Have Happy Thoughts Alexander 1 06 08 24

Video

Transcript

Dhammarato: There we go. All right. So most of the way that people practice is always missing something or missing a key ingredient. For instance, they make the pizza pie correctly, but they don’t bother to put it in the stove. Or if they put it in the stove, they put it in a cold stove. Or another thing is that they take the pizza that’s finished out of the stove and then eat it immediately burning their mouth. Pizza is not so good when the cheese is stuck to the roof of your mouth, burning you.

Alexander: That’s right.

Dhammarato: All right.

Alexander: I hate when my mouth gets burnt.

Dhammarato: So there’s a lot to correct practice. And yet in another way, it’s very simple. Once you learn how, it’s a very simple practice, and that is to set whenever. To get started. Whenever you have a thought that’s not wholesome, whenever you have a thought of disappointment, whenever you have a thought of disagreement, of suffering, of anything that you don’t like, that’s called a hindrance. It’s called an unwholesome thought. And so long as we have unwholesome thoughts, we’re going to stay in an unwholesome, unhappy situation. And so the first thing that we can do then is to start looking at the kind of thoughts that we have. And with that, we can look at where these thoughts come from. For instance, if you’ve got a poor me attitude, then you’re going to have poor me thoughts. If you have a good, strong, positive attitude, then you’re going to have good, strong, positive thoughts. Does that make sense?

Alexander: Yeah.

Dhammarato: All right. So we have to look at our attitude and how and also look at the kind of thoughts that we have. And almost always we have a victim’s attitude which gives us victims thoughts. This is universal. I’m not saying that you’re special and broken, that everybody does this.

Alexander: Does meditation help to change your mindset to positive?

Dhammarato: I would say absolutely no. Meditation can help because meditation is like what a victim wants. He wants the meditation to do it to him and wants the meditation to do it for him. And that’s not correct meditation. In fact, I don’t even use the word meditation. I would prefer us use the word practice because meditation has so misused the words broken. The Buddha, by the way, never used the word meditation.

Alexander: Okay, interesting. So a practice of mindfulness.

Dhammarato: Well, the word mindfulness is a bad translation of the word sati. And the word sati has the quality of remembering and mostly to remember to be in the present moment rather than in the past or in the future, wanting things to be better later. Or being regretful over the things in the past that are not up to scratch and worried that the things that are broken in the past will continue to be broken into the future. That’s how most people think, make a better, Make America great again is that mentality where, in fact, America and everything else is already okay. It’s your attitude that’s broken. The attitude is broken. Go ahead.

Alexander: That phrase seems to be focused on the past.

Dhammarato: Mm. And again, means into the future. To where the reality is that things have always been okay and they will always continue to be okay until somebody doesn’t like it, and then for them, it’s not okay. And we’re trained that way. So everybody has the mentality that things are not okay and need to be fixed. And really, what needs to be fixed is our attitude. And we start fixing the attitude by fixing the thoughts that we have. In a way, we call it gladdening the mind, brightening the mind. And if you can gladden the mind and brighten the mind by having good, wholesome words to say, then by doing that, you will begin to feel better. Rather than feeling like you need something, feeling like you’ve missed something, feeling like you need to be loved. Because when people feel like they need to be loved, they go around looking for love in all the wrong places. You’ve probably heard that song before. Looking for love in all the wrong places.¹ Why? Because they’re looking outside. And in fact, we don’t even need to look for love on the inside. Better thing to do is to stop looking for love altogether. You’re already okay. You’ve already got everything you need. You don’t need to love yourself. You need to just accept that everything is okay the way that it is. So the way that we do this is by gladdening the mind, brightening the mind, changing our unwholesome thoughts to wholesome thoughts. And as we do so, we begin to feel better, Especially if we’re talking to ourselves that way, having thoughts about, everything’s okay, everything is fine, not a worry in the world, no problems. And then we can bring the breath in. As I breathe in, everything is okay. And as I breathe out, I relax. I breathe in really good sweet air, and I breathe out the junk. This is the kind of thoughts that we want to have as we’re breathing. And as we breathe in, well, we actually energize the body. We oxygenate the blood. We get the mind more fit to work. And as we breathe out, breathe out long, we breathe out. That will expend the carbon dioxide and other impurities in the blood. And so we’re actually breathing in order to energize and to purify. So it’s not a matter of just thinking about the breath, but it’s actually changing the way that we breathe. So we change the way we breathe, we change our attitude, we change our thoughts, and we change our feelings. So it’s very much a change model. And we start with changing our thoughts. Everything is all right. Everything is fine. Wow, what a good breath. Oh, just relax. These are the kind of thoughts that we begin to have. Removing those unwholesome thoughts and unwholesome attitude and start having a wholesome attitude. The wholesome attitude is, I can do this. The wholesome attitude is, I feel good. I can control the way I feel. You see, most people in the west, they can’t control their feelings because they’ve never been taught that they could control their feelings. The victim mode that everyone is in is that we’re out of control of our feelings. The feelings run the show. And that’s true for most people. It’s certainly true for politicians and bullies and all kinds of people. So the right way to handle it is to begin to relax and have happy, wholesome thoughts, to begin to change our attitude to a can do attitude. And as we do that, we begin to recognize that you can feel safe and secure, you can feel comfortable, and then you can feel satisfied. And so if you can feel satisfied, let’s feel satisfied. Everything is okay the way that it is. No problems, no worries. Everything is okay. Everything is all right.

Alexander: No worries. Everything is okay.

Dhammarato: No worries. Everything is okay. Not a worrying. Go ahead.

Alexander: The breath I’m breathing, it is tasty.

Dhammarato: Pardon?

Alexander: The breath I’m breathing is tasty.

Dhammarato: Tasty, all right. Delicious, tasty, safe, life giving. As you breathe in, you breathe in aliveness. You can even tell the Christians to say, as you breathe in, you breathe in. God, the Holy Spirit. Breathe in. Take that oxygen in. Breathe well. Take a deep, long breath. And as we breathe out, we take a long, deep out breath, a relaxing breath, a breath that relaxes, puts the body at rest, makes us peaceful. And if we practice this over and over again, it will begin to be our new habit. Rather than the habit of being frantic, the habit of being a dependent, the habit of being a victim, the habit of having pity parties, the habit of wanting things to be different without actually doing something to make them different, then in fact what we want to be different is our attitude. And if we can change our attitude, what Else do we need? If you feel safe, secure, comfortable, satisfied and feel successful, what else is there? Pardon?

Alexander: Helping others.

Dhammarato: Well, if you are not safe, not secure, not satisfied, how are you helping others?

Alexander: Yeah, it’s best you want them to help you first.

Dhammarato: So the better thing is to not worry about other people. You can’t fix them any more than they can fix you. If they could have fixed you, they would have fixed you. How many helpers are there out there anyway? Every church is full of helpers and they can’t even help each other. They can’t help themselves. So helping others is kind of a bent up attitude. A better thing to do is to get your own act together and then go around others with your act together and maybe it’ll start to rub off. Maybe they want something that you’ve got, but if you try to sell it to them, they don’t want it. So I would not suggest to go out and help others. I’d suggest you get your own mental attitude straightened out.

Alexander: I understand that if you have something that’s positive, other people will see it and want to do that for themselves and that is helpful for them.

Dhammarato: Maybe. And maybe some of them will chase you down the tree, call you a witch or something. But whatever happens with them is not your business. Your job is to be happy, to be safe, secure, comfortable, satisfied, successful, wealthy, even successfully wealthy. Not wealthy with money, but wealthy with a strong, positive, beautiful attitude. Everything is okay. This is a paradise. This is not the hell the Christians want you to think it is.

Alexander: Good thing. So how can we practice?

Dhammarato: Well, I just been telling you that for the past 10 minutes. We can add a couple of things. Number one, go do it alone. Go get in seclusion. Get away from the world. Get away from all the annoyances. Sit down in a quiet place and recognize that when you do sit down in a quiet place, it’s away from the rest of the world. Guess what? You brought it with you. Okay? And so now we can begin to change those thoughts from unwholesome thoughts to wholesome thoughts. All those unwholesome thoughts you learned from somebody else. All those people that tried to fix you all of those years have actually screwed you up. Or actually you use their system to screw yourself up. And so the way to get out of that screw up is to stop having the unwholesome thoughts that you’ve heard before and start having wholesome thoughts. Everything’s okay. Everything is fine. This is just really nice. No problems, no worries. And you start having those kind of thoughts as I breathe In. I breathe in delicious air. And as I breathe out, I relax. Everything’s okay. Everything is just fine.

Alexander: Well, I’m in a place alone now, and it’s very quiet.

Dhammarato: So that’s an ideal time and place to just have happy thoughts. Everything is okay. Everything is fine. No worries, nothing to do, no place to go. The job that needed to be done has already been done, and I’m okay.

Alexander: Well, I can. I can tell myself that, yes.

Dhammarato: And then when you start to disagree with it, you can say, aha, I see that I’m disagreeing with it. And then start doing it again. You have spent your whole life talking yourself into feeling bad. Now it’s time to start talking yourself into feeling good. And stop listening to all the crap that you tell yourself that it’s not good enough yet. Let whatever you’re doing right now be good enough.

Alexander: What about wanting to grow?

Dhammarato: Stop wanting anything. Stop wanting to grow. Be satisfied with things the way that they are in this present moment. Wanting to grow is a victim. The victim wants to grow. Be satisfied with the way you are. Wanting to grow is telling yourself you’re not good enough yet.

Alexander: Well, can I. Can I be good enough now but still want to grow because of.

Dhammarato: Well, isn’t that a contradiction? Why can’t things be good enough now? Just if you have just a little satisfaction, be satisfied that you’ve got a little satisfaction. Wanting more satisfaction is not any at all. Being dissatisfied with your satisfaction means that you’re being dissatisfied. And you can drop that and say, no, everything right now is good enough. This is how we practice. Pretty soon the skills begin to grow. Your satisfaction grows. But as long as you say this satisfaction is not good enough, you’re not practicing correctly.

Alexander: I guess I feel satisfied after I complete my goals for the day, right?

Dhammarato: How typical is that? That’s total society and its influence upon you. Guess what? There’s no end to it. The only way that you can make all your goals in the day is to stop having any goals, and then you can make that goal easily enough. If you can stop having goals, then you can be satisfied. I don’t have any goals. But so long as you’ve got a long to do list, there’s going to be only partial satisfaction, not the real deal. So the practice is to practice being satisfied, not partially satisfied, not a little bit satisfied, and mostly dissatisfied because I want more satisfaction, but to practice, actually this is good enough right now. I’m. Because if you practice, I’m a little bit satisfied, but I want more satisfaction then that’s what you’re practicing, and that’s what you’ll be very, very good at. Even when you’re an old man, you’ll be very, very good at still not being satisfied. When you’re going to start to practice actually being satisfied.

Alexander: Okay.

Dhammarato: You don’t sound convinced.

Alexander: I’m thinking that I enjoy growing myself, and that is satisfying to me.

Dhammarato: How about enjoying being good enough?

Alexander: All. I guess I think that in the way I see it is I’m. I have times of the day where I am satisfied, but I also have times where, okay, so now what you’re.

Dhammarato: Doing is you’re open to the future again. At times I’m this, and at times I’m that. Sometimes in the past I was this way, and sometimes in the past I was that way. And now you’re projecting into the future. Sometimes I’m satisfied and sometimes I’m not. Right. I’m not talking about the past. I’m not talking about the future. I’m talking about right now. You can practice. I’m okay right now. I can practice. Everything is okay right now. Leave improvements to later. Right now, your practices. I’m already okay right now. Everything is fine.

Alexander: Okay, that’s true. Right now everything is perfect.

Dhammarato: It’s okay until you start thinking about, well, I like to do this and I want to do that, and then you’re back into the future again. But right now, everything is okay. And so this is the practice is the practice of being here now to remember to be here now to remember to look and find out that you just had a thought about off into the future. Let’s not have thoughts about off into the future. Let’s have thoughts about right now. I’m okay.

Alexander: Okay. Right now. I’m all right right now.

Dhammarato: You’re okay right now. Everything is fine. Right now. Everything is fine.

Alexander: Right now. Everything is fine.

Dhammarato: No worries. No worries. No place to go and nothing to do.

Alexander: No place to go and nothing to do.

Dhammarato: Everything is all right.

Alexander: Everything is all right.

Dhammarato: What a relief it is. Wow. No place to go and nothing to do. What a relief it is.

Alexander: What a relief it is. Nowhere to go, nothing to do.

Dhammarato: So can you practice that way?

Alexander: Yeah. Have a time where I. I’m in a quiet place alone where I am satisfied with the present moment and how I am right now.

Dhammarato: Exactly. And I would recommend that you practice that five or six times a day for 10 or 15 minutes. Just sit down. Everything is okay. What a relief it is. No place to go and nothing to do. No work to do, no Dangers. I’m safe, secure, satisfied. Everything is okay.

Alexander: Okay. I will do that. I will do daily practice of being satisfied.

Dhammarato: Not just daily, not once a day, but five times a day, six times a day, every couple of hours. When you get good, you can start doing it every hour. Every hour. You can take 10 minutes, practice. I’m okay. Everything is fine. When people say, I don’t have enough, I got to work, I got to get it done, they’re not as productive. They’ll spend two hours. What you can do in 50 minutes because you spent 10 minutes just being okay, being relaxed. And when you’re after you get relaxed now, you actually begin to like the work that you’re doing because you spent 10 minutes just being okay, liking everything.

Alexander: All right. Thank you for teaching me that.

Dhammarato: All right.

Alexander: So decided to do that.

Dhammarato: Are you going to call back?

Alexander: Yeah. What should I tell you about how things have been going after some time?

Dhammarato: Yeah. We can talk about how your practice is going. Call about once a week. I’d also recommend that you start meeting and hanging out with people who know how to practice correctly. And I’m not talking about social media like Reddit or Facebook or whatever like that, because those are ordinary people, but we do have a Sangha group. You said you know about our YouTube channel.

Alexander: I didn’t until you mentioned it during the call.

Dhammarato: Oh. So how did you know to call me?

Alexander: I was talking to a friend, and he said I could Skype call you, and you would teach me about meditation. I wanted to do that.

Dhammarato: Is that a student that I know, or is it somebody off the street that recommended.

Alexander: Well, his name is Austin Summers.

Dhammarato: Not familiar.

Alexander: Okay. Yeah.

Dhammarato: All right, so go to the disk. Go to the YouTube channel, which you can go to YouTube and just type in Domorato in the search, and it’ll bring up the channel. And then on every video, there’s a description. And in that description, it’ll talk about our great. Our Discord group and about our Skype groups. And also we’ve got a. You. A web page, a web site.

Alexander: Mm.

Dhammarato: And I would recommend that you join that website. And all of that can be found in the YouTube documentation or the description field for the videos. And I would strongly recommend then, that you join Discord or maybe the Sangha groups on Skype so that you can be around some people who know how to be happy.

Alexander: Okay. I found the channel.

Dhammarato: All right, so we’ll check you later.

Alexander: All right. Nice to meet you, Dhammarato.

Dhammarato: I hope that we can become friends. Yes.

Alexander: All right. Thank you.

Dhammarato: And we can become friends. You stay around, all right? All right.

Alexander: I’ll call you again.

Dhammarato: Okay.

Alexander: I do feel a nice feeling after practicing.

Dhammarato: What a relief it is to start having wholesome thoughts. What a relief it is.

Alexander: Yeah. Thank you.

Dhammarato: Okay, well, we’ll see you.

Alexander: All right. Have a good day.

Summary of this Dhamma Talk

In this talk, Dhammarato discusses how most people’s practice is missing key ingredients, using the analogy of making pizza incorrectly (like not heating the oven or burning your mouth on hot cheese). He emphasizes that while practice can be simple, most people approach it from a victim mentality. Rather than relying on meditation to “fix” things, he advocates for actively changing unwholesome thoughts to wholesome ones, practicing being satisfied in the present moment, and letting go of the constant desire for growth or improvement. He particularly emphasizes the importance of practicing in seclusion multiple times per day, focusing on thoughts like “everything is okay” and using the breath mindfully to energize and purify.

Outline of this Dhamma Talk

The Problem with Common Practice

• Most people’s practice is missing key ingredients
• Uses pizza-making analogy to illustrate incorrect practice
  • Making pizza but not heating the oven
  • Eating pizza too hot and burning mouth

Understanding Thoughts and Attitudes

• Unwholesome thoughts lead to unwholesome situations
• Attitude shapes thoughts
• Most people have a “victim’s attitude”
• Discussion of why “meditation” isn’t the answer
  • Buddha never used the word “meditation”
  • Practice is a better term than meditation

The Issue with Common Mentalities

• References “Make America Great Again” as example of broken attitude
• People trained to think things need fixing
• Reality: things are already okay

The Correct Practice Approach

• Focus on gladdening and brightening the mind
• Change unwholesome thoughts to wholesome ones
• Use breath mindfully
  • Breathe in to energize
  • Breathe out to purify
• Practice in seclusion
• Do this 5-6 times daily for 10-15 minutes

Common Misconceptions

• Helping others before helping yourself
• Wanting to grow or improve
• Setting goals and satisfaction
• References “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places” (song) ¹

Key Teaching Points

• Be satisfied with the present moment
• Stop wanting to grow/improve
• Everything is okay right now
• No place to go, nothing to do

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References