A Buddhist Monk on how to deal with stress, anxiety and desire

Too often do people feel stressed and anxious. Besides the midlife crisis being a well-known and acknowledged concept, also the quarter-life crisis is making its way to being an acknowledged concept. What could we do about it? How do we prevent it? How do we find our balance in this world? In this post, former Monk David Marks shares his thoughts from a Buddhistic point of view. Also, he shares his greatest life lessons.

Do you believe there is a way to make and hold onto inner progress in a world that is constantly tempting us to give in to our desires?

Yes. We speak about following the Bodhisattva path to enlightenment. This path’s main practices are generosity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration, and wisdom. These activities are not exclusive to monks or nuns living in a monastery or a yogi living in his or her cave. Laypeople can also develop these because, in the course of everyday life, there are so many opportunities to practice. Take, for instance, generosity. We can practice that not just with our wealth but also with our time and love. People can also practice patience without being a monk. This is because, in general, living in the world is endlessly frustrating. More specifically, there is always somebody or something giving rise to irritation. So the ordinary world gives us enough opportunities. And not only generosity and patience, but also morality and perseverance. Everyone has to cultivate these.

But for most people, it’s more difficult to live and work in the ordinary world than for monks in a monastery. This is because the ordinary world is always so busy. People have to deal with a lot of pressure and expectations. It can be hard to find a sense of space and tranquillity within such an environment. At the same time, skillfully dealing with all those problems can be a powerful way to develop the mind. So, maybe some people can learn much more from living an ordinary life.

Still, it is challenging. Being in the ordinary world becomes exhausting. Also, the more we get caught up in it, the harder it is to disentangle ourselves. So while it is possible to develop and grow spiritually and possibly even become enlightened while living and working in the ordinary world, it is extremely difficult in practice. Yet, we should do the best we can. It would be best if people, just like creating opportunities to go on a vacation for relaxing, that they would do the same thing for spiritual relaxation. To go to a place where the energy is more peaceful and quiet and more conducive to introspection and meditation. You don’t have to go to India or Nepal. There are monasteries and meditation centers all over the world.

What would that inner stillness do for people who are living their daily lives with all the stress they are experiencing and the pressure and the expectations?

“I think that if people are able to develop a meditation practice and connect up with that inner stillness, this would possibly be the greatest gift they can give themselves. This is because, in those times when they feel too stressed, overwhelmed or frustrated, they can return to that inner space of tranquillity, clarity, and silence they created. That space would be able to bring them back into balance. It is like recharging a battery that has been depleted, without having to go on a holiday. We get our energy and peacefulness back.”

– David Marks

It’s actually really important, for all of us, to be able to connect to that deeper level. After all, here we can experience who we are as living beings. If people are able to do that, it would make them so much more effective as human beings. It would make them happier as well. It would feel like there is always a safe place to go to. That place would be in their heart and in their mind.

Would you say that inner stillness is also the antidote for negative emotions?

To some extent, I think that’s true. We all have that Buddha-nature that allows us to become infinitely wise and infinitely compassionate. I believe that, on some level, human beings are fundamentally good. If we develop a practice, whether it’s prayer or meditation, we are able to find that spaciousness within ourselves. Also, it enables us to retreat into that space of solitude, tranquillity, and peacefulness. My own experience — and I think the experience of countless other people as well — is that this space itself allows the goodness within us to manifest more strongly. More specifically, it’s like in that space, positive energy just naturally tends to arise. Out of that positive energy, love, kindness, compassion, and wisdom arises.

So in that sense, being centered, calm, and clear is an antidote to the negative emotions of anger, hatred, selfishness, and pride. Those delusions themselves are, in a sense, a reflection or a manifestation of the overly excited, busy, anxious, disturbed, and agitated mind. So the more peaceful the mind becomes, the more kind and loving we become. And the more agitated the mind becomes, the more aggressive, angry, and arrogant we can become.

“The essence of Buddhism is that everything depends on the mind. If the mind is clear and peaceful, it is so much easier to cultivate positive qualities. At the same time, if we are stressed and anxious and upset, it is easier to become angry and to do things that harm other people. So inner stillness is not only really important in finding peace and happiness for oneself, but also in terms of establishing a healthy relationship with others. To be able to always connect up with that inner goodness, that’s what meditation allows us to do very effectively.”

– David Marks

There is a clear development in the number of teenagers and young adults that develop depressions. Why do you think that is?

Last time we were talking about existential angst. In the world today, people witness so much aggression, environmental degradation, and other problems. There is so much emphasis on materialistic values like fame, power, and wealth. Because of this, a lot of people experience a tremendous sense of purposelessness, especially young people. They might start wondering whether we’re only here to accumulate wealth or to become famous and have a large following on Instagram. It’s all very superficial and shallow. People are missing something in their lives. Not just young people, but everybody. I think the majority of people are missing a connection to the spiritual dimension of our existence as human beings. But, precisely this connection is an essential ingredient for us to be complete and whole.

It’s almost like one complete side of our development is missing. Don’t get me wrong. I think education is important and that it is important that people are able to look after themselves. It is important to earn a livelihood and support your family in a responsible and meaningful way. But, it’s equally important to recognize that we have a spiritual dimension to our being. If we don’t nourish that and nurture that, we’re always going to feel on one level disconnected. More specifically, we are never going to be complete. We will be disconnected from ourselves and will be disconnected from others in the world at large. Depression is also often related to anger. If — for whatever reason — we are angry and hold on to it, directing it inwardly at ourselves, it can definitely cause depression and other psychological problems.

People might be angry for not being good enough, for not being successful enough, maybe even for not being as moral and caring as one wishes to be. In some ways, our world is quite immoral. It’s almost as if you can do whatever you like, as long as it gets you what you want. As if you shouldn’t worry about others too much and that you should only think about yourself. We are living in a very self-orientated and selfish world, and that goes against our basic goodness. When we act in an immoral and unethical way, it is somehow contrary to who we really are as human beings. Behaving morally and ethically restores our self-respect and enhances our personal dignity.

I also think depression is based on a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. I sympathize with the people of your generation. It must be so much more difficult. The world is a real mess. There’s no question about that. The world is a mess, and it doesn’t seem to be getting much better. It seems to be getting worse. Therefore, it’s easy to be pessimistic.

What the solution would be is a hard question to answer. On one level, it has to be spiritual, and it has to be individual. With enough individuals applying a spiritual solution, it becomes a collective solution. Still, it is a long way for us to collectively understand that we can’t go on living the way we’re living. We can’t go on abusing the earth and the resources and desecrating the planet.

It’s just impossible. It’s unsustainable. We all need to think more like Greta Thunberg. Otherwise, what is left? The depression many people are most likely experiencing is just the emptiness of modern life and the purposelessness and pointlessness of it all. If that’s what I experienced forty years ago growing up in Australia, it has to be worse for younger people right now. There are a lot more pressures on people than when I was young. Also, I suspect on one level that depression induces by the sense of alienation and isolation that we experience so easily in our modern world.

“It’s a paradox that because of the internet and social media people are in many ways more connected than ever before, yet loneliness is still such a big problem. It seems that as we become increasingly materialistic, selfish, fearful, and anxious, we become further alienated from each other.”

– David Marks

There’s no simple answer, and I don’t think Buddhism is necessarily the answer to everybody’s psychological problems. I’m not saying that Buddhism doesn’t work; it definitely does. Still, one needs a certain degree of mental and emotional health for the teachings to work. Otherwise, for some people, meditation can exacerbate their problems.

But we also have to understand that depression is related to karma.

How is depression related to karma?

Well, for example, it is sometimes said that if someone has been really unkind or unskilful in one lifetime and by that was causing tremendous mental pain, anguish, and distress to other people, he or she might experience karmic consequences in the next life. In the next life, that person could experience similar mental anguish and distress and depression. The problem with just a purely western psychological approach to mental illness or depression is that it doesn’t take karma into account. On the other side, the problem with the Buddhist approach to mental illness and depression, and so forth, is that it sometimes doesn’t understand well enough the conditions that have shaped the person’s psychological disposition. Here you could think about, for example, the broken family someone was born into, or the abuse as a child, but also societal alienation and unrealistic expectations of being successful.

So what is causing people to be born into those circumstances? Does that have to do with karma?

It does. It works in two ways. Karma determines what kind of life we are born into. On the other side, the type of life we are born into determines how we develop as human beings. If we want to understand who we are and why our minds think in a certain way, and also why we experience the world in a certain way, we should also take karma into account.

It is all karmically related, and it depends on past life, but it also depends very much on the influences of this life. Particularly early influences during the first ten to fifteen years of people’s lives should be taken into account. Were we bullied in school? Did our teachers humiliate us? Did our parents not love us in the way that we needed to be loved? All these sorts of things are very important considerations that we must look at in order to heal ourselves and in order to become whole. We need that to be truly human and also to become enlightened.

Don’t you think it is kind of unfair to be punished in a new life in which you have no memory of the past life in which you harmed others?

In a way, it’s horribly unfair. But, we’re not being punished. This is not a comfortable word to use. It sounds a little bit like saying, “Somebody is born into a bad situation, and he or she deserves that because, in a previous life, that person did something wrong.” This is a really judgmental and unkind way to understand karma. Suffering pervades. The first Noble truth states that suffering is everywhere, regardless of whether it is a human being or an animal, or some other life form. Also, regardless of whether we live on planet earth or in some other universe, suffering pervades everywhere.

There is mental suffering, and there is physical suffering. It is horrible. Everybody who isn’t an enlightened being suffers to a greater or lesser extent. Whether you are a lama, a monk, a layperson, a Buddhist, man, woman, child, is irrelevant.

“Everybody suffers to some extent. Some suffer more than others, so the response to a suffering situation should always be as much compassion as possible. At the same time, we need to understand that there is always a reason for suffering, be it the suffering of ourselves or the suffering of others. Still, that doesn’t mean we deserve it, but we have created the causes for the experience.”

– David Marks

Logically, causes and actions bring consequences. We have to be a little bit mechanical or even be a little bit unemotional about our approach to karma. Otherwise, we might become too judgmental, thinking or saying, “You deserve that because you are a bad person.” We would never say that, or we should never say that. One has to be very careful when explaining this to other people.

But, do people create the cause for whatever they’re experiencing? Absolutely. There is always an element of personal responsibility when someone is born into a really difficult situation in life. Of course, it’s terrible, and if we can help them, we should. However, whatever help we try to give them — from the Buddhist point of view — has to be understood in the context that this person is experiencing the consequences of past actions. So to some extent, they are responsible for what they are undergoing, however terrible it may be. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and help them. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be compassionate, but we also have to understand that there is always a cause.

In that sense, there’s no such thing as an innocent victim. It’s impossible to experience something if we haven’t created the cause to have that experience. That is why our teachings on karma are so important because then we can moderate our behavior. If we don’t want bad things to happen to us in the future, don’t do negative actions now. If we want good things to happen in the future, engage in virtuous, ethical actions now.

Couldn’t it be that it is a coincidence that you are in the wrong place at the wrong time?

No, not according to the Buddhist teachings on karma. Now, a lot of people have different ideas about how these things work. According to the Buddhist explanation of things, there is no such thing as coincidence.

An example: You are riding your bicycle to school or to work, and some drunk person in a car comes speeding around the corner and runs you over. You have never met that person in your life. It seems like a totally random event, and there’s no rhyme or reason as to why that happened. So, of course, we entirely blame the drunk driver, as we should on one level. After all, if that person wasn’t drunk and if that person wasn’t speeding, he or she would have seen you, and that person would have applied the brakes or swerved to miss you. But why did that happen to you at that time? That is your karma.

So, we can’t say that there is no karmic involvement there. You are experiencing that karmic event. Now, what the karma was that caused you to be in that place at that time to be killed in that way by that person, those are all specific points that are incredibly subtle. For that reason, you won’t find an explanation for that in Buddhist scriptures. Only a being who has very powerful clairvoyance and who can see past lives and understand the workings of karma can obtain that knowledge.

Do you believe that we are sometimes experiencing things the universe wants us to learn, or is it always a result that has to do with karma that we have to face a challenge in which we can choose to either give in, give up or improve?

I think it’s a little bit of both. That is also terminology that I use myself, that the universe is teaching us a lesson. It’s a nice way to think, and it’s not a harmful way to think. It is more the implication that there is some being or some force in the Universe that is manipulating the world in order to bring about certain experiences in our lives that I don’t agree with.

“Karma puts us in certain situations that require us to make a choice. However, what we do with that situation and the choices we make — that’s free will.”

– David Marks

If we are mature and wise and if we are open to growing spiritually, then whether we speak of a situation being karmically created or given to us by the universe is irrelevant. After all, the consequences are the same.

The important thing is that once we find ourselves in a challenging situation, we meet it with maturity, wisdom, and kindness and that we learn and grow from it. Because if we do, then it becomes a worthwhile experience even if it’s a very difficult situation.

Looking back at your life path, what was your greatest life lesson?

One of the most important lessons occurred before I became a Buddhist. It was at the end of my travels in a place called Rishikesh in North India, sitting on the banks of the Ganges talking to an Indian man and his son. I can’t remember exactly what we were discussing, but because of the situation and the environment we were in, I had an insight that now seems very simplistic but at the time was extraordinarily powerful. I suddenly saw that everything depends on the mind.

Regardless of whether we’re enjoying something or not or whether we see something as good or bad, it all depends on us. It doesn’t depend so much on the outside world because our experience of the world is entirely subjective. Thinking about it now, it sometimes feels as if this was why I went traveling in the first place. This is what I had to learn. Understanding this simple truth gives us the tool and the freedom to make the world whatever we want it to be. Later, when I got introduced to the Buddhist teachings, that was the first thing I heard. They said that everything depends on the mind. I felt a powerful resonance.

Another important realization — also as a result of many strange experiences and potentially dangerous adventures during my travels — was that at a certain point, I developed the attitude of not being too concerned with whether I lived or died. ‘I’m happy, and if I die, it’s ok.’ And that allowed me to let go. Once we come to an acceptance of death, that we know it will happen and we’re comfortable with that, then there’s tremendous freedom. I realized that if dying was the worst thing that could happen, there was no reason to be afraid. That was incredibly empowering. I was free to go anywhere I wanted to go and do anything I wanted to do. There was nothing to fear anymore.

A third very important lesson essential to my development as a human being is also related to the power of the mind. Again, it’s sort of simple but also incredibly profound. If we have a good attitude and as much as possible treat everyone with genuine kindness and respect, then somehow the world is a really beautiful place. Whatever else might be going on around us, if we maintain this attitude, we can experience tremendous joy and happiness all the time.

All credits to David Marks. Thank you for sharing your wise words.