A teacher once asked me how she could handle two sufferings at the same time – while she is struggling with her own problems, her students needed her help and advice and, at the same time, her mother called to say how her father was hurting her. I think every one of us knows that we have to handle one suffering first. You have to make the choice right away to pick what is in front of you first. The teacher must tell her mother that they can discuss what she has just told her once she has had time to think and reflect on it and that she will call her back after she has done that. I think that is logical.
In order not to be overwhelmed by many things at the same time, we have to learn how to nourish ourselves to be strong enough for these difficult moments. We learn two things from the teachings of the Buddha – the first is how to handle suffering and the second is how to create happiness in order to be nourished and to heal. If you want to be strong enough to handle suffering, you have to learn how to nourish and heal yourself. Instead of thinking of this problem and that problem, you just stop thinking and learn how to get in touch with the wonders of life, walk in such a way as to nourish yourself at every step.
Sitting on a train or bus, eating breakfast or brushing our teeth, we can practice mindfulness so that these moments become nourishing and healing. And then when we become strong enough, we will be able to handle our difficulties and they will not overwhelm us. Just as a doctor who sees that his patient is too weak to undergo a surgery will postpone it and try and make his patient stronger before doing the surgery.
You learn how to be happy while you are drinking your tea. When you open the tap and see the water flowing, you can be happy. When you brush your teeth peacefully, you can be happy. So creating happiness in every moment of your daily life is a very important practice that helps you to be stronger for dealing with the difficult moments of your life. And mindfulness practice helps us recognise the moments of happiness that are possible in our daily life.
If you force yourself to breathe in, thinking that breathing in is good, then that is not a good practice. But if you breathe in such a way that you feel better right away and within two or three seconds of your breathing in, you feel calm and happy, that is good practice. You should not impose a practice and suffer during the practice.
The Buddha said the dharma is lovely in the beginning, in the middle and at the end. So breathing in, you should feel calm, peaceful and happy the whole time you are breathing in, not just when you finished breathing in. You cannot force yourself to relax. So if the practice is good, you feel better right away at the very beginning of the practice. We must abandon the idea that the practice is the means and happiness is the result of the practice. The fact is that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/the-importance-of-being-happy/
