Buddhist Wisdom for Life's Ups and Downs
The other day, I was talking with someone about issues arising in their life. With this particular friend, I've noticed a repeating pattern: they continually strive (and struggle) to achieve certain things in their life—whether it's a relationship, a job, a particular mood or way of being, or even a spiritual state.
I've noticed this pattern again and again in our conversations, particularly in how they relate to situations when things don't work out—when relationships fail, when people don't turn out to be who we think they are, when meditation practice feels less fruitful than before, or when work becomes particularly challenging. These experiences are probably familiar to you because we all relate to different aspects of our lives in similar ways. Even if we're not experiencing such challenges currently, we may have in the past, or we move in and out of these reactions to life's disappointments.
This particular friend's situation mirrors parts of my own life from time to time, and I'm sure some of you can relate. I've been reflecting on this and considering some perspectives from Dharma and the Buddhist path that might help. Specifically, I've been contemplating things I've activated in my personal practice, both in formal meditation on the cushion and informally throughout the day. I'd like to share some approaches that have been particularly helpful for me, as they might assist you if you're struggling with similar situations.
First, let's consider this rut we can get into with life—where everything seems to be going wrong, or we're striving for something we don't get, and after some months or years, we start to feel like a failure. We might feel there's something wrong with us or wonder what we did wrong to be "down on our luck." In my life—and I'm not saying you need to think this way; these are just ideas I'm working with personally—I like to think of them as a working hypothesis. It's not absolute truth, but rather a space where we can apply curiosity and introspection to explore whether there's a way to work with this situation with more sobriety and clarity.
I've started to think about these patterns as a type of addiction. I don't mean addiction in the same sense as substance dependency, but rather as a strong expectation and habitual pattern of believing life should work out, and if it doesn't, we're either doing something wrong or there's something wrong with us.
Now, I want to be clear: some things in life can and do work out. Sometimes we just need to put in more effort or take a step back to see where the bottleneck is. That's perfectly fine and is actually part of perseverance in Buddhism. When we hit roadblocks or experience stagnation in our meditation practice or personal development as Buddhist practitioners, we need to step back and examine what's going wrong. We often apply the study of Dharma to assess whether we're looking at things in a way that's stagnating us or if there's something we can adjust.
The same applies to life in general, but what I really want to discuss is this strong expectation—not necessarily a conscious belief that nothing should go wrong, because most of us would consciously acknowledge that things can go wrong—but rather the inner, unconscious attitude that nothing should go wrong. We expect things to work out all the time, yet no matter how hard we try, sometimes things just don't work out. That's normal and natural.
From the perspective of Dharma practice, which for me often involves introspection and applying the Buddhist path to such dilemmas, this falls into the category of creating a real relationship with life. We can apply some of the most foundational principles of Buddha Dharma to help frame and understand this situation.
One of the most useful framings that Buddhism provides in relation to life is what we call the Four Seals. These seals are common across all types of Buddhism, though sometimes they're called the three characteristics or the three marks. In Mahayana Buddhism, they add a fourth seal. These seals are:
Impermanence
Dissatisfaction (or the nature of pain/suffering)
Non-duality (or shunyata)
Liberation (Nirvana is peace)
We use these seals not only as a lens to look at life but as principles to arrange our life around and work toward. I want to start with the first seal: impermanence. While we all intellectually acknowledge that everything changes, we sometimes harbor an unconscious belief that things won't change, or we develop an unconscious pattern of trying to hold onto things despite their changing nature.
This teaching isn't meant to force a belief upon us—it's more of an invitation to question: Is everything in the nature of change? Is everything impermanent? This becomes important in relating to life because we need to develop a direct perception of the nature of change or impermanence as much as possible. This applies to physical forms changing, to moods, thoughts, and emotions (which change even more quickly), and to subtler levels of change happening constantly. Even from when you started listening to this episode until now, much has changed, even if we can't consciously identify each change.
Reflecting on this can be powerful because it can lead to an exponential shift in how we relate to life. I can't say exactly how that shift might manifest for you, but for me, it often helps in relating more fluidly to life. If things are always changing, why fight against that?
This brings us to the next principle, which often emerges naturally through reflecting on impermanence: fluidity and acceptance. It's such a healthy way to relate to life, especially when things don't go our way or when we start to lose confidence and think everything bad is happening to us. Sometimes there's nothing we did wrong, or we can't discern that clearly in the moment. We just need to tune into the fluidity and change of life and accept what is.
Acceptance here means a healthy kind of surrender—not an unhealthy one. Of course, there are situations where we need to persevere rather than accept, but I'm talking about a healthy surrender that acknowledges, "This is how it is right now, and I need to be with this moment." For me, this is a continual practice—and I'm not saying I'm good at it, just that I try—of leaning into the moment.
Meditation largely involves bringing our attention and awareness into the present moment and learning to be here. Within that being, we're meeting each moment again and again, and when we're meeting the moment, we're also meeting impermanence and change. Technically, there is no specific moment because each moment changes into the next, but that's getting into the deeper aspects of the other seals of Dharma.
Relating to life in this way not only helps us be more content when things don't go our way but also helps break up that addiction to forcing things to work. There's so much striving nowadays, and while having goals and wanting to accomplish things is fine—whether it's building a business or developing better relationships with our children or partners—we need to learn to discern what constitutes a healthy pursuit versus striving that leaves us tired and empty, lacking confidence because we're pushing too hard.
Many of us have striven for things in life, perhaps achieved them, only to be disappointed when they changed or didn't bring the happiness we expected. Creating a more meaningful relationship with life—with everything that happens to us, our relationships with others, our relationship with ourselves and our minds, our emotions—can help break up this addiction to striving and pushing.
Impermanence is one doorway into this understanding of change. Dukkha, the next of the Four Seals, which we sometimes translate as dissatisfaction, suffering, or discomfort, is another. Many people struggle with this concept initially because it sounds like dwelling on painful or uncomfortable things, but that's not the point at all. The point is to notice the different levels of discomfort we experience and how, through holding our sense of self and identities in certain ways, we actually reinforce that pain.
It's actually the opposite of dwelling in pain—it's about acknowledging and seeing the levels of dukkha in our life so we can wake up from it. It's similar to properly diagnosing the symptoms of a disease so we can apply the appropriate medicine. This is more challenging than looking at the nature of change or impermanence because often when we look at the discomfort or inherent suffering within certain behaviors, experiences, or situations, it can be heartbreaking.
We need to be careful not to deflate here. I often use the phrase: when we bear witness to the different levels of dissatisfaction, discomfort, and suffering in our life, we want our heart to break open, not break down. Breaking open has to do with compassion and the softness and tenderness we can develop through bearing witness to the inevitable pain in our life—pain that every person on Earth must experience at some level.
We allow our heart to break open, and this tenderness helps us relate to life in a much more skillful way. Tenderness here doesn't mean lacking confidence or inability to accomplish things; it means we act with deeper humanity, patience, and clarity.
Working with both impermanence and dukkha—meeting the nature of change and the nature of suffering in different situations in our life—can lead to the third seal. This is where some people might check out when reading about Buddhism because the third seal addresses Buddhist non-duality, also known as shunyata or sometimes termed emptiness. This isn't negation in a negative way or nihilism; it's not saying things are meaningless. Rather, it's saying things have meaning because they're interdependent, because they're in relationship. They can take form, function, and have meaning for us and others, but that meaning is very fluid and open.
Normally, when we attribute meaning, we get attached and cling to it, and then when things change, we suffer. This third seal of shunyata carries the connotation of how things actually are—naturally open. When we try to constrict them, box them in, or make them something they're not, we're denying that openness, which inevitably leads to pain and dissatisfaction.
This is a significant teaching, probably the single most liberating meditation perspective—an aspect of reality that we can acknowledge and experience on a deeper level that can bring great joy into our life. Rather than representing a lack, it's actually about bringing joy and contentment because we start to relate to how things actually are rather than building them up into something they're not.
Over the course of working with these three seals, the teachings say one could then access the fourth, which is Liberation or Nirvana—a peace that's beyond the categories of good or bad. I won't go too deeply into this here, but I want to acknowledge its presence. If you're like me, you're mainly working with the first few seals, and the first one—impermanence—is often the most practical starting place because we can all see change around us.
As the famous phrase goes, "A bad mood is like the weather, if you don't like it, just wait for it to change.” We can see that the nature of change isn't inherently bad; if there wasn't change, we'd be stuck in the same mood or situation forever. Change isn't always negative—we just need to work with our clinging when we don't want things to change. Bearing witness to change also allows us to approach each situation freshly.
This is what I'm suggesting: developing a new way to work with our life and its situations freshly. It's about lightness. We can squeeze something and try to force results, or we can hold it properly and allow it to have its own trajectory while we support and encourage it.
I'll leave you with this final question to ask yourself when struggling with something in your life: "Can I hold this more lightly?" We're not letting go completely; it's just a question of whether we're approaching this particular situation, action, or person with a tight grip or an open hand. Often, this shift from squeezing to holding lightly is the first step.
It's not easy, depending on what we're working with. You don't need to start with the most difficult thing you're struggling with—begin with something less intense and practice with that. Then you can gradually work with more challenging situations.
