Venerable Robina Courtin
TRANSFORMING PROBLEMS INTO HAPPINESS
Wednesday 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
February 11th &18th
One of the most powerful methods to go beyond ego and attachment is to happily greet our problems. As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, “The thought of liking problems should arise naturally, like the thought of liking ice cream!”
This is the brave attitude of the bodhisattvas. Why think this way?
We all experience one kind of problem or another. They seem to come without warning, no matter how hard we try to avoid them. Essentially, a “problem” is whatever triggers anger or aversion in our minds. We live in dread of problems, and the cause of this is attachment, which only wants everything to be nice. It can’t stand problems.
Given that our job as Buddhists is to get rid of attachment, anger, and the other painful emotions, it follows logically that the perfect opportunity to do this is when things go wrong. Welcoming problems, interpreting them as good, puts atomic bombs on attachment and anger, and on the mistaken sense of a concrete self that drives them, paving the way for courage, confidence, and compassion.
It’s the most difficult practice, the most radical, but the most rewarding.
