Have Less Desire - Reduce Stress – Let go of sorrow

In the days near the Lunar New Year, family members are busy. Trying to pack the very last packages, the stacks of papers are being completed. After finishing the office work, we turned to house chores: cleaning the house so it could be dressed in a new color like changing clothes to say goodbye to the old year and welcome spring.

Just that much is enough to make an ordinary person struggle, miserable, and let alone those who are mentally weak, whose souls are fragile. We have too many duties and responsibilities to do. Sometimes, we can't share it with anyone to help us lighten the load a little, because almost everyone is the same, everyone is busy!

The heavy workload and multi-dimensional pressure have made everyone stressed. True looking at someone's face, rarely does a genuine and pure smile appear. Why is it so pitiful! How tiring it is to live like that!

I. LESS DESIRE

However, whenever we have free time, we refuse to rest to regain our strength. One thing that's confusing is that no matter how tired the body is after a long day of activities, we pull out our phones to ... continue to work. The news, pictures, short clips, ect. stimulate the brain's nerves with a bad number of waves, affecting the natural brain waves and making it numb and bewildered. The more dopamine is released, the more we keep scrolling and swiping until our hands are shaking, our deep eyes are dark, and our shoulders are tired, then we can put down our phones and go to sleep. We intentionally put more pressure and burden on this poor body.

Or when we're sad, we're bored, we go out to play, eat and drink. It's okay to drink a little "barley smoothie", but when it's the end, the body fails: vomiting, painful discomfort and forgets before and after as if someone stole your brain. So, we are not sad anymore, or not bored any more? Or "the cat is still the same cat"? Oh, it's strange! If you want to stop being bored, you have to remove the causes, conditions, and means that lead to boredom, but the reason why draw more, fill in bolder?

The Buddha taught this:

"If any sufferings arose in the past, all of them arise with the desire as its basis, with the desire as its cause. Desire is the basis of suffering. Whatever suffering arises in the future, all that suffering arises with desire as the basis, with desire as the cause. Desire is the basis of suffering."

(The Samyutta Nikaya, Chapter 8, The Samadhi of the Village)

"Desire" is the desire, the desire for an object that we are often interested in, paying attention to. We suffer in our bodies and minds because we like too much and want too much. By eliminating unnecessary desires, we have halved the causes of stress.)

II. REDUCE STRESS

It also has a relaxing reputation, but it's very strange, bringing harm to health and making the mind go blank. Netizens used a very good sentence: "Consequences of scrolling Tiktok/Facebook/Instagram for more than 180 minutes!" - you also see, I also know, but still compete to scroll. It's like on a cigarette pack the words "Smoking can cause lung cancer" - Yes, I know, it's so painful, you keep saying it... And I still smoke!

Honestly, I've never seen anyone so busy that they don't have time to scroll through their phones. Instead of "scrolling the phone often", we switch to "scroll the phone occasionally", and the "regular thing to do" is to get plenty of rest, to relax deeply by relaxing the body and mind. You should learn to meditate, should learn to let go of the muscles of the face, arms, shoulder blades, eyes, ect, in the relaxation mode. Simply observe, note the pain, nothing else needs to be done. It is best not to strain, but to relax, to rest in relaxation.

Second, we should arrange our affairs wisely. Many of us still complain about the pressure of life, but only because we do not know how to manage and run our lives. Let's boldly ask experienced people for help, we will have a more comfortable life, easier to breathe instead of just holding on to no way out.

III. LETTING GO OF YOUR SORROWS 

Depression comes from our own dissatisfactions and desires. Losing desires is half the success. Going forward, we let go of our dissatisfactions and dissatisfactions by "seeing through the world, seeing others" - that is, everything that happens in the world has its own cause and effect, contained within. its own morality. The things that happen and the people we meet are all predestined. Replace the mind of anger and delusion with a joyful smile, a tolerant heart and an open and altruistic heart, the defilements also gradually disappear.

If we live modestly, if we know how to humble ourselves, our ego is also smaller. This "falling" also makes us go up and down in life. Because we think we are the best, right, then our rights, our money... but we do not understand the Buddha's teaching that all operations in the world are impermanent, all suffering, and lost or changed. With that understanding, we can let go of troubles and sorrows.

IV. CONCLUSION

Every day, we should know how to relax often and deeply, practice using the phone less, arrange our activities, work skillfully, and open our hearts a little each day, then which life is not worth living? How can sorrows be retained?

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy practice together!

To the mass, a poem by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh:

CHÂU NGỌC PHÁP HOA 

Treasures fill the world

I gave it to you this morning

A handful of brilliant diamonds

Glitters all day and night.

 

Every minute is a gem

That lights up the country and the sky

Just a little breath

Many miracles are displayed.

 

Birds sing, pines ring, flowers bloom

Blue sky, white clouds,

Here they are bright loving eyes

conscious smile.

 

Hey, the richest man

Has been wandering since

He stop being a beggar

Going back to receive the inheritance.

 

Let's give each other happiness

and stay in this moment

let go of sorrow

go back and treasure our lives in our hands.

Tâm Cung

Translated into English by Nguyen Thi Mai Thao