Dancing with Life: Buddhist Insights for Finding Meaning and Joy in the Face of Suffering

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Insights come only through reflection, and not belief. (Perhaps one of the biggest points in this book.)

V. Some students can become discouraged because they perceive the Four Noble Truths to only be about suffering. In fact, every insight brings less suffering and, therefore, more happiness joy and meaning. As you begin to have realizations around the First Noble Truth, you will have more happiness based on conditions because your mind is not so reactive to conditions. As you start to realize the insights of the Second Noble Truth, you begin to experience the second kind of happiness because your mind states are healthier and you’re less caught in grasping. Finally, even a foretaste of cessation brings such unconditioned happiness and provides a new basis for meaning and joy. The Four Noble Truths are at the heart of every Buddhist tradition. Phillip Moffitt’s wonderful book, Dancing with Life, plumbs their timeless wisdom with a refreshing depth of insight. Phillip’s pragmatic and incisive understanding transforms theory into practice and helps actualize the liberating potential of these teachings. This book is an important contribution to our journey of awakening.” —Joseph Goldstein, author of A Heart Full of Peace and One Dharma Eliot: Teach us to care and not care. Teach us to sit still. Caring without demanding. Love becomes the moment, not the outcome of the moment. Still, she must be on a comedown from that Strictly adrenaline rush? “Not at all,” she says firmly. “I feel absolutely fine. I haven’t had time to think about anything: the phone hasn’t stopped ringing and the messages haven’t stopped coming in since the results show aired. It’s a tidal wave – I’m just overwhelmed.” She’s also had some rather racy messages about her handsome pro from female friends, she teases. “I wouldn’t dare show them to Kai – he’d blush beyond anything.” VI. Some students have questions about the difference between the second and third kinds of dukkha. One way to understand the difference is that the second kind of dukkha, which is based on anicca, is located in time, while the third kind of dukkha is based on a single moment—in any given moment there is the truth that there is “no there there.”Knowing what is essential to you allows you to meet the chaos of life with a clear mind and an open heart. In my experience, being clear about who you are as you respond to life’s twists and turns is the only strategy that leads to a sustainable sense of well-being. Being grounded in your authentic self, or what I like to call your essence, supports you in making choices and decisions, helps you endure anxiety and stress, and enables you to bear disappointment and difficulty with equanimity.

Suggestion: Look at the chapters “Starting Over,” “Starting your Day with Clarity,” and “Knowing What’s Really Happening” and discuss how these three skills combine to support developing intentionality. Overcoming wholesome craving is harder: have morals, use meditation to cultivate wisdom, accept that all outcomes cannot be controlled. Within the Four Noble Truths the Buddha described Twelve Insights. These insights are revolutionary because they transform the Truths from a philosophical statement about suffering into a method for directly coping with suffering in your life. They elucidate not only the Truths themselves but also the way you can experience the Truths on an emotional as well as an intellectual level and then integrate these experiences into your life. In other words, the Four Noble Truths is not just a summary guideline, a creed, or a statement of philosophy, but an actual practice of insight and realization in and of itself. It is a teaching in how to live wisely. One of my patients walked into my office yesterday, sat down, let out a big sigh, and said, “I’ve been dancing with life all week!” Yes, he is reading your book and getting so much out of it.”Breaking news. Deadlines. Making budgets. There’s no doubt about it: Magazine publishing can be a seriously stressful career. Suggestion: Have each person describe the ways they are skillful in forgiving others (and themselves). Also have them name a situation in which they have struggled with forgiveness and how it felt. Discuss how gratitude can help with forgiveness. The proper response to clinging desire is widsom (re: Tao Te Ching). "Allow your tea to cool before drinking." Suggestion: Discuss how each of you understands the idea of intentionality and describe a time in your life when you felt a sense of purpose. You might also discuss just how important the feelings of intentionality and purpose are to you. Ordinary compulsiveness is a constant source of emotional chaos, yet it lends itself to being readily clarified.

Before cessation: "chop wood and carry water." After cessation: "chop wood and carry water." Begin to notice the difference between the experience you are having and your awareness of the experience. For instance, when you feel hungry, shift your attention to the awareness itself. How is this different from the experience of being hungry? The first major theme is the development of mindfulness. Mindfulness is more than simply being present and accepting the moment; it involves meeting the moment with your deepest values. You might choose a “keyword” to focus on for the week, such as “dukkha,” “attachment,” or “intention.” Come up with your own definition of the word, notice examples of that word arising during the week, and share them with your group. Moffitt states that the purpose of writing this book was to “help people learn to live more skillfully,” just as he began to do at age 40. Leaving behind a successful career, he embarked on a journey of study, meditation, and Jungian analysis to discover new capacities in himself, and a connection to a larger purpose. That larger purpose evolved into helping others find clarity, direction, and meaning in their lives.Moffitt quotes Ajahn Chah: “There are two kinds of suffering: the suffering that leads to more suffering and the suffering that leads to the end of suffering. If you are not willing to face the second kind of suffering, you will surely continue to experience the first.” Life can be a profound joy. And it can be a hard business. I have learned over the years that some of how I feel is my own choice. And in times when it feels utterly beyond me to choose, I have found all sorts of wonderful people and tools to support myself not to sink into bitterness. His approach, influenced by Western psychology and Buddhist philosophy, involves using a combination of mindfulness and intention. This can provide the foundation for a more authentic relationship with yourself and others, resulting in the ability to transform life’s many challenges into opportunities for growth. Truth #2: Craving. "Khanda." The actual act of clinging to desire is the suffering, not what is craved. If the movie is sold out, is your evening ruined?

Awakening through the Nine Bodies is at once a vivid map connecting the vast territories of consciousness, a practical guide that can immediately be put to liberating use, the tale of a unique spiritual apprenticeship, transmission of a precious lineage that otherwise might be lost, a bridge between various yogic and Buddhist models, and an invigorating call to awaken.” Phillip Moffitt takes the profound insights of the wisdom traditions and translates them into simple and effective steps to stable inner strength, happiness, and peace. His unique gift is his own deep grounding in what it really takes to be fully engaged with life while remaining clear-headed and happy. An extraordinary book.” Angela and Kai reprised their American smooth while 20-year-old EastEnders actor Bobby and his professional dance partner Dianne Buswell jived to Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham! before the judges unanimously voted to save Bobby and Dianne. Read More Related Articles Before he founded the Life Balance Institute, a nonprofit organization devoted to the study and practice of spiritual values in daily life, Phillip Moffitt served as chief executive and editor-in-chief of Esquire magazine. He is an award-winning essayist and a regular contributor to Yoga Journal. In this solid work, Moffitt takes the Four Noble Truths and uses them as a foundation for 12 insights which enable us to dance with both joy and pain while finding peace in a balanced mind. Punctuating the book are comments on poetic passages by T. S. Eliot and references to the thought of Jungian psychologist Helen Luke. Moffitt also brings to bear his experiences from more than 30 years of meditation, yoga practice, and teaching vipassana. He is convinced that mindfulness and compassion are tools for transforming suffering into joy.Strictly stars Ellie and Vito have been surrounded by rumours of a romance ever since the show started.