The great thing about Buddhism, in my opinion, is that it doesn’t ask you to change. It gives you all the options and leaves the decision to you. All the teachings I give to you in writings like this, I’m not actually encouraging you to listen to me and change your life the way I describe it to you. I don’t think I make that explicit enough, so in this writing let’s explain the Buddhist life changing process.
Everything Has Consequences
When I drop a cup of water there is a chance that the cup can break. There’s a chance of miraculously having the water be contained in the cup even after it hits the ground. There’s a lot of things that can happen, but statistically speaking the most likely outcome is that most of the water will fall out of the cup and the cup may break.
There is no way for me to drop the cup of water and not have any effects from it. The cup will not suspend in air, the cup will not float up; the cup HAS to come down to the ground because of gravity.
Everything we do has a potential consequence until we actually do it, where the potential consequence turns into a real consequence. When I send you an email saying “Sign up for 1:1 coaching with me!”, before I press the “send” button I can think of all the possibilities. One person may sign up. One person may not even read the mail at all. One person may have the mail sent to spam. One person may read it and unsubscribe. One person may read it but not take action. But when I click send I give birth to a higher possibility that they will want to work with me.
Of course, because I present myself as a coach a lot on the internet, I get cold emails from people asking if I can work with them without me specifically offering it to them. This may seem like it comes from the blue but it’s the side-effect of completely owning being a life coach on the internet for 3ish years.
Life Has Consequences
Because everything is subject to dependent arising, LIFE is also subject to dependent arising. What I mean is, the way we live our life tends to steer the overall direction of our life.
The world is not guaranteed to be in order. There are people who do great things for the world and die from an unexpected random cause. There was a Jewish professor who survived the holocaust in the victims of the Virginia Tech mass shooting. It also works the other way around; many seemingly deplorable people have great fortunes and there are probably too many examples to list here.
But those are statistical outliers and therefore are more notable. People who generally give to others TEND TO receive more, because if you always receive gifts and love from another person wouldn’t you think of gifting them back when it’s their birthday or a special occasion? On the other hand people who generally take from others TEND TO receive less, which further demands the lifestyle of needing to take from others.
People who are driven by power tend to submit to higher power than themselves. People who are driven by belonging tend to not feel like they belong anywhere because their life keeps on looking for places with even better belonging. Again, although there are statistical outliers, the way you live your life generally tends to determine your life experience.
Life of Suffering
Suffering is an umbrella term for general/specific dissatisfaction or emotional difficulties. The important point is, there is a lifestyle that is conducive to suffering. You can read more about that in this post: #
When you are in constant pursuit of something and derive pleasure from that something, you are building towards suffering. There’s no way around it. When you’re so consumed by the idea that you’re right, then other people are constantly wrong and how can you be happy when you’re always surrounded by the wrong people? You can’t. When you have a skewed view of reality but keep on confusing it with actual reality, how can you be happy? Reality will constantly disappoint you.
You will have brief moments of satisfaction with this kind of a lifestyle but that’s it; the satisfaction will always fleet away. You’ll always be in pursuit of the satisfaction again. I guarantee it not because I feel like it, but because I have personally lived through the experience and rationally how can you be happy… When you have a reason to suffer? How can I not be burned when my hands are on fire? How can I not drop when I’m subject to gravity on earth?
Life of Happiness (and Lag)
Then how do we live a life of happiness, since according to Billy it’s all been figured out by Buddha 2600 years ago? This is the antidote to the three poisons: restraint, ease, and wisdom.
Just like how the three poisons can intermix with each other (I have to get the promotion, because how can I not? My happiness depends on that! ← greed/pursuit of something fueled by believing the self is right, backed by a faulty understanding of the truth of life), the antidote also mixes well itself.
I could earn more money to buy a new, bigger house. And the more I focus on this, the more the desire seems to grow and it starts to affect my judgment. So when I notice that, I bring the focus back to myself so I can access calm ease where it’s easier to make a rational decision. A newer, bigger house will have more insurance premium and taking care of it will be much harder. Do I enjoy paying and taking care of the house that I have right now? Not really. Is the joy that comes from just having a bigger property worth the money and the work that comes with it? I don’t think so, since I just live with my wife. Ok. Then we don’t have to chase it, but it was nice to entertain the idea.
As noted above, it’s easier to make a rational decision when you’re at ease. In jiujitsu, the martial art I train, there’s a saying that goes like “only one person can be comfortable”. If I’m comfortable, my opponent is uncomfortable and vice versa; this is important because it is very difficult to make rational defensive decisions when I’m under immense physical pressure in discomfort. It’s like trying to solve a difficult math equation while submerged under a swimming pool; I could, but it would be a lot harder.
That’s why we do meditations and such, to practice being at ease with the current. That’s why we do 108 bows and such, so it’s easier to observe what comes up from our feelings department. But a very common pitfall people fall into when we discuss the happy life is, people don’t account for the LAG of a happy life.
When you buy a car, you most likely have to pay off the car over a long period of time. When you buy a house, typically it’s 30 years to pay it off. So to expect to have the house be paid off in 5 years is unrealistic, unless you can come up with the cash to do so. Same with losing weight. Any person with a respectable view of sustainable weight management will tell you you cannot lose weight quickly and safely. If you want to go the quick route you’ll have to pay a lot of price both in terms of physical stress and nutrition.
This means the way you have lived your life will have you pay its dues for some time after you start living the happy life. Doesn’t it make sense? Trying to live life in a new way is like changing your dominant hand. Not only do you need to develop the skill in your new dominant hand but you also need to refrain from using your existing dominant hand. This will be a difficult experience not because inherently it has to be difficult or anything, but simply because any new experience is interpreted as scary, difficult, challenging to our brains.
After about 100 days you will get a taste of what it is to live like without suffering. But that is just 100 days of your life over… a lot more than that of your existing life; so when you stop there you will be drawn back into how you have lived your life before.
So we say it takes about 1,000 days of practicing a new life to actually change your life. But I have some good news for you: if you’re committed to the new life, a happy life free of suffering, you will actually start seeing the tangible benefits way before the 1,000 days. I’m about 16 months into the practice but I have completely removed suffering from my life (but as you know, I’m as intense as a person can be; while your mileage may differ, you can see results as quick as me depending on how much you put into it).
With this fundamental understanding of suffering and happiness, I will coach you on the specific desire, anger, and ignorance you have about life. You will learn to differentiate between actual reality and your perceived reality. You will understand the mechanics of dependent arising and you will learn to enjoy the freedom of exploring the middle way in a world full of all-or-nothing binaries.
The writing started out with an exploration of how Buddhism doesn’t force you to do something, but just tells you your options. As I’ve explained, a life of suffering tends to accumulate and repeat itself through an endless cycle of suffering. A life of happiness tends to give you ease and clarity with a lot of personal power. When you actually understand and integrate the difference between the two lives, it just so happens that making the choice to live a happy life becomes so much easier.