Christopher: “We’re looking at mindfulness in the Buddhist context – with a mind to understanding our relationship to death – and I was thinking that if we understand the problem situation better, we might be able to understand what mindfulness can do for us; or, even what mindfulness can be.”
Kent: “Problem situation?”
C: “Yes. In the Buddhadharma the human problem situation is put in terms of dukkha; which is rather badly translated into English as ‘suffering.’ Dukkha is not just any old suffering, though. It’s a specific kind of suffering. So…
Melisa: “Isn’t dukkha defined as birth, illness, death, and so on? ‘There is dukkha’ means there is shitty stuff in life.””
C: “That’s one approach. It is often said that birth, illness, death, association-with-the-unpleasing, separation-from-the-pleasing, not-getting-what-one-wants – that these are dukkha. I can’t see that as an intelligent approach to human life.
“So, in order to understand it experientially, rather than in accordance with hearsay and tradition, we could ask: what do birth-dukkha, illness-dukkha, death-dukkha, association-with-the-unpleasing-dukkha, separation-from-the-pleasing-dukkha, not-getting-what-one-wants-dukkha, what do they have in common, when we encounter them?”
K: “We’d have to understand the word ‘dukkha’ more closely, wouldn’t we?”
Melissa: “When I invite the pained-body, pained-speech and pained-mind associated with those life events, I feel some sort of urgency, some sort of… intensity.”
C: “Yes. It would appear it is intense. Is that the very first thing you notice?”
K: “A kind of hunger accompanies this.”
C: “Yes. A thirst to do something, right? Rather than to let reality present you with its raw face. Birth and death, illness, and difficulties – this is the raw side of life, right? It would be unrealistic to expect a rose garden, only, in life.”
K: “Even roses die.”
M: “I certainly see that. There is illness and we want that it doesn’t happen to us. There is death, and we don’t want it to come.”
K: “We want it not to come.”
M: “Yes. And, ‘to come to me,’ especially. It’s not a big deal, if it’s out there in the world, but I want to avoid it for me and my loved ones.”
C: “So, You’ve introduced how one’s self-image is involved – the Narcissus theme – because the longing belongs to a ‘me.’ That plays a part in it. In fact, the last part of that traditional statement about birth, death, illness and so on, names the whole situation this way, as: ‘clinging-to-the-fivefold-sentient-processes-dukkha.’ Clinging to our image of how things should be, then, is central.
“So, we’re 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 always a pervasive, unsatisfying element. And, we see that clinging to concepts plays a part in that.”
M: “And, more generally, there’s a subtle way we feel a little too active, most of the time.”
K: “You know, Christopher. I’ve been doing some reading, and it appears to me that you’re deviating from the standard view.”
C: “Which is?”
K: “Which is that the very fact of a stubbed toe is dukkha. Shit happens, and that fact is dukkha.”
C: “I know what you mean. That view is out there. And, you’re right – I don’t find that view useful. It seems to me there’s no justification for it, except an emotional rejection of life-as-it-is. But that very rejection is dukkha.
“Anyhow, that view doesn’t make sense of the entirety of the teachings; and, I’ve found that it is allied to the view that liberation (nibbāna) is release away from life processes – liberation out of life. Instead, I experience liberation as the liberation from clinging.”
M: “Do you mean it’s not liberation from pain?”
C: The ‘stubbed toe’pain is not intrinsically ‘dukkha,’ no. I notice that this view accompanies the ‘life stinks’ attitude, which I’ve met in some Buddhists.
“So, you’re right, Kent. After decades of inquiry, I’ve settled, for me, that nibbāna is a release from the bondage of clinging, and that, if it’s not a release into more realness in life – a real life of compassion – then it’s not worth my limited energy.”