An interview with Venerable Thubten Chodron
Ven. Thubten Chodron is the founder and Abbess of the Buddhist monastery, Sravasti Abbey.
(note: this interview is also available as a podcast)
Jennifer Ghahari: Thanks for joining us today. I’m Dr. Jennifer Ghahari, Administrative Director at Seattle Anxiety Specialists. I’d like to welcome with us Venerable Thubten Chodron. She’s an author, teacher and the founder and Abbess of Sravasti Abbey, one of the first Buddhist training monasteries for Buddhist nuns and monks in America. Today we’re going to discuss how one may mitigate anxiety through meditation. Before we begin, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself, some of the work you’ve done, as well as some of the work you’ve done with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Venerable Chodron: Ok. Thank you for having me here. Let’s see… I wasn’t raised Buddhist. I went to a course when I was working as a teacher in the Los Angeles city schools and that really interested me; it was like an incredible psychology of the mind. But it was also a spiritual path – and the course was taught by two Tibetan Lamas who had a monastery in Nepal. So, I went there and one thing led to the next and I wound up becoming a Buddhist nun. So that was back, I met the Dharma teachings, the Buddhist teachings in 1975 and I was ordained in 1977. I spent a good deal of time living abroad in Asia and also in Europe and then found myself coming back to the US and, you know, working as a resident teacher in a Dharma center in Seattle for about 10 years, and yes, I know the city, and then began Sravasti Abbey, we’re in the eastern part of Washington State. So, I’ve always been interested in psychology. I found that the Buddhist teaching explained how the human mind works in a way that I had never heard before and it really was quite amazing to me and one of the main things that the Buddha taught was that our happiness and our suffering depend on what’s going on inside of ourselves and this is different than our usual take on life where we think happiness and suffering come from outside, from other people, places, situations, your job, the government, whatever… but the Buddha said those things may be conditions but whether we’re peaceful, whether we’re satisfied, whether we’re happy or miserable that comes from our own mind, the way we look at situations, the way we, how we frame situations when we describe them to ourselves. So, I found that very interesting, not only intellectually but because there was practice associated with it, I found that when I did the Buddhist practice, it really helped me personally with a lot of my different issues. So, I just have kept practicing since then.
Jennifer Ghahari: And then you opened an Abbey…
Venerable Chodron: Yes!
Jennifer Ghahari: That’s fantastic.
Venerable Chodron: An abbey is as a Buddhist monastery and we have 17 monastics now but we also have many programs and retreats and courses for other people. So, people come actually from all over the world to do courses with us. We keep busy!
Jennifer Ghahari: Fantastic; thank you. So, to get started today, the American Psychological Association defines anxiety as an emotion characterized by tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure. This definition of anxiety has physical and mental components and I was wondering do you think of anxiety in this way?
Venerable Chodron: Ok – in Buddhism, when we talk about emotions, we talk about mental states. And we say there may be a biological connection or something going on in the brain but those are physical things that are happening with biological, chemical elements. But the real emotion is the emotion that you feel. So, I would say that feelings of tension in your body or, what was the other one? Increased blood pressure? I would say that those are physical factors that let you know that you may be feeling anxiety. Yeah? So, some people, when they are anxious, may have those physical factors, but I think you can possibly have those physical factors without being anxious or you could be anxious and maybe your body & brain doesn’t react with those kinds of physical factors. So, when I talk about anxiety, I’m talking mostly about emotion.
Jennifer Ghahari: Ok. Why do you think people tend to develop anxiety or be anxious about certain situations and how do you think that underlying assumptions about ourselves and the world work together to create anxiety?
Venerable Chodron: Oh boy… ok, so there’s two things there. Let’s start with the first one… so the first one was why do people go from like just being in a regular mental state to getting anxious. So, there I would say anxiety is related a lot to fear and to worry and it could be worry about our physical protection, our financial situation, our relationships, our status, you name it, we can get anxious about it. Ok… really seriously, you know, I mean you can get anxious because your plant isn’t growing…
Jennifer Ghahari: It happens.
Venerable Chodron: Yeah, it happens. So, what I think is going on with anxiety or what I also know from my personal experience is that I am weaving stories in my mind, yeah? When we were all in English class in high school, you know, we all thought “I’m not a good creative writer, I can’t write.” Actually, we are spectacular creative writers. When we are anxious, we are creatively writing a whole fictional story and who’s the star of the story… ME… not somebody else, I am. And then we write this story so there’s a few, maybe situations happening externally or somebody said something to us or whatever and our mind takes the situation and imputes all sorts of meaning onto these, the actual facts of the situation and then we think that what we have imputed is the reality of the situation.
Jennifer Ghahari: Right.
Venerable Chodron: So, we are creative writing and what we’re creative writing about is usually something that will not happen or that is very unlikely to happen and, even if it did, if we check in our lives, we have internal resources to deal with the situation. We also have resources in the community and our family and whatever to handle the situation but when we get anxious the story we write is I am all alone, this horrible thing is happening, what if it happens, what am I going to do… nobody else can help me, nobody else cares about me, I don’t know what to do, I’m going crazy and I might be out on the streets by Tuesday and my marriage is over by Wednesday and my kid is going to flunk out of school because he couldn’t spell cat in 1st grade, he spelled it with a K instead of a C and how he’s not going to get into university if he can’t spell cat correctly. You know, I’m exaggerating things, but this is exactly what the story writing behind anxiety does. And the thing is that we believe it. But it’s completely made up by our mind. So, it’s so interesting because I watch my own mind, you know, when I get anxious. I’ll tell you a little story about… So I was writing a book, this was many years ago, maybe 20 years ago, and the publisher did something I didn’t like and this happened and that happened and it was a whole huge mess and I didn’t know if the book was going to get published or not and I was just really, you know, anxious about it because I was responsible for writing it to some other people but I didn’t appreciate what they were doing because they were interfering… and so… yeah I was really a mess, quite anxious. And so, I happened to go to Dharamsala in the springtime, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, would give teachings. So, one day I went to the teachings and I was walking back to my room from the teachings and again my mind is ruminating about the situation. You know, I’m in India, halfway around the world from Seattle but this situation is alive and well, screaming at me with anxiety in my mind and all of a sudden as I’m walking, I said, you know, there’s over 7 billion human beings on this planet and how many of them are as worried and upset about this as I am?
Jennifer Ghahari: Ok…
Venerable Chodron: And I thought nobody else, there’s only one human being on this planet who is so upset and that’s me. 7 billion minus 1 couldn’t care less about what was going on with this book and the manuscript…and I thought if 7 billion minus 1 don’t think this is important, why am I so anxious about this? Why am I ruminating about it? It is clearly not earthshaking, you know. Although when we are anxious, we feel like the situation we are in is a national emergency or equivalent to one. In other words, like everybody should be stressed about this. But actually, everybody else is too busy thinking about themselves and I’m the only one stressed and why am I stressed, because my mind is creating a situation and then spinning, spinning, spinning around my creation so at that moment when I thought like that I just said LET GO – this is not earthshaking, it is not so important, you will find a way out to remedy this. So, I let it go and then I had a great time for the rest of my trip in India.
Jennifer Ghahari: So, touching upon that, I was wondering can you speak about the relationship between suffering and permanence and anxiety, how do they relate?
Venerable Chodron: Ok… well this gets into another… there’s so many avenues from which we come to anxiety, you know, and one of them is our expectations about how life should be.
Jennifer Ghahari: Right.
Venerable Chodron: So, I have a little thing that I call the Rules of the Universe. They are, of course, coming from me, they are my Rules of the Universe but everybody and everything should follow them even though they don’t know. So, people should treat me according to my Rules of the Universe. If they haven’t asked me what my rules are, that’s too bad for them… they should know already and treat me according to them. So, part of my Rules of the Universe, you know, are my expectations and one of my expectations is that the things that I like do not change.
Jennifer Ghahari: Ok.
Venerable Chodron: Ok? They are permanent. Yeah… so if this situation, if this relationship is going south, it’s always going south… there’s no hope for it. If my financial situation is horrible, it’s always going to be horrible, you know. So, this, the mind that fixes things in time and doesn’t consider that things change. So that’s one way I trap myself, by I think the bad things are permanent…
Jennifer Ghahari: Oh, ok.
Venerable Chodron: But the good things in my life I get anxious about because I think they’re going to end. Ok? So, the bad things which are going to change, I fix in time. The good things, which are going to change, I expect not to change at all. Ok?
Jennifer Ghahari: Right.
Venerable Chodron: So, this is my misperception, isn’t it? That I’m expecting people not to change or at least the good qualities of the people that I care about and the relationship I have with them are not supposed to change. That’s one of my Rules of the Universe. Now, of course, everybody is changing moment by moment, they’re not the same. But when I expect everybody who, you know, who’s my loved one and my friend always to be kind to me and always be my loved one or friend, I’m creating a situation for anxiety because I know that things change and I am rejecting the fact that they can change. Ok? And that makes me anxious… like ok now this person is my friend but what if they like somebody more than me? What if they move away, what if one of us gets sick? What if, what if... Again, we’re creative writing what if situations.
Jennifer Ghahari: Hmmm…
Venerable Chodron: Meanwhile, the people where I have difficult situations with, I fixate and then I get anxious about those. Like “Oh, you know my brother said this now I can’t talk to him and this and that and it’s never going to change. And oh, he really revealed how much he can’t stand me and we’ve been competing with each other since we were kids… how am I ever going to deal with this? I know he’s never going to change”. It’s toxic; that’s a good one. As soon as I label it toxic, you know, he’s toxic, the relationship is toxic… what’s toxic? My proliferating mind that is projecting stuff onto people that’s what’s toxic, you know because I have my Rules of the Universe, you know. My brother should always be like this, he should always treat me like this…. and he’s a living being who changes all the time and I change all the time, too. But I get anxious because I think it’s always going to be like this and how am I going to deal with it.
Ghahari: Wow. Thank you.
Venerable Chodron: This is what I mean, we can, we just can create things. It’s quite amazing. Now, going back to your other question about assumptions that might underlie anxiety.
Jennifer Ghahari: Yeah.
Venerable Chodron: I think the foremost assumption is that, now it’s quite embarrassing to admit this, but we’re all friends so I think we can be open. We think that we’re the most important one in the world. Yeah?
Jennifer Ghahari: Sure.
Venerable Chodron: I’m the most important person in the world! And that’s why I have my Rules of the Universe that everybody should follow and my happiness, my suffering matter more than anybody else’s. I don’t care what’s going on in Syria, what’s going on in Israel and Gaza. I don’t care about the craziness in America, you know, American politics, nothing, you know. What happens to me is the most important. And that fixation on ourselves makes us so miserable. Why? Or how? Because we relate everything in the world to ourselves.
Jennifer Ghahari: Hmmm. Right.
Venerable Chodron: And so, we joke about this at the monastery, the abbey. I’ll hear two people talking in another part of the room and I’ll joke, “Oh you guys… I know you’re talking about me, criticizing me, I can tell it, you’re not talking very loud… I know you’re talking about me. Look at that look on your face.” And I tease them about it because this is how we function, isn’t it? In your work place, if you walk in and two people are talking and their voice is low, they’re talking about me they’re saying something bad, ok? Anxiety… oh no, what did I do? They’re talking about me! What happens if they tell the boss, I won’t get the promotion, I might even get fired and then everybody in the office thinks I’m terrible, anyway what they’re gossiping about me didn’t happen and how to I clear this situation up and nobody likes me and I’m going to get fired and how am I going to tell my family I got fired… you know. So, it’s because everything is so self-referential, yeah?
Jennifer Ghahari: Right.
Venerable Chodron: Then we get upset, stressed, anxious about it. I’ll tell you another story. I think stories are really good examples.
Jennifer Ghahari: Right.
Venerable Chodron: So, one of my friends, her son was engaged to a woman and she was from a different religion, a different culture. My friend didn’t care, she was cool about that. And, obviously, her son was, too. Anyway, they had – the fiancée’s family – was having a big party down in Los Angeles; my friend lives in Oregon. She went down to Los Angeles. You know, she didn’t know anybody there except her son and the fiancée. She didn’t know anybody else. So, she walks in, it’s at the family’s home – she walks into the home and here’s, ok, and what she said, ok, when the first time she told us the story I walk in and there’s my son’s fiancée talking to somebody and she doesn’t even acknowledge that I walked in the room. She doesn’t turn around and say hello. She knows I don’t know anybody here, except for her and my son. You know it’s just common sense, common courtesy…if you’re going to marry somebody, you try and be nice to your future mother-in-law. She should have come up, at least said hello, introduce me to her family, made sure I feel comfortable. What’s going to happen? My son is marrying this woman and she is so rude and so inconsiderate! How are they going to have a happy marriage? Ok. So, this is the story she tells. So, we said, ok, cause we do some non-violent communication work here at the abbey – so we said ok, first, tell us the facts of the situation. No interpretation, no embellishment, no emotive words or words that exaggerate what’s going to happen. So, it took her a while to actually do that cause she was so worked up. What she came to, the facts of the situation, was I walked into the house, my son’s fiancée was talking with somebody and she continued talking to that person. That’s all that happened. That’s the facts of the situation…that’s all that happened. Now compare that with what she got anxious about.
Jennifer Ghahari: Right.
Venerable Chodron: You can see that the facts of the situation and how she interpreted things, how she imputed motivations on the woman, all of that was coming from her mind, her creative writing mind.
Jennifer Ghahari: Right.
Venerable Chodron: That made herself the centerpiece of the situation. There was whole room full of people? How many people were in that room? Did any of the other people, were they as upset about this as her? Nobody else noticed.
Jennifer Ghahari: Right.
Venerable Chodron: Yeah? So, it’s just another example of like – wow – if I go back to actually the raw facts of what happened, you know, why am I getting so anxious? I could have gone into the situation and introduced myself to somebody, yeah? “Hi I’m the groom’s mother.” And then they would have said, “He’s such a wonderful boy,” you know? But she didn’t do that; she just stood there frozen, feeling offended.
Jennifer Ghahari: Right
Venerable Chodron: But you see, she could have gone into the situation and just said, “Wow, you know, I’ll just go in and introduce myself. My son’s marrying into this family, I want to get to know these people.
Jennifer Ghahari: Right. And everybody could have been feeling anxious at the same time…
Venerable Chodron: Right! Yeah, because they don’t know everybody at the gathering either.
Jennifer Ghahari: Right. Thank you. So, in terms of anxiety and trying to mitigate that, can having a spiritual path help lessen anxiety and, as a Buddhist, how does the practice of Buddhist teachings help you with anxiety?
Venerable Chodron: Ok. So yes, I think a spiritual practice can help us. No matter what faith you are, I think what’s common in all faiths is that we think there’s something more than our own ego and we think that there’s something more than just the happiness of this life.
Jennifer Ghahari: Ok. Right.
Venerable Chodron: So whatever what religion one is, if one has a practice in that religion, you know, that can help you expand your vision, ok, because anxiety, stress, is very narrow vision. It’s all about me in this situation right now and my misery. If you have a spiritual path, your mind thinks about other people, it thinks about the future, it thinks about being an ethical person and keeping good ethical conduct. So that’s common in all faiths. In Buddhism, in particular, we have a genre of teachings, in Tibetan it’s called lojong, it means mind training or thought training and it’s a series of teachings that show you how to describe things from another perspective so that your anxiety, your anger, your fear, your greed, your jealousy, whatever it is, dissipates. In other words, you’re not suppressing emotions or repressing them but you’re learning to look at a situation from a much different perspective, a much broader perspective and when you do that then the emotion that is so much based on self-centeredness automatically fades. So, this genre of teachings, the mind or thought training teachings, are the ones I rely on so much in my own life to deal with situations because, you know, whenever you work with people things always come up and you have to figure out a way to resolve problems. You know, as we all know, people do not follow the first Rule of our Universe, you know. My first rule is everybody should be, do, think and say exactly what I think they should be, do, think and say.
Jennifer Ghahari: Right, yeah.
Venerable Chodron: My parents should be this way, my mother should be this way, my father should be this way, my brother, my sister, my pet frog, you know, the turkeys that are wondering around the abbey, everybody should fulfill my expectations. And, it’s not just that they should be, do and think what I say but they should all like me. And they should all think I’m wonderful, right?
Jennifer Ghahari: Yeah.
Venerable Chodron: And the problem with the world is that people do not realize that I am the center of it. That is the big problem. So, these people, they’re so stupid, they think they’re the center of the world, they don’t realize that I am, you know. So, they need to change. So, you know, of course, I get anxious, especially if I have kids, I’ve got to rear my kids so that they become exactly what I’m not, they fulfill all my aspirations, they become what I could never become. So, you get anxious about that. But, you know, this is all from seeing things from the wrong perspective. So, you know, we have a practice, one of our practices is called seeing the disadvantages of being self-centered. So, we contemplate those. Another practice is seeing the benefits of cherishing others.
Jennifer Ghahari: Ok.
Venerable Chodron: Oh, you mean when I’m anxious, I should think about other people. Really?? You mean other people exist as something outside the drama that concerns me?? You mean they have feelings? That they want to be happy, they don’t want to be miserable… just like me??
Jennifer Ghahari: Right.
Venerable Chodron: That people right now, you know, their houses have been bombed and they have no place to go? Now how would that feel, to be in that situation? Right now, we’re in the aftermath of the Israel Gaza thing. So, in both Israel and in Gaza, houses were bombed, people were killed, you know. How would I feel if I was in that situation? Or how would I feel if I were a refugee? Fleeing from Syria or who knows where…there are so many places in the world now. And how would I feel if I was a refugee having to go to another country where I didn’t know anybody and I didn’t speak the language.
Jennifer Ghahari: Yeah, right.
Venerable Chodron: Oh my goodness, you mean there are people like that? They’re in that situation? And then, you know, so we start to open our mind to see much, what’s happening in the world. But then our mind might go oh yes, well there’s all these rich people, they live in, you know, Beverly Hills. They live in… I forget in Seattle what the rich neighborhood is, but they live in that. They live in New York, Upper West side, Upper East side, you know – whatever it is. Those people, you know, they’re happy… No, they aren’t, no they aren’t. You know I’m sure you’ve dealt with people who on the outside look, you know they have everything, but they aren’t happy at all. They have personal problems, they have all sorts of problems that, you know, wealthy people who have a good front, have a whole other set of problems. So, we begin to see oh my goodness, you know, I’m not the only one.
Jennifer Ghahari: Exactly.
Venerable Chodron: And so, instead of just focusing on myself, what about doing…you know, we do a meditation practice where we um, there’s one meditation practice called metta – which means loving kindness – where we think loving, kind thoughts towards other people and just sit there and generate these kind thoughts, wishing them to have happiness in the process of happiness. And a compassion practice wishing people to be free of suffering and the cause of suffering. And you don’t have to limit to human beings. Animals also.
Jennifer Ghahari: Definitely.
Venerable Chodron: Yeah? Really when you what’s happening to many animals it makes me so sad. So, you can sit there and just wish other people well. It’s a fantastic practice and, you know, you can start with people that you know if you want to. They usually recommend starting with somebody you know who’s not somebody you’re really attached to emotionally, you know – but somebody you know and you wish that person well… may they have good health, may they have good relationships, may they feel successful in their life. May what interferes with them opening their hearts to others, may that kind of hindrance may they be free of it. May they have love and compassion for the others. May they have all their physical needs met. And, you know, and just thinking about all these things. You start with somebody that you know, that you’re not close to; then you do the same thing for somebody that you’re close to; then you do it for a stranger, you know, somebody at the grocery store. Maybe your neighbor… people don’t even know their neighbors nowadays, you know, and thinking about your neighbor, may they have happiness and what kind of things would make them happy? And what kind of problems could they have in their life that I wish them to be free of and then, you know, so you’ve done kind of somebody you know, a dear one, a stranger, now you go to somebody you don’t like.
Jennifer Ghahari: Ok.
Venerable Chodron: Somebody you fear even, maybe even somebody who abused you. And you think , you know, ok, somebody who abused you , are they a happy person? Somebody who was mean to you or harmed you or cheated you… did they do that because they were happy? Happy people don’t wake up in the morning and say I think I’m going to abuse somebody and cheat them and lie to them, make them all feel miserable. Happy people don’t think like that – so this person must be suffering, they must be very miserable. So, I know – and it’s their misery that made them do what was harmful to me or harmful to the people I loved.
Jennifer Ghahari: Yeah, right.
Venerable Chodron: Or harmful to the country – whatever it is. It was their misery that made them do that because in their confusion, they thought acting that way was going to alleviate their own misery and, of course it didn’t. They were acting out their own suffering under the delusion that it was going to alleviate the tension in their own minds and, of course, it didn’t. It made them more miserable because they have to live with knowing what they did. So, they’re actually more miserable than they were before they did what was harmful. So, aren’t these people who are so confused and so miserable, aren’t they objects of compassion?
Jennifer Ghahari: Right.
Venerable Chodron: So, can I open my heart to have compassion for people like this? Knowing that they also have the ability to change? That what happened was one part of their life, but they are more than the worst thing that they did in their life. And, of course, the worst thing they did in their life was in relationship to me, not in relationship to anybody else – it was always involving me, because I’m the victim of everybody else, right? But actually, you know, it’s like something is going on – can I wish them well? What would happen if they were happy? What would happen if their minds were peaceful and they had some wisdom and they realized that acting in this way wasn’t going to bring anybody any benefit, including themselves? And so, to wish them to be happy. I do this meditation with politicians a lot. For me, I won’t mention names, there’s a lot of people out there in the government who need some compassion.
Jennifer Ghahari: Yes.
Venerable Chodron: Or people out of the government who need some compassion. Because they’re doing things that are so harmful and they don’t understand what they’re doing. They’re so confused and so wrapped up in trying to promote themselves that, you know, I don’t know how some of them can live with themselves. So, to practice wishing these people well, may they have wisdom, may they feel secure so that they don’t need to take revenge on other people. May they have a magnanimous mind so that they wish other people joy and can take, and can feel happy by creating the circumstances for other people to be happy, you know. So, wishing that for those people it’s a fantastic meditation… it really helps.
Jennifer Ghahari: One question I have is, if you’re internalizing and you have all this anxiety and you want to try to meditate, sometimes it can be hard to focus and actually meditate. So are there ways to get over your anxiety so that you are able to start meditating. It’s like a vicious cycle, I think?
Venerable Chodron: Yeah, it is. Um, one meditation that they recommend is just to watch your breath. You, um, you focus at your belly, there’s two points. You can either focus at your belly and your belly expand as you inhale, watch it fall as you exhale or you can focus at the nostrils and the tip of the nose and watch the sensation of the breath as it comes in and as it goes out or you can just sit there and feel yourself breathing and feel how the breath connects you to the universe. But your object of focus, your object of attention is just the breath. Now, it’s very easy to get distracted because we are used to being distracted. So, when you notice you got distracted, don’t criticize yourself. Just know, ok, now I’m thinking about this or I hear a sound or whatever – come home to your breath. So, see your breath as home and just the peaceful flow of your breath as it goes in and out, don’t deep breathe don’t force your breath in any way but just imagine sitting there being peaceful and breathing peacefully and you just bring your attention back to your breath and watch your breath and relax.
Jennifer Ghahari: Ok. It sounds like you can really do that anywhere. You don’t have to do it in a special place or wear special clothes or a special pillow?
Venerable Chodron: Right, all of Buddhist practice is like that. You can do it anywhere; you don’t need special props or anything.
Jennifer Ghahari: How long would you recommend that someone do that for?
Venerable Chodron: The breathing meditation?
Jennifer Ghahari: Yes.
Venerable Chodron: Um, you know start out maybe 5 minutes and then you know then go to 10, then go to 15.
Jennifer Ghahari: Oh ok…
Venerable Chodron: And then, like I said, there’s other mediations that people can do. Then you might switch into another meditation because in Buddhism we have many kinds of meditation so watching the breath is one kind, but another kind like I just told you about the meditation on loving kindness, mediation on compassion there’s that one. We have visualization meditations that are also really very effective, I think for dealing with anxiety and so forth. Just to give you, if I take a Buddhist mediation and secularize it because I don’t the audience, you know you may have Catholics and Muslims and Jews and non-believers. So ok, so you know a visualization could be think of the good qualities that you really respect in others that you would like to develop in yourself – qualities of love and compassion, ethical conduct, generosity, patience, forgiveness, humility, you know – and imagine those qualities manifesting as a ball of light in front of you. If somebody were a Buddhist, I would say it can manifest as the Buddha figure, if you’re a Christian it could manifest as Jesus or just keep it as a ball of light. So, the good qualities manifest as that ball of light and the ball of light is radiant and it just spreads in everywhere in the universe and the light from the ball also, especially comes into you and it comes in through the top of your head and through all the pores of your body and it completely, your whole body is full with this radiant light which is the nature of all those good qualities.
Jennifer Ghahari: Ok.
Venerable Chodron: So, you’re sitting there imagining that this light is coming into you and that you are experiencing those good qualities that you can now relate to the world as somebody who has those qualities, as somebody whose kind and peaceful and compassionate and you think you know that light has come in – now I’m enriched by it, you know, and so I can, you know, start to become like that in my interactions with other people. And so you focus on that visualization and then, at the end, you imagine the ball of light comes on top of your head, it’s very small and then it comes to the top of your head and it comes to the center of your heart and you think now, you know, the center of my heart, the middle of your chest, not your heating heart, and you have light there and so the light of your own love and compassion and wisdom and so forth it radiates, it fills your body and it goes outside you body and now you start radiating light to other people. So, to your friends, to strangers and also to the people you don’t like and the people you’re afraid of and the people who have harmed you and you imagine that all those people, you know, absorb that light. And then you just stay in that state of just feeling, feeling good about yourself and feeling good about other people.
Jennifer Ghahari: Right. Thank you. This has been beyond amazing and I want to thank you for speaking with us today. Is there anything else, before we wrap up, that you would like to add or anything else that you would like to share?
Venerable Chodron: You know there’s one thing. What I think is very important is having a sense of humor. We’ve got to be able to make fun of ourselves. And to laugh at ourselves and not take ourselves so seriously. And to have that kind of sense of humor, we have to be kind of transparent, it’s like, you know, usually we have faults and we hide them away and hope nobody notices them. But, hey, people notice our faults and so going around like this saying I don’t have a nose (covering her face), I don’t have a nose even though everybody knows we have one is ridiculous, you know. It’s like so ok we have faults, can I laugh at my faults, can I talk about my faults, can I be open about them without feeling ashamed and without blaming myself and telling myself what a horrible person I am… can I just say I have this fault and I’m working on it and I can also laugh at myself.
Jennifer Ghahari: Right.
Venerable Chodron: I can laugh at when I act out this fault because sometimes what I’m doing or saying is so ridiculous that I have to laugh at myself. I think that’s also quite important.
Jennifer Ghahari: Perfect. Well, thank you again for being with us and for sharing this wisdom. I know you guys offer a lot of different lectures and classes at the abbey so we’re definitely going to share the link on our website to your website so people can check that out.
Venerable Chodron: There’s the abbey website and then there’s my personal website, thubtenchodron.org.
Jennifer Ghahari: We’ll put both of those on our site.
Venerable Chodron: And our YouTube channel because everything is about us!
Jennifer Ghahari: Exactly! Again, thank you for having all that information out there; that’s wonderful.
Venerable Chodron: Thank you. Take care.
Jennifer Ghahari: Thank you.
Please note: The views expressed by the interviewee are for educational and informational purposes only, are not meant to diagnose or treat any condition, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Seattle Anxiety Specialists, PLLC.
Editor: Jennifer (Ghahari) Smith, Ph.D.