Conditions of Happiness

So, the topic of "waiting":

I grew up, educated in California as an Architect

studied, wanted to be good and make a name for myself.

...to have a house, two car garage, the American Dream.

My mother and father sacrificed a lot for their four children; my two brothers and my sister.

They escaped with nothing. They had to leave everything.

I remember giving away my toys, "Why am I giving away my toys?"

And I remember my dad giving away his Honda (car)...

and slowly giving away our furniture.

We had to do it secretly so the neighborhoods don't know that we are going to escape one night, on a boat.

We left everything to come here.

I remember there was a lot of pressure from my mom, especially to be successful.

That's a dream for all mothers and fathers.

As I grew up, I saw there was a lot of effort to achieve a diploma, to become this and that, awards, certificates.

You get trained to always be somebody.

And then you become an Architect.

You walk in, you look and see whose office is closer to whose, and whose got the better project.

That's the system that I grew up in. I was stuck in that.

Growing up, I had difficulties with my father. He struggled a lot coming here, losing everything.

So for me, I had a lot of anger issues with my father.

This is something the practice helped me with...

to learn to come back and look at ourselves, to confront the suffering that I was having as a young man.

It helped me become a little happier.

The practice helped me look at my father and my relationship with him,

to begin to understand him more

and to begin to understand my own suffering.

This was the benefit of sitting, silencing the mind, calming ...

and having time to look deeply at my emotions,

where I'm at and the goals that I'm setting for myself.

This helped me to understand more of what true happiness was.

Once I was able to touch the root of my suffering.

I was also able to touch the things that I am passing by because of some future promise

to become this, or that... always wanting more.

It's a kind of suffering, always thinking that you're lacking.

This is something that is underneath our culture.

With the practice, I think it can help all of us to really recognize that

"Wow, I'm still alive ...

"My eyes, my body is in good condition. I'm healthy enough ...

"My tooth ache," my teacher shared with us about the toothache. Sorry, back to hygiene -

You know, this moment is a non-toothache moment.

It's kind of silly, what does that mean?

But all you need to do is reflect.

Remember that tooth in the back. Remember when it was aching...

when your gum was inflamed.

Just touching that, even though it was not a great suffering, it was suffering.

It reminds us like, "aah, wonderful. I don't have a toothache now."

This is a practice. Just stopping to recognize the breath;

recognizing a mind that is clear.

It's a training to actually be present to this moment, to this present moment,

to recognize that the conditions are so many ...

I remember our teacher gave us homework to write down all the wonderful conditions,

the happy moments in your life now. It's a wonderful exercise.

Your loved ones, your brothers, your sisters.

Sometimes we're there with our loved one, but we're not present.

My brother made us some tea before coming here, we were hanging out at somebody's place.

He brought out his tea set and made three of us tea.

I recognized, "Wow, we haven't had tea for awhile"

We sat there and drank tea together.

And to recognize that my younger brother is so sweet.

He brought his tea material, we had just woken up from a nap

and the first thing he does is make us tea.

I was reading a book and I closed it

and we are looking at each other drinking tea.

That sounds like, "What does that have to do with my happiness, with my career?"

But that moment actually is the building block for the rest of your life, you're living!

Sometimes we put a lot of goals and a lot of things that we want

but actually when we get there, we want more.

To give you an example, you have a tea cup,

you drink your tea and you want to do the next thing,

when you get to the next thing, you want to do ... so on.

And this is the way we've been trained.

This is where we're at as a culture.

When I say we all will become refugees... I think in my lifetime, we will see that we will all become refugees.

It's a different thing, it's not about one nation or another,

but we will all need a place where we can escape all that

online and wi-fi and... this stuff is everywhere now.

We have no time to be with ourselves, to be present for our body,

to be present with the moment.

And to enjoy life as it is in the "now."

To be present with our loved one and to be present with nature.

This is where we're heading. Besides the climate change, there is something happening to our culture.

We're traveling around the world and we're escalating faster and faster.

I hope you continue to train, find a refuge within; a refugee camp within.

We all will need that.

When you have strong emotions, when you need a break, or feel out of touch with what you need to do

...come back.

Everything you need, everything you have is there.

It's only from that place that we can help change where we're at as a society, as a human on this planet.

If you keep struggling and you don't have this refuge, then it will be difficult.

My sister will continue on this theme for us ...