1. Inner Peace – Outer Happiness - Week Five
It is good to recognise that the expectations of others, the standards they expect us to meet, are really our
own projections. We judge ourselves by our standards, project them out into other people then believe
that they think those things about us. It goes something like this: I’m depressed; I hate being depressed. I
look at my friends; I think they hate it when I’m depressed; I think they are judging me. In fact they may
have no reaction at all. They may not even notice. It’s your standards that aren’t being met. YES BUT…
what if they tell me they hate my depression? If your friends tell you they hate your depression, you can
know that it’s their problem just as it would be your problem if you hated theirs. We hate in others what
we’re not willing to face in ourselves, when in reality, when we see a problem it’s ours. Our eyes saw it;
it appeared in our head and it came out of our mouth.
The ways we think the world expects us to be, are the ways we’ve been taught to believe we should be.
People are judging and criticising and dismissing us all the time, but as long as we’re meeting our
standards of how we should be, we don’t even notice. As soon as we don’t meet our standards, we think
other people know that we’re not and are judging us as harshly as we’re judging ourselves. Are we really
willing to give up our lives for what we think other people might be thinking? Has giving up your own
life brought you the acceptance and approval you’ve always wanted? Has not being who you really are
brought the joy and fulfilment you’ve been seeking?
We deny ourselves our life, close our options, because we think society expects us to. We think people
will judge us, we think it’s too selfish to do otherwise. We take the path that seems safest. Then, because
we’re depressing our passion, our desire for life, we eventually move into despair and ask ourselves, why
go on? This is a very valid question in this frame of mind because we end up with just the hard stuff, the I
should, the I have to, the things we were trying to avoid in the first place. We end up with emptiness,
exhaustion & meaningless.
The good news is that none of what society or culture tried to get us to believe was true in the first place.
There never have been any limits. There never was anything wrong with you and there still isn’t. You can
be whatever you choose, and the proof of that is that you are now. When you’re feeling good, you are a
good person. When you’re feeling bad you’re a bad person. If you’re happy, you’re OK. If you’re not
happy you’re not OK. The choice of words in our language shows the priority that ‘happy’ has.
Depressive thinking can happen when we try not to be unhappy. We want to go from one peak to the next
without travelling through the valleys below. Peaks/valleys, up/down, right/wrong can’t exist without the
other.
If what we think is wrong with us were really wrong with us, we would have been able to fix it by now.
The fact that we haven’t been able to fix it is the proof that it’s not really the problem. The problem is that
we have been taught to believe there’s a problem. It’s like being told that something is broken and trying
to fix it and never succeeding because it isn’t broken. There is no problem. Stop creating one.
Feeling guilty over being how you are does nothing but rob you of your life. It’s OK to feel whatever you
feel, think whatever you think, be however you are. Guilt and fear keep us from knowing our authentic
self, our intrinsic purity and goodness. Whatever we are doing we need to love yourself for doing it.
Whatever we are thinking, love yourself for thinking it. If you don’t like it, love yourself for not liking it.
Try and remain open to the possibility that if you were who you really are, you would have the approval
and acceptance you’ve always wanted – from yourself if from no one else. The only approval we really
care about is our own. If we feel we’ve done a good job, we feel good. If not, we don’t. It doesn’t actually
matter to us what others think.
If we are really living the kind of life we want to live, it’ll be clear that nobody owes us anything and
from that place of being satisfied we can be much more generous. Whatever you do, recognise that you
are doing it for you and enjoy it. If you realize you no longer want to do it, STOP! – YES BUT…. Isn’t
that irresponsible? You’ll never know until you stop and find out. You could practice with some of the
many little things you do and hate but continue to do because you believe you should or someone told

2. you that you should. If you’re responsible because you’re afraid not to be, you’re not responsible, you’re
afraid.
We have to face eventually that we don’t want to be un-depressed. Terrible things might happen to us if
we’re not depressed. We have our own identity in this process of depressing. We are afraid that if we
stop, we won’t know how to be, won’t know who to be, won’t know what life will expect. It is safer and
more comfortable to continue with the depressive thinking than to risk freedom. Is this depressing? Can
you realize that you reject well-being without being depressed about it? After all, it must be depressing to
realize that you’ve spent your whole life depressing yourself. The most depressing part is that you’ve
always thought it was external. Now you’re learning to see that it’s something you’ve learned to do and
now do to yourself. To say this is depressing information is like saying that you are on a sinking ship and
have just discovered a lifeboat. If you choose to, you can stand there and be upset that the ship is sinking,
or you can take the lifeboat. The lifeboat here is the Buddha’s solution to the problem.
The miracle cure for depressive thinking is compassion. The compassion I’m talking about might not look
nice and polite. It doesn’t necessarily mean doing what others want us to do or being how they want us to
be. The compassion I’m talking about begins with yourself, because everything else springs from that. It
is not selfish to love yourself. It’s the most skilful thing a human being can do. If you can’t find
compassion for yourself, you’ll never find it for anyone else – you won’t know how. You will never be
truly generous to anyone else while depriving yourself.
The aim of this course was not to be telling anyone what they should do because nobody will begin to
take this medicine until they are ready themselves. All I’m suggesting here is that when you’re ready,
here’s is the Buddha’s solution to the problem. This solution is definitely not another stick with which to
beat yourself up. When you’ve suffered enough just remember that you already have the solution
available to you. It doesn’t really matter what you have thought, believed, experienced or done before.
This is a new day. Along with those two most useless of sayings ‘yes but’ and ‘what if’ go the three worst
excuses of all time – ‘but I’ve always done it this way’, but I’ve always been this way’, ‘this is how I am’.
So, let’s bring this course to a close with a summary of the four most important things to bear in mind.
1. Get to know your emotions and learn to have them in a healthy way. Learn to express the energy
of emotion in ways that take care of you and those around you. NO GUILT OR BLAME!
2. Rest, eat well, exercise regularly and prove to yourself that tension does not lead to control.
3. Take up an awareness practice that enables you to let go of false beliefs and assumptions about
how you are and how the world should be. This will enable you to live life as it comes.
4. Recognise that it’s OK to change. It’s OK to try something new. It’s OK to try something rather
radically new such as the Buddha’s approach.
If you try something and don’t like it, you can always return to how you were doing it before. No
problem. No ‘I should’. Trying something once or twice doesn’t mean you ever have to do it again if you
don’t want to. Not taking a risk because you are afraid is a grave disservice to yourself. Fear is not the
problem. You can have fear and allow it to stop you, or you can have your fear and risk it anyway. Either
way, the fear is there. The choice is yours.
Finally, there comes the link with the Buddha’s teaching. Depression is nothing more than the truth of the
existence of mental anguish. The reason we experience mental anguish is that we want things to be other
than they are. We do not have to experience mental anguish. There is a way of life available to us that will
help us to alleviate or eradicate mental anguish. What’s stopping us from fully committing ourselves to
the path of freedom and joy? WE ARE! How are we stopping ourselves fully committing ourselves to the
path of freedom and joy? We keep saying yes but… what if…. but I’ve always done it this way… but I’ve
always been this way… this is how I am… I’m scared… It’s too irresponsible… I have a job… I’m a
parent… I don’t like the colour blue… I can’t chant things in Sanskrit… I’m just not good enough…. The
list is endless. We are not.