Apart from the World

There was a poet one time who said, “The world is too much with us.” Because the nature of the world is what? There’s gain and there’s loss. Status, loss of status. Praise, criticism. Pleasure, pain.

These things come and go. You can’t take them as any basis for true happiness or reliable guidance. After all, people can praise you for doing horrible things and criticize you for doing good things. People gain status and wealth doing bad things. If we took the world as our guide, we’d be pretty miserable.

Fortunately, we have the Dhamma which teaches us that we don’t have to follow in the ways of the world. The world can spin around as it wants, but we don’t have to spin with it. Ajaan Lee’s image is that there has to be some point in the middle that doesn’t spin around. So you stay there. And then, as for the things of the world, you learn how to use them. You don’t take them as your basis for happiness, but you can use them as tools.

When gain comes, you can develop the perfection of generosity. When status comes you can use your powers to help other people. When criticism comes you can learn from that, too. When loss comes, you can learn from that, too. When you lose your status, lose your money, that’s when you know who your real friends are.

As for criticism, you have to look at yourself. If what they say is true, then you’ve gained a treasure. As the Buddha said, those who point out your faults point out treasure, things that you can work on to improve. If what they say is not true, well, you’ve learned about them. It might not be what you want to learn about them, but you’ve learned.

And we can take pleasure and pain and learn from them. The pleasures of the world, we realize, are not all that reliable. We can develop a pleasure inside that doesn’t have to depend on the world. As for pain, the Buddha said it’s a noble truth. You can learn from it.

So once your happiness doesn’t depend on these things, you can learn a lot. And you can get good use out of them. But if you just grab on to them, hoping that your status, your wealth, your praise, and your pleasures will all stay, you’re bound for disappointment.

So learn not to make your happiness depend on these things. You have an independent happiness outside. When you can separate yourself out like this, that’s when you have an opportunity to look deeper inside to see what potentials you have there that you’ve overlooked and that you can now develop. See how far they can take you.