Hello Dear Readers,
In order to follow up on the discussion from the last post on truth, I will be posting a three-part series over the next week or so. Thank you for being here. Your comments are very welcome!
Suffering, truth and Truth: Three Part Series
Part one: Do you suffer?
One of the purposes of this blog is to connect with others who are interested in freedom from suffering and so it’s important to get clear about what we mean by suffering.
If you are thinking, ‘What is she going on about suffering for? I’m not suffering. Life is good,’ I’m not going to attempt to convince you that you are suffering. Although I do see great value in paying attention to whether or not you are.
Buddhism is based on Gautama’s enlightenment, his awakening to freedom from suffering. From the Buddha, we have the Four Noble Truths:
- Life is suffering
- The origin of suffering is attachment
- The cessation of suffering is attainable
- The path to the cessation of suffering
When I first heard the Four Noble Truths, I felt very strongly that I had found a spiritual home. At the same time, I also thought – I cannot be suffering when there are people in the world being tortured, starving, homeless, sick, etc. I wouldn’t dare say I was suffering when I contemplated the suffering of those less fortunate than myself.
But I wanted to check out the First Noble Truth. I asked myself, is it true, life is suffering? For me? What does it mean to suffer? The Buddha pointed out sickness, death, loss and poverty as kinds of suffering that we humans will typically face in a lifetime. I located suffering in myself in the form of stress, anxiety, fear, dissatisfaction and just plain old excruciating existential pain.
Perhaps it sounds gutsy or self-centered to claim suffering, given that I live in one of the most affluent countries in the world, given that I enjoy good health, access to education and good relationships. The view that life is suffering does not mean that I don’t feel extremely grateful my situation. I do notice the sunset is beautiful. And I don’t go around gloomy and brooding and upset all the time.
So why would focusing on suffering be useful? Why not just be happy and focus on the good stuff?
In order to do something about suffering in the world at large, I have to start with how I am participating in it. It’s really important to note that the cause of suffering that I experience has the same cause as the extreme suffering experienced by others. The cause is (Second Noble Truth) attachment to ‘I, me and mine’, a pervading sense of ‘I don’t like this’. (I wrote about this in a prior post, and will probably write more about it in future)
Accepting the First Noble Truth reminds me of the idea that you don’t have to hit bottom before you can start to do something about your situation. You can see the long term trajectory of your particular brand of suffering, and raise the bottom to meet you by cultivating a heightened awareness of it, even if you don’t experience hunger, violence or physical limitations.
Please stay tuned for the next post on why we do not stop at ‘life is suffering’, and the importance of recognizing the difference between relative and absolute truth.
Svaha 
For “dukkha”, I like the translation unsatisfactoriness”. But it is long and hard to say.
You said,”It’s really important to note that the cause of suffering that I experience has the same cause as the extreme suffering experienced by others.”
But in my head, I feel the distinction between the suffering we cause ourselves and the suffering caused by others and circumstance (torture, hunger, illness, injury …) is valuable.
Of course the pain caused by the outside forces can be perceived differently. So here is how I look at it:
1) pain I cause myself by bad habits of mind
2) pain caused by outside forces (injury, illness …)
3) pain perception depending on habits of mind
I feel for reasons of social action and not playing up Buddhism to be the end of all suffering, # 2 should be given a special spot and not blurred in with the other two.
Hi Aly. You want to complicate things, don’t you? :) The ego is a sufferer; it invents suffering or causes most of it. Maybe 95% of it. The other 5% is peanuts if we drop the ego. Quote: “Drop the “I” and there is Nirvana here and now”–Buddha.
Keep it simple :)
“Be still and know that I am God”–Psalms 46:10
Hi Rio, how am I complicating things?
Sabio, I think you misunderstood me. I did not say there is no distinction between (you said) ‘the suffering we cause ourselves and the suffering caused by others and circumstance.’
Of course there is that distinction.
What I am saying is: The cause of suffering (dissatisfaction) is a contraction in the form of: ‘this shouldn’t be happening’, where ‘this’ is pain delivered by outside forces, dissatisfaction I generate myself and/or pain I perceive in my experience.
I really wonder if there is not contraction to “this shouldn’t be happening” if the suffering goes away. I doubt that.
Sure, the pain is experienced differently, but their is still pain and still suffering, but it is altered.
I don’t mean to argue words, I think the distinction is important. And I doubt everyone would agree because I think some want to think there is a magic way out of suffering. This idealization of a simple message is a mistake, I think. But I could be wrong. Maybe it all disappears for the truly enlightened. I doubt it, but I have been wrong far more than I have been right.
Some meditation disciplines and ways of holding the heart and mind can hugely lower the impact of suffering and the causes of suffering. But I feel we always have suffering.
Hi Aly: As long as we are trying to explain and find with the mind we complicate things. The “thinking mind” and the ego are the same thing and it can’t solve anything because it is itself the cause of the problem. If we do our best to be present as much as possible everything will be revealed to us. It is very simple. As long as we have ego we’ll have suffering, either imaginary or created.
Do you remember what the Gryphon told Alice when they were going to visit the suffering Mock Turtle? :)
“It’s all his fancy, that: he ain’t got no sorrow you know, come on!”
The Christ put it a little different: “The kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth but men do not see it”
It is true that hunger, torture and illness are happening. That is a separate issue from the ending of dukkha. When one ends dukkha for him/herself, that does not mean that injustice in the world ends or one stops perceiving injustices. To clarify, I understand dukkha to be attachment to the thought ‘this shouldn’t be happening’, and ‘this’ is anything I don’t want to be happening.
The compassionate vow is to stay and participate in the world, where terrible injustices happen. Being awake within the dream does not mean one becomes immune to physical pain or attacks by others. It means one does not generate dukkha.
I am not Buddhist, and I do not think that Buddhism is the only way to end suffering/dukkha. It is one system for looking at reality and I feel the Four Noble Truths are a good place to start.
hi Rio, are you saying that what I am doing here is ‘trying to explain and find with the mind’?
Isn’t it?
No. What makes you think that it is?
I was taught (I think) to consider “dukkha” to mean “impermanence.” From impermanence arises discontent, since we cannot make or keep the world the way we believe we would prefer it.
The Eightfold Path guides us to achieving an understanding of the other three Truths. Only when we internalize that understanding can we release our clinging to preconceptions and see reality as it is for us in the present moment.
The Fourth Noble Truth is the solution, and the whole concept is meaningless without the Eightfold Path. To the extent that we are able to follow it to our own realization of reality — the present moment, unvarnished by desire, preference or discontent — then we approach enlightenment.
Considered that way, it seems to me that all else falls into place. But that’s just my opinion. I might have understood it wrongly.
Aly, what is there to look for? Who are you?
This poem may help:
Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
you will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine
rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:
not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding
around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but
vegetables.
When you really look for me, you will see me
instantly –
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.
More about Kabir:
I heard a friend say the other day “If the goal is being present…”
I have said this many times I am sure, and in that moment I realized… what words will not be able to touch. Being present is not a goal. We are Being Here and Now. We do not have a choice of “Being” anywhere but here in the “Present”. If we are suffering from believing our stressful thoughts we are suffering in the moment. There was some suffering that let go there.
Byron Katie points out there are two ways to be here, suffering or in bliss. We do not have a choice of when or where we are being, we can only be present. We have a choice of noticing our stressful thoughts, how that creates suffering and who would I be without that stressful thought?
Hi Rio, you are evading my question.
Thank you for your comments and insight, Gary. It’s easy to feel like ‘being present’ is a goal, something I will do in the future… when things get better! : )
I recently listened to a recording by Eckhart Tolle and he also talked about that. It was a talk about the Pain Body.
Hi Bill,
I like the translation of ‘dissatisfaction’ for dukkha.
I would say that dissatisfaction does not arise from impermanence. Dissatisfaction comes when I think (for example) that impermanent things should not change. So it is the thought about impermanence that is the source of the dissatisfaction, not impermanence itself.
I have yet to meet anyone that is free of suffering. Of course there is physical suffering that come with illness & old age. The contemplation of our death is sometimes painful because this life sometimes seems meaningless. The death or loss of a loved one is painful. These are the obvious forms of suffering.
There is the suffering that arises because of our belief in a personal self. Even after many years of knowing that a personal self is contrived, I still suffer over the seemingly most trivial of matters. The hunger to be fulfilled when I am feeling bored. The impotence of my actions to change a world that is driven by greed, ignorance, and hatred. My insensitivity to people i know who i communicate with. Not being perfect. Doubt about my practice and how i live my life. Not getting the attention i deserve for my efforts, etc…..
Of course you notice a lot of self preoccupation with these forms of suffering. They are self inflicted. I have learned to live somewhere in the middle of of being self absorbed, and free of self-delusion. I call it the middle way, and hope that it defines to a small degree what others who practice the middle way experience.
So my goal is not to be rid of suffering, but to not add or subtract to it. To accept it as it really is and be aware of its’ origins. When its’ origins evade my understanding, that can be the most painful times. Then I have to just wait out the thunderstorm.
Chana
Aly, I am not evading your question. stop thinking and explaining, is useless.
“Path presupposes distance. If “He” is near, no path need you at all. Verily it makes me smile to hear of fish in the water athirst”–Kabir
You asserted that what I am doing here is ‘explaining and finding with the mind’. When I asked you, ‘What makes you think that?’ you did not answer. Making assertions without evidence is intellectually dishonest.
Hi Chana, Thank you for sincerely sharing your experience. I really appreciate your presence here.
Aly, You mean you are not using your mind? :)
It is so funny! :) Well, pathetically funny because it causes all our suffering; but the “Truth” is right in front of us and we refuse to see it. We rather look for ways to find it. Isn’t that funny? :)
Toltecs describe the ego as “a monster with 3000 heads”. So true, you cut one off and there is another one staring at you and ready to devour you.
Take care.
“Man is unhappy because he doesn’t know he is happy. It’s only that. That’s all, that’s all! If anyone finds out, he’ll become happy at once, that minute”.–Fyodor Dostoyevsky
He is hitting the nail right on the head here.
Hi Rio, yes, I am indeed using my mind. Aren’t you?
The next post in the 3 part series will be about appropriate use of the mind. Please stay tuned.
Suffering to me means feeling something just ain’t right, or unpleasant or “out of order.”
Like the wheel the Buddha talked about, a round wooden one used to escort carts in India. A sectiohn of the wood brok off. And every time the wheel made its 360 degree turn, the cart-driver would feel it go like “dukha.”
That’s not the right word to use, but I “feel” the wheel going “duhka, duhka, duhka,” as the water buffalo pulled the load from farm to village.
I could go on living with the “duhka” and accept that suffering in life. But, as soon as I realized the cause of such so-called “pain,” I could replace the offending wheel, or learn to live without an attachment to it. Walk with my load. Place the load on the animal’s back. Seek alms as a holy one advising others of a Middle Path.
What do I know? Just a poor fisherman’s son from a tiny Island in Greece studing Kabbalah as I dance a Sufi dervish whirl as a Buddhist initiative and a recovering Catholic, a disabled veteran, an inactive barrister.
Who recognizes Light shining from You!
Hi Michael,
Thanks for sharing the sound of the broken wooden wheel going ‘duhka, duhka’. I love that! I’m really glad you’re here. I’ve really been enjoying your blog too!