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Be, See, Free, We (8 of 10) Insight Into Suffering and the Painful

So the topic of dukkha^[1]. Dukkha is often translated into English as suffering, and it might not be the best translation. I'll talk a little bit about the meaning, or the meanings, of this word. One of the reasons why I am a little bit hesitant today to use the word "suffering" is that some English speakers, when they hear the word, think of the big sufferings, like a big deal. It's the major catastrophes: death, major illnesses, major challenges. They think, "That's what suffering is." For some people, those don't occur that often, and so what's the relationship to daily life and all our activity? So suffering might not be the best translation, and sometimes it sounds a little bit off. In Pali, the opposite is sukha^[2]. Du is usually a prefix meaning bad, wrong, or off, and su is good or happy.

The cultivation of sukha, of well-being, is the foundation for being able to really penetrate, see, or have liberating insight into dukkha. This morning, I tried to talk a little bit about this foundation. This is what we cultivate: we cultivate well-being and cultivate happiness. For some people, it seems like a strange idea that you could actually cultivate and develop happiness. One of the things I emphasize is that you can simply begin by looking more widely into the present moment for what is good, for what is pleasant, enjoyable, maybe even inspiring. Many times people have a selective bias: they orient around what's difficult, they orient around where the suffering is, where the distress is, where the difficulties are, and on what's wrong. Yet there is plenty of stuff that is right. Some degree of happiness can come from just appreciating what's already here, being content with what one has.

But it's also possible to cultivate happiness in the way that the Buddhist tradition emphasizes. It begins with cultivating an ethical life. There's something about living an ethical life; at least for the Buddha, he thought that if you did that, you'd have a certain kind of happiness that in English is usually translated as "the bliss of blamelessness." At least in that part of your life, you can be happy that you didn't kill anybody today. You can be happy you didn't steal from anyone today, happy you didn't hurt anyone with your sexuality today, happy you didn't lie intentionally today, and happy that you didn't get intoxicated.

For most of us listening to this, it probably didn't occur to you today that you don't go around killing people regularly, or probably at all. To be happy that you don't do something that's not a part of your life doesn't really seem like it should be a source of happiness. But when you read the newspaper and read what goes on around the world, knowing that you are in fact someone who is safe for others in this dramatic way of not killing, not stealing, and not hurting people—this is a gift. For the Buddha, it's appropriate to feel happy that in these gross ethical transgressions, you're not one of those people. The kind of things that we criticize ourselves for and berate ourselves for, for many of us in this modern world, are not these gross ethical lapses, but often smaller things: feelings of inadequacy or feeling unworthiness. It is possible to improve one's ethics and live a more ethical life, a life that causes less and less harm in the world, and that is a source of happiness and contentment.

It's possible to learn how to be content with what one has, if what one has meets the basic needs for how to live a life. So, not to feel like you have to always have the latest and the greatest of something, or have as much as someone else, but to have a certain kind of profound contentment and ease with what one has, and to use it without feeling like we need to do something else. That can be cultivated. There is a variety of kinds of happinesses that can be cultivated, and one of them is the cultivation of compassion^[3]. When compassion is at its most natural, when compassion occurs without a lot of extra baggage or extra difficulties—just the compassion by itself, compassion in the presence of suffering—it has a certain feeling of satisfaction or ease. The Dalai Lama talks about how if you want to be happy, have compassion for others, care for others. The cultivation of compassion, opening the heart in some way, is a source of happiness. Caring for others, being as concerned with the welfare of others as you are with your own welfare, can be a source of happiness.

So it's possible to cultivate this as a foundation, and for the purpose of being on the path to liberation. One of the purposes of doing so is so that we can have insight into dukkha. Now, the word dukkha in Pali, the literal meaning of it is pain, or painful. It's really an adjective. What is often said in English in the First Noble Truth—that birth is suffering, old age is suffering, death is suffering, sickness is suffering, being separated from what you love is suffering, being with what you don't like is suffering—the more literal translation of it is: birth is painful, old age is painful, death is painful, sickness is painful. You get a very different feeling if you use the adjective "painful" than if you use the word "suffering" for all these things. For many people, it's more understandable: yes, of course birth is painful, death is often painful, and sickness is painful. But that is not the whole picture; it's not a categorical kind of judgment about how bad these things are. It just means that it's painful. There are also other things: birth can be inspiring and a source of great happiness. Sickness is not only painful; it can be other things as well, and some of them are kind of nice.

The literal meaning of the word dukkha is painful, and it is used in the Buddhist teaching as a metaphor. The idea of pain is then used to represent other forms of challenges that we have. We have that a little bit in English. If you say that today technology was painful, or it was a pain today because there were all these buttons to push—I'm not going to say it's "suffering," but to say it was a pain just means that it was an irritation or a challenge. It doesn't elevate it to the heavy idea that I'm suffering because of all this; it was perhaps just a minor irritant. I just hope it was not a pain for you all!

The idea is that there is pain in this world, different things are painful, and the task of practice is to have insight into it. The kinds of insight and understandings we can have as we investigate what metaphorically is painful for us—what's difficult, distressing, challenging, or maybe what brings suffering to us—there are a lot of different things to learn and discover. In fact, the way that English translators translate the word dukkha into English has a lot to do with their philosophy of life, their philosophy of what they think Buddhism is about, or the central purpose of what practice is. English translations are not philosophically neutral or dharmically neutral. Different Dharma teachings almost emerge depending on the translation you use. One of them is "suffering," which is very common. Another one that one translator uses is "stress." Other translators say "unsatisfactory" or "unreliable." In fact, three wonderful and significant translators of our Pali texts into English—Thanissaro Bhikkhu^[4], Bhikkhu Bodhi^[5], and Bhikkhu Analayo^[6]—each have different translations they use, or different ways of explaining and understanding this word dukkha. I think each of them has a little different angle, a different philosophy, or a different approach that they take.

I say this so you don't take Buddhist teachings as being definitive and categorical, especially around this topic of dukkha. It's important not to do that, because it's painful to do that for sure! But also, the idea is to have the freedom or the flexibility to begin looking at your own experience, and not to look at your own experience through a lens that dictates it has to fit into some presentation of what Buddhism is. Mindfulness is a very important part of this, because mindfulness puts us in the middle of our experience. It begins to shine a light of awareness, of knowing, of understanding what's actually happening here. Rather than trying to shoehorn ourselves into having "the Buddhist experience," if anything, we're trying to wake up and realize: what is this experience, and how does the reference of Buddhist teachings help me understand my own experience? Buddhism is more like a spotlight that helps us to see a reference point, rather than something we're supposed to kind of be in, align ourselves to, or that's supposed to completely explain who we are.

We practice mindfulness to see what's here. And what we see is a little different if we can see it with a foundation of confidence, a foundation of certain kinds of contentment, a certain kind of ease, well-being, and happiness. That creates a different lens than if the lens we're using is distress, irritation, anger, frustration, and discouragement, seeing everything that's wrong about ourselves or the world around us. The chances are, with some modicum of well-being, some settled sense of ease, we're seeing more objectively. We're seeing with fewer filters across the lens, and then we can just see more clearly what's going on. If what's going on is painful, we learn to see that and to come to terms with that. If what we're seeing is useful or happy, we learn to see that and to recognize that for what it is.

In the process of this, something very interesting begins to happen. The ability to be stable, confident, metaphorically upright, and be able to look at what's painful, difficult, challenging, or suffering—and to be able to look at what's pleasant, enjoyable, happy, and joyful—how we are able to look at it becomes more and more important. It's almost as if there is a certain freedom to be found in how we gaze. To be still and gaze upon everything kindly. To be still and gaze upon everything with freedom, with ease. Now, this is, I think for many people, a very different approach than solving our problems, accumulating more pleasure, accumulating more happiness, holding onto things, or trying to push things away.

If life is only measured and understood by our relation to how things relate to us, then our suffering is completely a product of the people who do things to us, or the events and how they affect us. So we feel we have to fix the events of the world, or that happiness is only possible because we've won the lottery or things in the world are just right. When it's always out there in a certain kind of way that we're trying to become happy or trying to avoid suffering, we're a little bit at the mercy of what happens in the world around us. In the language of ancient Buddhism, we are victims of the winds of the world^[7]. Meaning, when the weather changes, we just kind of get pushed around by the winds.

One of the things that we're doing in Dharma practice is actually cultivating a stronger and stronger mind. We're cultivating an inner strength, even a kind of power, to be able to be present in a confident, engaged, mindful, and focused way that allows for there to be wisdom. Each of the five faculties^[8] becomes strong as we do this practice. And as we have developed some strengths, then we can hold our own in the face of the winds of the world, or hold our own even in the face of the winds of our own mind.

Today I read in the suttas^[9] a little saying that goes something like this: a practitioner has mastered their mind, or controls their own mind; they're not controlled by their mind. There is a way of becoming stable and strong and confident that, no matter what thoughts, feelings, and motivations we have, some wisdom and a place of stability exists where we can see it and respect it, but we don't have to give in to it. We don't have to pick it up, we don't have to react to it. So as practice gets stronger, our ability to see clearly what's happening becomes stronger and stronger. At some point, there's a shift where our ability to observe, to see, to be aware, or to be present with experience, becomes kind of like its own thing that is felt to be independent from the circumstances we're in. We're not yoked, tied, or defined by the circumstances anymore because of the strength of this kind of mindfulness.

What's important about this is it's possible to have dukkha, to have things be painful or be a pain, and not need to do anything about it, because where we live is in the freedom of awareness. A freedom of being able to observe, a freedom of awareness that is not pushed around by or constricted by the circumstances we're in. So it's not necessarily that we need to fix our suffering, get rid of our suffering, or solve our suffering. We might sometimes be involved in doing that, but it's not the only thing that we can do. As Vipassanā^[10] practice and mindfulness practice goes deeper and gets stronger, this ability to be mindful actually becomes less and less focused on solving our suffering—especially in the context of meditation. It becomes more and more important to simply see it clearly.

That ability to see clearly without having to solve, fix, or dissolve our suffering is supported by having developed confidence in the practice, confidence in ourselves, and confidence in mindfulness. Confidence that we have the ability, and that it's worthwhile and appropriate, to stay upright and present for what's difficult, without giving in to it, running away from it, or fixing it. This is a radically different way, I think, than how most people relate to what's difficult and their challenges. It opens up a different kind of door.

In terms of the teachings I gave earlier this week, cultivating and developing the capacity to be present for suffering and be wishless—to have an empowered presence and have no wishes in relationship to that suffering, no desires for or against—brings the mind to a very still and peaceful place. As I talked about earlier in the week, that is the door to liberation. That really opens something up in the mind and in the heart, where there can be a profound release. It's quite a revelation to discover that there can be a deep letting go and release of something deep inside, where the problems of the world don't have to be solved in the conventional ways that people are often trying to solve them. We can become really free in a very deep way through this door of discovering how to be, for certain moments of time, not forever. To have the mind so peaceful and still that there's a wishless, desireless state of peace and stillness that lets things go.

As Vipassanā practice deepens, it's important to understand that as we're beginning to leave behind the problem-solving mind—the mind that is trying to understand and penetrate into the cause of suffering—that's not necessary anymore as we go deeper. Having the strength of presence to be able to see and be mindful of experience opens up the door for us to look at suffering, painfulness, distress, and discouragement in a clearer way. However, sometimes just looking and finding freedom that way is not the appropriate thing to do. Sometimes what's called on is to really go in and understand the conditions and causes of what the suffering is, and that's something we can study.

Sometimes it's important to become aware of the social conditions around us that are contributing to the suffering we're experiencing, or that other people are experiencing. The distress, the oppression, the difficulties we live in. Our ability to hold ourselves in this upright, clear, powerful way allows us to look and study what's going on in the world without succumbing to distress, discouragement, anger, or giving up. We avoid giving in to unnecessary, undermining ways of reacting to the terrible things happening in our world. It's useful to see it as undermining when we give in to feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, hostility, blame, and frustration. From a Buddhist practice point of view, you can actually feel how these stances and approaches are not helpful.

What's probably more helpful is to be able to hold your place, take your stance, look directly, and really see what's going on. There's this expression that comes out of Christianity about turning the other cheek if someone hits you. There's no such idea in Buddhism. I'm not saying that's a bad teaching coming out of Christianity—it's a whole different context—but in contrast, I wanted to say that in Buddhism, rather than giving someone the other cheek, we turn towards them and look them right in the eye and say, "You can't do that," or "Stop." You really confront what's there, and this ability to turn and look is what's important. Some of you might have seen on the stupas in Nepal and India, they have these big Buddha eyes. The eye to look, to be able to look deeply, is really the hallmark of what Buddhism wants to emphasize for us.

So, if the suffering is out there, we study it in the world from a place that doesn't undermine our ability to see clearly, bringing forth what's best in us in relationship to it. The same thing applies to looking within ourselves. If there are a lot of challenges and suffering, we ask: what is it inside ourselves that calls on us to look at it? What inside us wants our attention? What needs something from us? What is it inside of ourselves that needs to be loved and cared for and tended to when we have distress and despair, and when life is painful for us? The ability to be still and to really look, observe, and be present is such a wonderful, compassionate, kind, and supportive thing to do. To ask ourselves: "Here I am struggling in my life. What is inside that needs my care and my attention? What needs to be held in the embrace of mindfulness and attention? Is it my fear? Is it the way I feel hurt? Is it my anger? Is it my loneliness?"

Here too, sometimes it's very powerful not to be in the fix-it mode, not to look and try to solve and fix anything. This natural process of healing, resolution, and maturation can often take care of many things if we hold our experience, if we make breathing room for what's going on. To make breathing room for our fear, sadness, or anger. Sometimes it needs a lot of breathing room and a lot of time. This ability to be still and to observe or be present for it, without being for or against, is a phenomenal gift.

As I have sometimes liked to say in my years as a Buddhist teacher, one of the greatest sufferings, one of the greatest challenges I've seen in people, are those who, as a child, were not really seen by their parents. Not being seen is pretty much the same thing as not being loved. There's something about seeing and being really seen for who you are and how you are that is such an important part of a child's development. An important part of feeling like they belong, that they're part of this world, that they're worthy, cared for, and loved.

There's something about mindfulness, where we see ourselves and see what's difficult inside of ourselves, that is a kind of love. If we can learn how to see without trying to push away, without always fixing or doing away with it, but just to hold it and be present in a kind, supportive way. In many ways, the path of mindfulness is not a path of fixing. It's not even necessarily the path of understanding the causes of our own suffering. It is a path of going in deeper to see what really needs attention here, where we need to hold our awareness, what we have to hold openly and kindly, and just allow it to unfold and show itself. What inside do we need to listen to deeply? We listen so deeply and so well that we listen with a quiet mind, a mind that doesn't have all this chatter and ideas, but just listens and listens.

By listening to the depth of who we are, we might along the way discover something that many Buddhists have discovered: that one of the primary contributors to suffering has to do with how we cling, grab, grasp, and how we get attached to things. That also can be the same as how we push things away. Learning about the somatic experiences of clinging and grasping—learning what it does to the eyes, when the eyes kind of get squinted, or noticing what it does to the forehead when it gets bunched up or tight, or noticing what it does in the brain. Sometimes clinging and attachment can be felt between the temples as a tightening or constricting, or in the chest, the belly, or the shoulders—all these different somatic places where clinging exists.

Or we might notice how being attached and clinging is felt in the field of awareness. Sometimes the scope of attention gets very narrow, obscure, and not really clear when there's a lot of clinging. Part of the value of this ability to really sense, feel, and get to know experience—to be still and just keep looking and seeing—is that we get a really clear feeling for what clinging feels like in us. So we can recognize when it's there. We can recognize it when it's coming. It can make life a lot simpler if we recognize that clinging and relax. Otherwise, every time we cling to something, we think we have to analyze what we're clinging to, have an argument with it, and discuss whether I should or shouldn't be clinging. "Is this important to hold onto? What's really going on here? Why am I clinging, and what happened yesterday that I'm clinging today?"

Those kinds of reflections are useful at times, but the simplicity of beginning to recognize whether the hand is held clenched or whether the hand is open—it's that kind of simple. To learn to trust non-clinging, trust not resisting, trust not grasping on. That in turn supports the ability to have clear, empowered mindfulness, a clear sense of really empowered presence and attention to what is. This is so that wisdom can operate, so we know how to take care of ourselves, we know what we need to do and how to do it, hopefully without the need to cling to anything.

It's possible, without any clinging whatsoever, to look someone in the eye and say, "No, we're not going to do that, I'm not going to do that." It's possible, without any clinging whatsoever, to have an upwelling of love, compassion, and generosity, and to act with tremendous energy in a way that looks passionate to other people, to really go out and support and help this world. We don't need to cling, we don't need to grasp. In fact, the Buddha said nothing whatsoever is worth clinging to. To learn to have confidence about an empowered life without clinging is one of the great things to unfold and develop through this practice. Discovering well-being, happiness, and confidence gives strength to non-clinging, strength to this relaxed, easeful, empowered mindfulness that's possible for us.

So one of the themes of this talk that I gave today is a point which I don't know how often you've heard from a Buddhist teacher: that it's not always necessary, in a psychological way or in the personal way of Dharma practice within ourselves, to always solve all the places of distress and the painful things that go on. There are other ways. Always being on the road of trying to solve, fix, resolve, and understand in some kind of psychological way—sometimes that's really important to do, but if that's the only way we have it, we're really missing a whole rich, valuable approach to coming to freedom. And that is not to solve anything, but to have the presence of mind, of mindfulness, that allows things to dissolve, that allows something powerful to evolve within us.

Sometimes it's a little bit like a snake that gets big and strong and sheds its own skin. I hope and I'm confident that each of you can mature, evolve, and develop. There are powerful forces, which I call Dharma forces, within us that are capable of evolving, growing, and maturing. We don't have to live a life of suffering, but allow yourself to become strong, allow yourself to grow, make room for this strength that you're capable of to evolve and develop. So that you have a taste and experience of awareness which can be aware of anything at all and, at the same time, be independent of what it's aware of—independent meaning not entangled or caught by things. To have insight into what is painful, all the different ways that life presents itself that is painful, and to learn how to be free in the midst of this painful world.

Thank you, and I hope it wasn't too painful to listen to that! [Laughter] I'll see you again here at 7:30. Thank you.