In Buddhist teaching, there is the understanding that there are certain classes of human experience that are major sources of our suffering. These experiences are known as the “Eight Worldly Dharmas” and are listed as a set of four contrasting pairs: pleasure and pain; praise and blame; fame and disgrace; gain and loss. The seemingly positive side of each of these pairs (e.g., praise, fame) triggers not only the contemporaneous sensations and thoughts related to pleasure (“I like this!” and “I deserve this!”), but also a clinging, a desire to hang on to, perhaps to intensify, the experience. And each of the “negative” experiences (e.g., blame, loss) triggers not only instantaneous sensations and thoughts related to disliking (“I hate this!” and “This should not be happening to me!”), but also, too often, a determined effort to avoid, escape, or deny the situation. If we look at our own emotional lives and behavior, we can begin to see that much of our lives are governed by the pursuit of pleasure, praise, fame, and gain; and by the avoidance of pain, blame, disgrace, and loss. This could hardly be called a meaningful life.
There is a way out of this trap. First, we need to develop the habit of observing our reactions to situations, to see where it is that we are getting hooked into believing in the importance of the dramas we create by way of the “eight worldly dramas.” In doing this, we learn that we seem to be living on a highly unpredictable roller coaster, as we emotionally rise, descend, and rise again, based on our interpretations of the events of our daily lives. When we are being praised, we feel marvelous; if, in the next moment, we receive what feels like blame, we feel terrible. When the experience is painful, we tend to tighten, or clench up in a fierce (and counterproductive) effort to protect ourselves. Either way, we dwell on, and feed off of, the emotions generated by events and (especially!) our interpretations of those events.
Second, we must practice compassionate acceptance of precisely the things we might most want to change: painful experiences; being jostled and bruised by others as they, too, scramble about in the thrall of their own eight worldly dharmas; and our own proven capacity to fall into the traps and stories created by our own minds. Recognizing that I harbor a childish tendency to insist that things go “my” way, my task is simply to notice when this arises, acknowledge it for what it is (just a misguided demand that I am making of the world), and return to the situation at hand: what does this situation demand of me, now? According to my own values, what is the correct action, right now? Sometimes the correct action will be to accurately label what is happening (perhaps an injustice being done to someone); sometimes it can involve an attempt to relieve the suffering created by an injustice; and always, if it is truly a "correct" action, it must be done in a spirit of non-harming. This is very demanding work, and we will not always get it right; however, life will always give us more opportunities to practice!
Here is a short excerpt of what Pema Chodron says about this, in her wonderful book, When Things Fall Apart:
“The irony is that we make up the eight worldly dharmas. We make them up in reaction to what happens to us in this world. They are nothing concrete in themselves… In meditation, we can notice how emotions and moods are connected with having lost or gained something, having been praised or blamed, and so forth. Gradually our practice evolves. We start understanding that, just like us, other people also keep getting hooked by hope and fear. Everywhere we go, we see the misery that comes from buying into the eight worldly dharmas. … [This is] the beginning of growing up… When we begin just to try to accept ourselves, the ancient burden of self-importance lightens up considerably…Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all [the] unwanted parts of ourselves, all those imperfections that we don’t even want to look at. Compassion isn’t some kind of self-improvement project or ideal that we’re trying to live up to. There’s a slogan in the Mahayana teachings that says, ‘Drive all blames into oneself.’ The essence of this slogan is, ‘When it hurts so bad, it’s because I am hanging on so tight.’ What it implies is that pain comes from holding on so tightly to having it our own way and that one of the main exits we take when we find ourselves in an unwanted situation or an unwanted place, is to blame.”
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