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Can Suffering Be Optional?
Exploring The Four Noble Truths & The EightFold Path (6/9)
One of my favourite stories of Buddha is set during the night of his enlightenment. On the night that Buddha resolved to sit and meditate until he reached enlightenment, it is said that Mara visited him. Mara is called the Tempter. He is considered to be the personification of all unskillful emotions that assail human existence, like lust, greed, hate, and delusion. On the night of Siddhartha Gautama’s long meditation, Mara attacked him with various temptations and challenges designed to break Siddhartha’s meditation. He hurled a volley of arrows at Siddhartha, each causing a condition of lust, greed, hate or delusion to arise.
Siddhartha met each arrow Mara threw him with compassion, presence and acceptance. He turned them into flower petals. As the night grew, Siddhartha was surrounded by flower petals. This incensed Mara, who then issued his most formidable and final challenge. He challenged Siddhartha, “By what right do you think you could become enlightened? Who do you think you are? What is your claim to become enlightened?”
This power of an awakened heart meets every unskillful emotion with compassion. That which doesn’t deny or suppress whatever comes their way but uses it as a path to awakening.
What is heartening in the story for me is that Mara doesn’t disappear completely. Even after Buddha’s enlightenment, Mara continued to visit him. It seems like unskillful emotions don’t go away even after enlightenment! This is a lesson to remember when I keep berating myself in meditation practice or in life when unskilful emotions come up.
In this edition of the newsletter, we will continue to look at Chapter 3 of the audiobook, “Coming Closer to Ourselves: Making Everything the Path of Awakening” by Ani Pema Chodron. This article will explore Dukkha, The Four Noble Truths and the 8 Fold Noble Path.
As someone who grew up in India, the Four Noble Truths, the story of Siddharta Gautama, and his subsequent path to awakening are things most children learn in history classes. It is considered historical (not mythological!), so I had to memorise his core teachings to sit for history exams. Even if I can recite the Four Noble Truths from memory, I did not investigate these until I started taking my meditation and studies seriously.
To be able to look at it closely, wonder, contemplate, and try to apply it in my life has caused a seismic shift in how I approach my life.
The Four Noble Truths are the first teachings of Buddha after enlightenment. After enlightenment, the Buddha did not want to teach and spent a few days meditating. Finally, when he got out of his meditation, he encountered the five ascetics with whom he had trained earlier in austerities and practices that he thought would liberate him.
Buddha’s radiance drew the five men to him, and they saw that something about him had changed dramatically. When they asked Buddha to explain his radiance, he gave them the teachings on the Four Noble Truths.
It is said that one of the ascetics, on hearing the teachings, attained enlightenment on the spot. I guess one had to be so ripe in one’s practice that mere hearing of the teachings helps one to awaken. The rest of us must go at the teachings a million times (I can speak for myself here!), and then we can glimpse what the Buddha taught.
The Four Noble Truths are
1. All Existence is Dukkha
2. The Cause of Dukkha is Craving
3. The Cessation of the Dukkha comes with the Cessation of the Craving
4. There is a Path that Leads from Dukkha
Pema presents the Four Noble Truths as
1. Truth of Suffering
2. Cause of Suffering
3. Cessation of Suffering
4. Noble Eight Fold Path
In this article, I will detail Dukkha and the kinds of Dukkha and lightly touch on the other 3 Noble Truths.
1. Truth of Dukkha
Dukkha is a Pali word that is widely translated as suffering. Alternate translations are anxiety, stress and dissatisfaction. However, a better translation is to think of Dukkha as dissatisfaction. This is the core of Buddha’s teachings. According to tradition, Buddha has said, “I have taught one thing and one thing only, Dukkha and the cessation of Dukkha.”
The Truth of Dukkha is the first of the Four Noble Truths. This is also the most misunderstood Noble Truth.
Pema says that what causes Dukkha is the struggle against the truth of groundlessness. There is no solution to groundlessness, no matter what strategies we use not to experience it. The only way to work with groundlessness is to move closer to it. Pain does not cease in life, but the cessation of struggle, dissatisfaction and suffering is possible.
There are three kinds of Dukkha that we experience.
1. Dukkha of Dukkha
Resistance to natural phenomena like old age, sickness, death, not getting what you want, getting what you don’t want and the suffering that comes from the resistance is called Dukkha of Dukkha.
Falling sick, watching grey hairs multiply, and watching others at the door of death are all things that I dread and cause me heaps of dissatisfaction.
2. Dukkha of Alternation
Nothing in life is permanent; they alternate/change. Difficult and easy situations, agreeable and disagreeable circumstances. These are called eight worldly dharmas, explored in detail in Pema’s book, “When Things Fall Apart”.
1. Pleasure and Pain
2. Gain and Loss
3. Praise and Blame
4. Fame and Disgrace
We want only the left-hand side of the pairs above. We think we can be happy if we somehow get these and have a way of ensuring that we experience pleasure, gain, praise and fame. But that is not possible. Resistance to the right-hand side of the pair and craving for the left-hand side of the pair is called the Dukkha of Alternation.
I find that this is very true for me, and I have a challenging time handling blame, disgrace, loss and certain kinds of pain. When things go up, they come down. Yet, the anticipation of things going down and not being able to handle them is a source of recurrent anxiety for me.
3. Dukkha of Conditioning
This suffering comes from having the five skandhas (form, feeling or sensation, perception, concept and consciousness). All pervasive suffering or dissatisfaction is an undercurrent in our everyday existence.
Nothing is permanent, and yet we suffer when we experience loss, when things don’t go our way or when we get hooked onto a thought or a belief.
This has taken me a long time, and I’ve begun to unpack how this Dukkha is so pervasive in my life. In a moment of peace or just being, a thought comes from my conditioning, belief or habitual patterns. And before I realise it, I have become hooked on that thought. I cling to it for dear life and endlessly propagate it with my stories. I believe those thoughts, and they have caused me endless suffering.
2. Cause of Dukkha
We can understand for ourselves what causes our own Dukkha by being curious about it and by moving closer to Dukkha.
Pema asks us to be curious about our own Dukkha. What form does my own Dukkha/dissatisfaction take place in my life?
We experience Dukkha in our meditation practice, too. When we meditate, we struggle - there is physical, mental and emotional discomfort that arises non-stop in practice. We struggle against the struggles that we are experiencing, for we don’t like them. And this, for sure, multiplies the suffering.
3. Cessation of Dukkha
There are either cravings or aversions that we experience in our lives. There is either a craving or a wanting more of something. Or there is an aversion or wanting nothing/less of something. The cessation of Dukkha happens when we can let go of craving or aversion. When we can stop, watch what is happening and just be.
We all experience this in moments in our lives. Moments where we are just in the present moment. There is no grasping of want or don’t want. This place of ease is what we are talking about when Buddha says Cessation of Dukkha.
4. The Noble Eight-Fold Path
The Eightfold Path is the path that leads to the cessation of suffering. It contains the following.
1. Right View (Samma ditthi)
2. Right Intention (Samma sankappa)
3. Right Speech (Samma vaca)
4. Right Discipline (Samma kammanta)
5. Right Livelihood (Samma ajiva)
6. Right Effort (Samma vayama)
7. Right Mindfulness (Samma sati) &
8. Right Samadhi (Samma samadhi)
Pema mentions that Chogyam Trungpa prefers the word “Complete” instead of “Right”. The word “Right” has moralistic connotations, so we could look at it as “Complete”. We are cultivating Complete View, Intention, Speech, Discipline, Livelihood, Effort, Mindfulness and Samadhi.
All of Buddha’s teachings and practices aim to cultivate the components of the eightfold path.
Right View (Samma ditthi): In everyday life interactions and meditation practice, we start to cultivate approaching with an open mind, being curious, and not solidifying or creating more duality than we already have. This is training for the rest of our lives in cultivating an open mind and heart.
Right Intention (Samma sankappa): Cultivating awareness of our intentions and what they are and ensuring that they do not cause harm to oneself or others.
Right Speech (Samma vaca): Cultivating speech that has no slander, is not harsh or is a lie. There is a quote attributed to Buddha about the Right Speech, “Is it true, is it kind, is it necessary, is it the right time? This is about allowing lots of space in the speech and checking in to our intention before and after.
Right Effort (Samma vayama): Not too tight or loose. This can be thought of as cupping water in the hand. You can hold the water when your hand is not too loose or tight.
Right Mindfulness (Samma sati): Quality of the path and the attention we pay.
Right Samadhi (Samma samadhi): This is the fruition of the path. It is an experience of non-struggle and relaxing into what is.
Pema touches lightly on these topics in this audiobook. I look forward to exploring these teachings in greater detail and perspectives by her and other teachers.
Getting closer to these teachings is helping me cultivate compassion for myself—my experiences, reactions, neurosis, quirks and challenges in everyday life on and off the cushion. Years ago, on one of my birthdays, I impulsively got a tattoo of the Dhamma Chakra on my right hand. The Dhamma Chakra represents the 8 Fold Noble Path. I hadn’t intended to walk down this path, and how life leads us is strange.
What’s next?
We will examine the Heart Sutra, one of my favourite Sutras, as we explore the Mahayana Teachings in the next edition of the newsletter.
Write back to me!
It would be great to hear from you, and I’d love to know what parts of this article resonated with you. Tell me your thoughts on Dukkha. It would help me in my practice and thinking about these teachings.
P.S. Thank you for subscribing and sticking with me.
As a parting thought, I will finish this edition with a story.
A Buddha
In Tokyo in the Meiji era, two prominent teachers of opposite characteristics lived. One, Unsho, an instructor in Shingon, kept Buddha’s precepts scrupulously. He never drank intoxicants, nor did he eat after eleven o’clock in the morning. The other teacher, Tanzan, a professor of philosophy at the Imperial University, never observed the precepts. When he felt like eating, he ate; when he felt like sleeping in the daytime, he slept.
One day, Unsho visited Tanzan, who was drinking wine at the time, not even a drop of which is supposed to touch the tongue of a Buddhist.
“Hello, brother,” Tanzan greeted him. “Won’t you have a drink?”
“I never drink!” exclaimed Unsho solemnly.
“One who does not drink is not even human,” said Tanzan.
“Do you mean to call me inhuman just because I do not indulge in intoxicating liquids!” exclaimed Unsho in anger. “Then, if I am not human, what am I?”
“A Buddha,” answered Tanzan.
Disclosures
All images have been generated using Open AI. I had loads of fun experimenting with prompts and generating images for this newsletter. Have a go at it!
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