Suffering.

At one time many years ago I was staying in McLeod Gange  which is the old British hill station above Dharamsala in India.

I had made the long journey there to meet the Dalai Lama, meditate in the mountains and simply be in the majesty of nature. I had also accompanied a female friend of mine who wanted to attend courses at the famous Tibetan teaching centre Tushita monastery.

We agreed to go our separate ways most days, her to study at Tushita and me to walk and meditate alone in the mountains, but would meet up each evening at our favourite restaurant for dinner.

This we did and were always happy to spend some time together and inquire about each other's day.

One evening I arrived before our usual  time and waited at a table for my friend. She arrived like a demon, so angry and frustrated that it was impossible for her to be discreet about her feelings.

She reached our table, noisily pulled out the chair and dramatically threw herself into it. Sighing out loud she looked at me, paused and sighed again.

"What happened?" I asked, and so she recounted her experience at Tushita that afternoon.

A course had been presented by a western Tibetan nun in which she had made the proclamation that birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death in suffering etc, etc. In short, life is suffering!

This teaching had shocked her so much that she had been overwhelmed by fear and desperation, hence her bad mood.

I listened patiently until she had finished talking and spoke simply and calmly, "but the Buddha never said that life was suffering." I said.

She glared at me and asked, "how do you know that?"

"Because he didn't speak English," was my reply.

The first Noble Truth (Dukkha Ariya Sacca) often translated as 'life is suffering,' is truly one of the greatest teachings ever given to the world at any time in human history. However, the over simplistic translation of the word Dukkha, reducing the first Noble Truth to 'life is suffering' is to misunderstand the gift of the Buddha completely. Life is not suffering, although it certainly can contain the qualities that we may call suffering, but even these moments, no matter how unpleasant they appear, are not absolute truths, they are unique and personal to the being experiencing them.

What one person calls suffering, another simply may not.

We know from our own direct understanding that not everything in life is unpleasant, but until awakening, whatever we meet will always have the quality be being unsatisfactory in one way or another. This means that every situation, gross or subtle, can be bettered in some way according to our own mind and preconceptions of how things should be. Happiness then, is always perceived as a goal in the future, something that will be achieved when everything is the way we need it to be so that we feel secure. Once we begin to grasp the notion that life does not change, but is only a continuing process of change, our understanding of the First Noble Truth spontaneously opens and can no longer be a simple repetition of what we have read or heard others say due to their own lack of understanding. Life is only what it is. The internal conditions and reactions that we each individually meet in life comes from us and cannot be taken from us or given away. The world that we experience is the one that we create for ourselves, moment after moment. If the foundation for that world is that everything is suffering, how will we ever meet the joy that lives in our heart. We are responsible for the world we experience in every moment and so the purest Dhamma teaching, beyond gender inequality, beyond politics, beyond religion, beyond social

or group manipulation, beyond self righteous segregation and cruelty, beyond the limitations of the fear based mind is simple; live with love and be aware. In this way you will be happy no share that happiness with all beings.

May all beings harmonise with the deepest understanding of the First Noble Truth.

 

May all beings be happy.