The Eight Worldly Concerns and Conceptual Framework

The Eight Worldly Concerns

Apart from the experiences and feelings within our minds, there is also the content of our life. It’s the same thing here; we should try not to make a big deal out of it all. The Buddhist teachings emphasize a list of eight transitory things in life – the so-called “eight worldly concerns” or “eight worldly dharmas” – following the same principle of everything always in motion, going up and down.

Gains and Losses

Sometimes we have gains, sometimes we have losses. Financially, sometimes we make money and sometimes we lose money. Sometimes we buy something and it’s very good (it’s a gain), but sometimes it breaks quickly (it’s a loss). Again, there’s nothing special about any of this. It’s like playing a game of cards or a children’s game; sometimes we’ll win and sometimes we’ll lose. So what? Nothing special.

Actually, we need to remind ourselves not to be like that little child that cried when they lose, shouting, “I want to win!” Why should you always have to win? It’s like the hope that everyone is going to like me. There’s a useful saying in Buddhism, “Not everybody liked the Buddha, so what do we expect for ourselves – everybody’s going to like us?” Obviously not. Not everyone is going to press the like button on our Facebook page. Some people just won’t like us. What to do? It’s totally normal.

It’s all gains and losses. When we get into a relationship with someone, eventually it will end. We used the image of a wild bird at our window before, where it comes for a while but because it’s free, it’ll fly off. It’s the same in a relationship. No matter if you say, “Don’t ever leave me, I can’t live without you,” and even if you stay together for your entire life, one of you will undoubtedly die before the other. We gain a friend, we lose a friend, there’s nothing special about that. That is simply the way that life is. It doesn’t mean that we can’t feel happy when we have that friend and sad when we lose them – to feel nothing would be the attitude of “whatever,” and that’s not at all the same as “nothing special” – but we don’t go to extremes and we don’t make a huge deal out of it.

It’s interesting to look at ourselves and see how we respond to gains and losses. I always look at myself as an example because I’m quite obsessed with my website; it occupies my thoughts and activities pretty much all day long. Of course we have a statistics program and so I know every day how many people are reading it. If there’s an increase one day, then it’s really very nice, but if it doesn’t reach a certain number or what I think it should be, then that’s not so nice. So that’s a gain and a loss.

In a sense I do feel a very low level of happiness. It’s not a dramatic thing. A few weeks ago we reached 6,000 visits in one day, which was really, “Wow, 6,000, that’s a lot!” – but the happiness from that is very trivial. It wasn’t a big deal because it didn’t really do anything. The feeling was, “Well, that’s good. Now what? What else is new?” Then another day it goes down to 4,500 views and I became a little disappointed, “Oh, not so many people looked at it today.” But what seems to be more prominent is the self-preoccupation, which I confess to, of wanting to look at the statistics all the time. Buddhism says this preoccupation about the self is much stronger than preoccupation with other things, because thinking about “me” is so instinctive. It doesn’t even have to manifest as thinking oneself is so wonderful or great or that nobody loves us, but there’s always this underlying thought there.

You can all think of your own examples, perhaps to do with Facebook or text messages? How many messages did I get today? Who liked my posts today? How often do we check Facebook or take out phones out of our pockets to see if anything came in? Before, there wasn’t any of this Internet stuff, but people did the same thing with the postman. “Do you have any letters for me today?” There are no letters: “Aw, nobody likes me.” Or it’s only advertisements and we don’t want those. This attitude of “nothing special” can help to make the emotional ups and downs much less extreme, because we’ll have more emotional balance and equanimity to whatever is happening. What is much more difficult is dealing with the preoccupation of always wanting to check and see what came in.

Changing out attitudes is a slow and long process. Things don’t just change quickly, but gradually. It’s interesting when you start to view yourself in a more realistic way, where you see, “I’ve become a slave to the computer and to my cell phone, because I’m always having to look at them. I’m always having to check how many people are responding to me. Why have I become a slave?” Look at all the people on the subway and how many always have their cell phone in their hands. Why? There’s self-cherishing and insecurity, with the mentality of “I don’t want to miss out on something.” Why? What is really so important? Some things may be important, we’re not saying that nothing is important, but we over-exaggerate the importance of constantly being in touch, constantly being online. It’s good to analyze this in terms of our own emotional balance.

So, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. This is one set.

Things Going Well and Things Going Badly

The second set is that sometimes things go well, and sometimes things go badly. We can understand this on many levels but again, the response is “nothing special.” One day will go really well, and the next will be full of obstacles, people giving us a hard time and everything seems to go wrong. This is normal. In the morning our energy can be high, and in the afternoon really low. Sometimes we’re healthy, sometimes we catch a cold. Nothing special.

Praise and Criticism

The next set concerns praise and criticism. Some people praise us, and others criticize us. How do we deal with this? Not everybody praised the Buddha; some people, especially his cousin, were very critical. So why should we expect everyone to praise us?

I’ll use my own example again. I get many emails about my website, and while the majority say how helpful the website has been to them, occasionally there’s criticism. Of course it’s easier to deal with praise; the criticism can be much more disturbing to our minds.

With praise, we shouldn’t go to extremes of thinking we’re so great or the opposite, “Well, I don’t deserve it. If they really knew the true me, they wouldn’t like me.” But it’s much easier to carry on with praise. Why is criticism so much more difficult? Because we cherish ourselves. With attitude training, we look at them rather than us, so we would think about what we did that might have caused them to send us their criticism. If we can do something to help, even if it’s just an apology, “I acknowledge that this maybe gave you a difficult time. I’m really sorry, that wasn’t my intention.” Slowly we can shift the focus from self-cherishing to cherishing others.

We can do this in our normal, everyday interactions with others. Sometimes they’re going to be happy with us and sometimes they won’t be. When people are happy with us, it’s easy. Then we have some people in our lives who are just difficult to deal with and who are always criticizing us or being negative toward us. What is our attitude toward them? Do we recognize them just as a very difficult, unpleasant person? Or do we recognize that they are a very unhappy person? I’m sure you all have people like that in your lives. They call you or want to meet up and have lunch and you know it’s going to be 100% talking about themselves and complaining. You could think, “Ugh, this person again.” But you can’t always say you’re busy!

If our response is to think about how unpleasant it will be for me to be with them and listen to their complaining, then we can change our view: this person is complaining all the time because they’re actually very unhappy, and lonely too. People who complain usually are, because no one wants to be with them. So if we need to spend some time with them, we can develop more sympathy, and it’s not such a horrible experience because we think in terms of them, not in terms of “me.”

Hearing Good News and Bad News

The fourth set is hearing good and bad news. It’s like before: everything is always going up and down. Of course, the four sets overlap each other and the principle of “nothing special” applies to each of these eight. There’s nothing special about hearing either good or bad news, that’s what happens to everyone in their lives.

Now, some people object to this type of training, proclaiming that they like being on an emotional rollercoaster because if you don’t have the ups and downs, then you’re not really alive. But we need to examine whether this is a helpful attitude to have.

First off, whether we’re on an emotional rollercoaster or not, we’re still alive. That’s a bit of a silly objection. So what happens when we’re on an emotional rollercoaster? Well, we’re not really thinking rationally because we get overwhelmed by the emotions. If we’re more calm, then our life isn’t so dramatic, and we’re able to deal with situations in a much better way. If you’re not thinking clearly and get angry, you say things you regret later on. Being even-minded in terms of our emotions means that we don’t do this kind of stuff. And in terms of everyone wanting happiness, this sort of calm, peaceful happiness is much more stable than the dramatic “ooh whoopee!” kind of happiness.

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