The last post was about the First Noble Truth in Buddhism: life is suffering. ‘Suffering’ is the commonly used English translation of the Sanskrit word dukkha. I agree with Triangulations blogger that dukkha is more accurately translated as ‘unsatisfactoriness’ or ‘dissatisfaction’.
In my experience, dissatisfaction occurs when I attach to the thought, ‘this shouldn’t be happening’ in reaction to whatever is happening.
Can suffering end completely? Here is what I have learned about that:
While I don’t claim to know anything, I offer a synthesis of what I have learned from personal conversations with my teacher, and from studying other sources I trust.
When an individual becomes fully awakened spiritually, that individual stops generating dissatisfaction for him/herself. Awakening means there is no attachment to ‘I, me and my story’, and dissatisfaction stops. Completely.
That does not mean that suffering stops for other people. There are terrible, horrible abuses and injustices happening in the world all the time. The awake person is not blind to the suffering of others or immune to physical pain. The awake person is simply not contributing to the incessant noise of dissatisfaction, and therefore is able to help other people who are still dissatisfied.
True awakening, true and complete freedom from dissatisfaction, is extremely rare. The end of dissatisfaction is possible, but if it ends for you, chances are, it will continue for others, so in that sense, it is not over.
The awake person lives for the purpose of helping people who want to wake up. In order to relate to others, depending on the context, the awake person may seem to be very ‘normal’ or very ‘eccentric/otherworldly’.
Finding a True Teacher can be the end of seeking and the beginning of the end of dissatisfaction if you allow yourself to be guided.
Svaha 