Christopher: Dukkha is not just any suffering, but a specific kind of suffering. So, what do “birth-dukkha, illness-dukkha, death-dukkha, association-with-the-unpleasing-dukkha, separation-from-the-pleasing-dukkha, not-getting-what-one-wants-dukkha – in short, clinging-to-the-fivefold-sentient-processes-dukkha,” what do they have in common?”
Melissa: “When I invite the pain body, speech and mind associated with dukkha, I feel some sort of urgency, some sort of… intensity.”
Christopher: “Yes. It would appear so. Is that the first thing you notice?”
Kent: “A kind of hunger accompanies this.”
C: “Yes. A thirst for movement, right? Rather than let reality present you with its raw face.”
M: “I certainly see that. There is illness and we want that it doesn’t come to us. There is death, and we don’t want it to come.”
K: “We want it not to come.”
M: “That’s more like it. And, ‘to come to me,’ especially. I don’t mind it being out there in the world, but I want it not to come to me and my loved ones.”
C: “So, you are implicitly raising memory, and comparison (which wouldn’t be possible without memory). You’ve also introduced self-image – the Narcissus theme – with the longing belonging to the ‘me.'”
M: “Is memory only a bringer of dukkha? That would surely be extreme, wouldn’t it?”
C: “Good question. You’re asking, ‘Does memory have some proper place?’
M: “That’s right.”
C: “I agree that we have to keep a perspective. Memory might have a place in life. And, we’re just investigating the feeling of ‘things being out-of-kilter,’ ‘skew-whiff,’ or the feeling that no matter what we do to secure peace and happiness, there is a pervasive unsatisfying element. And, we see that memory plays a part in that.”
M: “And, more generally, there’s a subtle way we feel driven, most of the time.”
K: “You know, Christopher. I’ve been doing some reading, and it appears to me that you’re deviating from a standard view.”
C: “Which is?”
K: “Which is that the very fact of a stubbed toe is dukkha.”
C: “I know what you mean. And you’re right – I’m not wasting my time with that one. That view doesn’t comprehensively cover the entirety of the teachings; and furthermore, I’ve found that it is allied to the view that liberation (nibbāna) is release from life processes – liberation out of life. The ‘stubbed toe is intrinsically dukkha’ view accompanies the ‘life stinks’ attitude, which I’ve met in some Buddhists.
“So, you’re right. After decades of inquiry, I’ve decided that nibbāna is a release from bondage, and that, if it’s not a release into more realness, and a real life of compassion, then it’s not worthy of my limited energy.”
M: “May I suggest that we take those last three? ‘Association-with-the-unpleasing dukkha, separation-from-the-pleasing dukkha, not-getting-what-one-wants dukkha’ – what do they have in common?”
C: “Good. I, myself, have a chronic illness. That’s not pleasing. But, when I despair that the illness is making my life is meaningless, then I’m adding a special burden to my already unpleasant illness. And, it’s clearly an optional extra.”
K: “I know what you mean. Like when getting the flu, and feeling: ‘Why me?'”
M: “Yes. That’s clear. Adding the special burden of dukkha. It’d be important to find what our experience is, of that ‘special’ bit.”
C: “Okay. If I had a healthy attitude, I could inquire into it, while seeking to address it practically. But, with dukkha, I am not with the illness just as it is, in its unfolding. In this ‘special burden’ case, I am taking it personally, and I despair. The despair has got a refusal to experience, inside it, hasn’t it?”
M & K (both feeling into their bodies): “Yes.”
C: “Then… It’s easy to see that the second one is similar – the dukkha which arises with ‘separation from the pleasing’ is likewise a refusal to experience reality as it is. I remember relationship separations that had me so devastated that I could hardly function.”
K: “Oh, yes, for sure. I was talking with a college friend, just an hour ago, who’s besotted with a married woman in his class. A part of him accepts that she’s married, but another part of him won’t give up the longing. Like you say, there’s a refusal in him, to face that he can’t be with her.”
M: “Wow! That’s heavy.”
K: “Oh, he’ll be okay. He does fundamentally accept it. But, it’s giving him anguish, just the same. It’s just on this point – that’s what I was thinking.”
C: “That can be dukkha, sure. (One translation of dukkha is ‘anguish.’) If what he’s experiencing is dukkha, it can be an instance of not-getting-what-you-want dukkha; there can be moments of separation-dukkha, and there can be having what you don’t want – all in the situation. Desiring her might be natural. Feeling the pain of the impossibility might be natural. Pain is there, but dukkha is the refusal to accept the pain.”
M: “So, you think the refusal is at play for emotional pain, too?”
C: “Yes. Take when someone you love dies. There’s a hole in your life. The situation is in your body, and it’s unpleasant by its nature. The untrained person wants to get away from the feeling of the hole in them.”
M: “But if you refuse to feel the pain of the loss, then there’s a different feeling comes – dukkha.”
C: “Then you’ve got the being-out-of-harmony-with-life-as-it-is feeling, right.”
M: “So dukkha is the specific suffering of being out of alignment with life.”
C: “Lovely. That’s an interesting definition. That makes sense of the etymology. I’ve heard different origins given for the word; but the one I use – because it makes the most sense of the word across all contexts – is in the Pāli English Dictionary. it says it’s: ‘duḥ’ plus ‘kha.’ That’s: ‘bad’ plus ‘space.’ Some think it refers to the space at the hub of a wheel. Maybe so. Either way, it’s a bad space, which is good experientially, isn’t it?”
M: “Very good.”
C: “There’s a lot like that. A small example would be: I wish I could go down into the wilderness in the valley near where I live. It was the joy of my childhood to be in places like that. I can’t due to a combination of a chronic illness and old age creeping up on me.”
M: “Is that dukkha?”
C: “Not for me, because – in this instance, at least – I don’t resist the poignancy of life. I’m sure dying will be the same. Poignant to part from loved ones, but I think there’ll be a lot of love in the parting, not resistance, not rejection – because I do my best in my life to place myself under the big open field of how things are. It’s not just that I’m in training for death, but I find more life living this way.”
M: “100% for birth and death.”
K: “Resisting the situation by continuing to entertain the possibility. That’s the dukkha. My friend is looking at why he’s so enamoured, of course. That makes it a little better.”
C: “The Nikāya Buddha names this particular clinging the hardest of all, for both men and women. He says that the form, sound, smell, taste, and touch of the other preoccupies the mind like nothing else.”
M: “I like that word ‘occupy.’ When your friend is occupied with his classmate, he surely can’t have much space for keeping his mind on lectures.”
K: “So, true. Still, I’ve been there…”
M: “So, we’re naming another aspect of dukkha: ‘Clinging’ is a strong word, but that’s what is here – a feeling of holding onto something for dear life.”
C: “And there you have a very deep element. To stick fast to something. Now why would we do that, when the clinging itself, or the something we cling to (I’m thinking of the drug ‘ice,’ right now), may not be good for us?”
K: “In that particular case neither the clinging nor the object are good for us.”
M: “I think this is a good question.”
C: “Let’s look at it another way. A radical Gendlin-style question. How would your being – your whole body-mind complex – feel, if you were not clinging? Your body knows what all okay is like, in this context. Can you invite that into your body, now?”
K: “Oh, that’s a good idea. It’s a Byron Katie question, too. But, can we do it using the Hal and Sidra Stones’ Voice Dialogue process, which you’ve done with me before?”
C: “Unexpected way to go, but why not? Melissa?”
M: “Yes. I’d love it.”
C: “Okay. May I please speak to the… Ah…let me see… Let me speak, please, to the non-clinging mind.”
(Melissa and Kent both move their positions in the room, finding a place to speak as ‘Non-Clinging Mind’ Tomorrow, the conversation continues, with Christopher supporting Kent and Melissa to dis-identify from the clinging mind.)