Q. I have observed that while on retreat certain unskilful emotions don’t arise as often or as strongly as they do in the midst of my daily life, with a family and regular job. This can be quite painful and leads to me beginning to place responsibility for the arising of these mental states on the conditions I live in. Buddhism does seem to place an emphasis on the changing of external conditions to reduce the arising of unskilful mental states. At the same time it seems to be saying that mental states are something we have a choice in and are of our own making, not out there, as it were. I become quite confused and torn when I think about these areas, when I place the emphasis on conditions I feel more resentful of my external situation when in unskilful states and anxious about the need to change it. Please could you say what your understanding is of the role of external conditions in practice, and what it is necessary for us to do ‘externally’ for our practice to be effective?

A. Buddhism will always say that no matter what our circumstances, it is our relationship with these circumstances that really matters. Through practice we refine our relationship with experiences and situations. We apply new-found degrees of ethical behaviour, or with growing awareness we may take more control of situations that hitherto we have found difficult. Over time we become more aware of skilful and unskilful actions. We can often change circumstances of daily (external) life, but there are also times when we aren’t going to be able to do this. At times life just throws us into situations that we would rather not be in, which we find difficult to deal with. However, the same principle applies in both these ‘internal’ and ‘external’ situations. We respond to circumstances and do our best to work with our emotional reactions/attachments. Sometimes it’s like this, and sometimes it’s like that – this is life, and our training ground is always dealing with how things are, and seldom the way we would like them to be.