Tony Fernando: “When you’re with the cello, you’re not overthinking it, you’re just present. It’s a different type of joy. It’s priceless.”
It was Siddhartha Gautama – otherwise known as the Buddha – who 2600 years ago came up with a term for a feeling that might seem like a modern affliction: a sense of unease, of pervasive dissatisfaction, discomfort or discontent with life.
“Regardless of who we are or our status in life, there’s that sense of: it’s just not right,” explains Dr Tony Fernando. “It can be small or it can be big. And it can result in suffering if you don’t know how to handle it.”
The Buddha called this feeling “dukkha”. “And life is like that most of the time,” says Fernando.
Fernando, an ordained Buddhist monk, is an Auckland-based psychiatrist and sleep specialist. He describes the Buddha as “the smartest psychologist who ever lived”.
He uses more Buddhist psychological principles in helping his patients manage stress and suffering than Western psychological approaches from Freud, Jung or Beck. And, he adds, he uses Buddhism in his own life every day.
Fernando addresses dukkha and many of the other reasons we’re often not as happy as we’d like to be in his just-published book, Life Hacks From the Buddha: How to be calm and content in a chaotic world.
He also admits he’s nowhere near understanding all the Buddha’s teachings. “Buddhist scriptures are so dense,” he says.is kindergarten stuff”.
