Let's Talk about Suffering

Gerard and I have been having a conversation about the Four Noble Truths. I don't want it to get buried in comments because I'm enjoying the conversation and I hope others will chime in with their thoughts. Check out the original thread here.

Gerard brings up some interesting points:

• The heart of Buddhist practice is seeing things as they really are.
• The mind is cunning, and often in the attempt to see things as they really are, we are really just trading one set of unquestioned ideas, notions or beliefs for new ones.

Then paraphrases them nicely:

1. We are suffering.
2. We have a mind full of ideas/beliefs which inhibit us from seeing clearly and is the cause of suffering.
3. Any effort to find a way out of our suffering will only lead to a strengthening of our ideas/beliefs which will continue our suffering.
4. Our lack of clear seeing is causing an unprecedented destruction of the planet.

And closes with a question:

So what are we to do?

The house is burning around us, yet we don't see the flames licking at our feet. We believe the flames are normal. We are so used to the flames that they have become part of us, and we hold on to them.

So what can we do?

It's interesting. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the Four Noble Truths. If my friend hadn't e-mailed the question, I wouldn't have spent the time trying to articulate what I think they mean. But through this process, I think we may be uncovering another type of craving that leads to suffering.

When I came to the end of Gerard's last post I smiled, because he's asking for something that I've so often asked for in the past. Something that I cannot give--The Answer (with a capital T and a capital A). What is it? What's the answer? There are so many questions, so many pitfalls, so many reasons to doubt the worth or efficacy of our efforts. How do we know we are "getting it right"? Is it possible to "get it right"? And considering the state that my mind is in, even if I am "getting it right" how do I know?

Isn't this something we all crave? Understanding? Answers? And when they don't come easily, we suffer. We tie our minds in a million knots trying to work it all out, trying to find the "Aha!".

Zen encourages us to approach practice with three attitudes--Great Faith, Great Courage, and Great Questioning. Maybe a solution lies in moving away from finding the answer and instead embracing the question... in moving away from an intellectual inquiry using the tools we grow up with in school (rhetoric, logic, and debate) and moving toward an experiential inquiry.

Daily Dharma

The section of the Samyutta-nikaya known as the Sutra of the Turning of the Wheel of the Law recordds the teaching of the Four Noble Truths to the ascetics in Deer Park as follows:

Monks! Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering. To be united with what is hated is suffering. To be parted from what is loved is suffering. Not to obtain what is sought is suffering. In short, attachment to the five aggregates is fuffering. This, then, is the noble truth of suffering.

Monks! It is craving that leads to rebirth, is connected to joy and greed, and continually finds pleasure and delight now here, now there. It is the craving for sensuous desires, the craving for existence, and the craving for nonexistence. This, then, is the noble truth of the cause of suffering.

Monks! Craving can be cast off and destroyed, abandoned and rejected. Release and nonattachment to craving [are possible]. This is the noble truth of the termination of suffering.

Monks! This is the noble truth of the Way to the termination of suffering: right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

[...from Essentials of Buddhism: Basic Terminology and Concepts of Buddhist Philosophy and Practice by Kogen Mizuno, page 152.

Tell Me About Suffering

I think everyone goes through periods in their lives when they are searching for answers. This is true for a friend of mine who recently e-mailed a question about the Four Noble Truths:

Okay my question is about the Four Noble Truths...especially the first one True Suffering...is this about accepting suffering as a part of life that suffering is to expected and that once you realize the source of your suffering, you will longer experience true suffering?

I always feel the need to provide a disclaimer when I answer questions like these. I have no formal training... I'm not a teacher or a master... I'm just a practitioner... sometimes dedicated, but still fledgling. So I always try to preface what I say with something like... "This is how I've come to understand..." or "Based on my experience..." which applies to everything I post on this site.

The Four Noble Truths

1. The existence of suffering
2. The origin of suffering
3. The cessation of suffering
4. The path to the cessation of suffering

The First Noble Truth tells us that suffering exists and is a part of our lives. Life is full of discomfort, bitterness, anguish, and pain.

The Second Noble Truth tells us that if we pay attention, we can start to see what causes our suffering. Sometimes the cause is obvious... as with physical complains and health concerns... you break your arm... it hurts. You have a cold... you can't breathe easily... it is uncomfortable. Sometimes the cause is more mental/emotional... Someone says something negative about you or something you are sensitive about... it stings. The Second Noble Truth is about becoming aware of our suffering and the chain of cause-and-effect that brings it into being.

The Third Noble Truth is the good news. The Four Noble Truths is not a fatalistic teaching. It doesn't say that life is suffering and there is nothing you can do about it... It says that you can lessen your suffering in two ways... You can stop doing that things that make you suffer, and you can start doing things that bring you joy. Every moment there is a choice. Does this mean that you will never suffer? I don't know. Maybe through sustained practice, this is possible...But it seems that the more you become aware of the origin of suffering, the more you develop an ability to cut off suffering before it starts. This could mean taking good, gentle care of yourself when you are sick so you don't prolong or escalate the illness. This could mean becoming less reactive and deciding when people are mean-spirited that you don't have to let it affect you... Over time, these things lose the ability to hinder you... Maybe at first if you are very sensitive, the slightest comment makes you cry... as you grow and learn, the tears stop, but maybe the heart still gets wounded and the mind has a difficult time letting go of whatever was said... then eventually over time you are able to shrug off that thing that long ago brought you to tears... You've been through the cycle of cause and effect so many times that you recognize it and you can cut if off.

The Fourth Noble Truth is the program/practice developed by Buddha that anyone can use to lessen their suffering. This is also called the Noble Eightfold Path.

In Sickness and In Health

Today I watched Oprah After the Show for the first time. There was a discussion about smoking, overspending, eating, undereating... self-destructive habits that point to the fact that we don't love ourselves. Oprah said a few things that touched a nerve.

She said first off that if you are over 10 pounds overweight, that is a sign that your life is out of balance. It is a sign that there is self-hatred at play. She also said that many of us are among the living dead. We have shut down in some way, and despite how much we do, we don't have a life. We are out of touch with our feelings. We are functioning but we are not functional. We have not found deep fulfillment. We have not touched joy.

Today I visited my mom in the hospital. On Thursday she had surgery. She has cancer. She is depressed, lamenting about why she is going through what she is going through. Something on Oprah touched on this as well.

Oprah said something about warning signs. First there is a whisper. Then, there is a knock on the door. Then your back is against the wall. Then a brick falls and hits you in the head. Then the wall comes crashing down. Then a hurricane comes and you are  caught in a deadly storm. All because you are out of balance and you are not listening to your heart's call.

Perhaps this is true for me and my mother.

I don't ask why. Sometimes why is not the most productive question. Sometimes it cannot be answered. There are other questions. Sometimes what is a better question than why. What am I going to do now that I find myself in the midst of this. How am I going to face this. And I think face is the right word. When you are sick, you cannot will yourself well, but you can see a doctor. You can start to take steps so that you are taken care of. How is a good question. How can I accept this? How can I stop myself from sinking into depression? How can I remind myself that this thing doesn't have to take my grace or my joy?

I think sickness causes suffering mostly because we don't want to give up the notion that we are not in control and we don't want to give up the fantasy that life is fair. We don't want to be reminded of the inevitability of death, and we don't want to sit face to face with the fact that we will die. It is uncomfortable. It is unsettling. It shakes us to the core.

People typically don't ask why when they have a cold or a sore throat. They accept it as something natural, a natural part of life experience. They take their cold medicine, hunker down and prepare to ride it out. There is no need to ask why. They are not faced with questions of mortality. But mention the word cancer? Cancer is a soul-shaking word.

My mother has long beautiful hair. She wears a press-and-curl, and she has this fabulous salt and pepper hair. It is always curled and perfect. She will start taking radiation soon and she is afraid she will lose her hair. I want to take her India Aire's cut I Am Not My Hair. I want to sing it to her, shout it until it sinks in. Hair is so trivial. As a black woman, I know that I should add two words to the end of that statement. Hair is so trivial to me. I think if she loses her hair I will shave my head. I'll have to get a wig of some sort to wear to work so I don't freak out my co-workers, but while she finds the prospect frightening I would feel a sense of freedom loosing my hair. I'm tired of relaxing. I'm tired of combing and brushing and flat ironing. I'm tired of the damage that comes to my hair and scalp from all the chemical treatments. I would love to lock my hair... I'm just not sure that locks would be well received in the conservative corporate environment where I work. It would be nice to have no hair to worry about... to throw on a wig and be done with it.

My hope would be that it would show her there is nothing to be afraid of. My hope would be that the experience, this cancer, doesn't have to mean that life is devoid of hope or joy. Sometimes sickness can be a gift. Sometimes it can be an opportunity to take stock, to evaluate, to ruminate, and to empower ourselves to make changes.

One of my aunts is also dealing with cancer and she seems to have accepted it with a great deal of dignity and determination. She talks about how she has spent her life taking care of other people but now it is time to take care of herself. My hope is that once this initial shock wears off, that my mother will find that peaceful, courageous stand and live from that stand.