As our attention moves toward others, compassion gives us a break from ourselves

Gen Zamling opened his public talk at Oak Park’s Cheney Mansion with a joke about how the topic — Living Fearlessly in an Uncertain World — must not have resonated with people at all. The sizeable crowd laughed. Then he posed the question, “What sort of world do you live in?” He asked people to consider what their personal world looks like to them and to hold their answer in their mind.

Gen Zamling noted that when things feel out of control for people, the typical response is to develop negative emotions such as fear, stress, anxiety, rage, frustration, etc. We also tend to spend a lot of energy trying to fix external problems. Sometimes, we do have some success, but soon another problem pops up and negative, depleting emotions arise as well. People have intelligence, so we can think of solutions to outer problems, but we lack the wisdom to know how to address inner problems, the unpleasant feelings which are the real source of unhappiness. We first need to ask ourselves, Would I like to be free from my inner problems? Indeed, Gen Zamling suggested that part of the Buddhist path is to consider, What do I want from my mind? Meditation, he said, can function like an incubator to develop our intentions.

During the rest of the talk, Gen Zamling illuminated Buddha’s teachings about subtle impermanence, patient acceptance, and compassion to demonstrate how we can use these understandings to live more fearlessly. For example, referencing the experience of watching our breath that we engaged in during the meditation, he explained that if we understand that nothing lasts for more than a moment, that everything is in a constant flow of ceasing and arising, we can more easily let go of painful feelings that we harbor from the past. Patient acceptance can help us avoid the suffering that comes from futilely resisting a situation that is unfolding. And when we realize that just as we are suffering with fear and anxiety, so too is everyone else, we develop compassion for others. In this way, as our attention moves toward others, compassion gives us a break from ourselves. Moreover, we develop the wish for everyone to be free from fear and we resolve to bring fearlessness into our world, to help others in our families, our workplaces, our communities, feel more fearless. In this way, we create the karma for world peace.