in familiar settings and falling back into routines. Those rare moments I encountered abroad seem completely foreign now.

Not only did I return to old habits, I found myself with less patience and more anger. I was outraged by the stark contrast of encountering moments of inner peace and being an angry, hypocritical monster.

How could this be? What did I really learn from those moments if they so quickly dissipated as soon as I was back where I would be most of the time?

DRBU and graduate school have both recently resumed. I am back in my usual settings, and it comes with the usual stresses: not enough time to do homework, trying to get along with others, attending 10,000 meetings with 10,000 opinions causing 10,000 afflictions.

Right as the semester started, I quickly found myself overwhelmed. And then the thought occurred to me: I am getting tired of my own suffering.

Which lead me to question: What is causing my suffering?

Finally, I asked: Why am I causing myself suffering? 

We do not suffer by accident. Much like my realization over the summer and understanding how I was the creator of my own experiences, I am also responsible for liberating myself from suffering.

When I moved back to CTTB to work with DRBU two years ago, I came back with the fear that I would be scolded. To lessen my paranoia of being scolded, my mantra became, "Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others." 

I truly believed if I or anyone else spent time working on themselves that it would leave no room to be critical of others. After all, what right did we have to criticize someone else if we were still working on our own faults?

What I got out of that quote was more about not criticizing others and even more of a defense for others not to criticize me. What I was lacking from that quote was what I was actually doing to improve myself.

"Truly recognize your own faults.
Don't discuss the faults of others.
Others' faults are just my own.
To be one with everyone is called Great Compassion."

The summer provided me the space to see the potential for peace and harmony with myself and others. Being back for fall brought me a greater awareness of the error in my ways and the part I play in exasperating my own suffering. It was not others causing my suffering but my own doing. I am the problem, and I am the solution.

Perhaps those moments of inner peace came more gracefully because I was by myself. However, when living among a community and sharing space and time with others, it is my responsibility to be the best I can possibly be.

Another lesson I'm taking from this summer into the fall comes from The Platform Sutra: "Good medicine is bitter to the taste."

The fine line between good medicine and poison is discernment in the dosage and application. Likewise, a teacher recently reminded me that the benchmark between good medicine is that it heals and poison continues the pain.

If suffering is the illness, it needs medicine to be cured. And what a bitter truth to have to face myself.

For most of my life, I have had the intellectual understanding that a good human means working on and improving oneself. The people in my life have been kind and compassionate enough to accept me with my human flaws, but I was blind to my own ways - until this summer. This is the importance of good-knowing advisors and noble friends.

I know I am not a perfect human being, but my arrogance kept me ignorant. While ultimately we are responsible for ourselves, the good people in our lives can provide guidance and support when we are unable to find our way. And this takes truly listening - another skill I thought I had but am actually quite bad at.  

However, when we are able to truly hear about our own bad habits and flaws, it enables healing and transformation. The process is not always pleasant, but it can bring forth the greater potential for goodness that we all have.

Through the goodness of others, I have been able to recognize my own faults and shortcomings. Rather than being self-deprecating, I would like to use these realizations as opportunities to learn, grow, and better myself. Again, it is one thing to acknowledge the need to change, but my struggle remains in what the day-to-day application will look like in my life.

There are times when I think my younger self was wiser. There were many things I used to tell myself that greatly helped me when I moved back two years ago: Do not take anything personally. When things are uncomfortable or challenging, growth is occurring. Assume everyone is doing the best they possibly can given their context and conditions.

I have a bad habit of wanting immediate resolution when there is conflict, but I've come to see that is not always possible nor is it skillful.

This fall, I am trying something else. I am adding to my list of affirmations: be patient and kind with others and with myself.

It's almost unfathomable how much can arise and change in such a short period of time. Life is not static. But that also means it is never too late to have the potential to change. 

"It is never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape doesn’t depend on how long it has been running; a shift in perspective doesn’t depend on how long you’ve held on to the old view.

When you flip the switch in that attic, it doesn’t matter whether its been dark for ten minutes, ten years, or ten decades.

The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see the things you couldn’t see before.

It's never too late to take a moment to look."