Tag: dukkha

Not Merging with Suffering

On December 13, 2016

The Arrow
(Sallatha Sutta: Samyutta Nikāya 36.6)
Translated from the Pali by Christopher J. Ash

[The Buddha:] “Practitioners, an untrained, ordinary person experiences pleasant feelings, unpleasant feelings, and feelings neither pleasant nor unpleasant A well-trained student of the noble ones also feels pleasant feelings, unpleasant feelings, and feelings neither pleasant nor unpleasant. So, what difference is there between the well-trained student of the noble ones and the untrained ordinary person?”

[Practitioners:] “Because we depend on the Flourishing One’s teachings, it would be good if the Flourishing One were to personally explain. Hearing this, we will remember it well.”

“Then listen carefully. I’ll explain.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“When an untrained, ordinary person contacts suffering, they fret and become wearied. They lament, beat their breast, and fall into delusion. They have two pains – physical and mental pain. Just as if someone were to shoot another with an arrow, and, right afterward, they were to shoot that same person with another arrow. Hence, the victim would feel the pain of two arrows. In a similar way, when in contact with a feeling of pain, the untrained, ordinary person frets and becomes wearied. They lament, beat their breast, and fall into delusion. So, they experience two kinds of feelings: the bodily and the mental suffering.

“When they are in contact with suffring, they meet it with resistance. When they feel resistance, their (previously latent) underlying patterns of resistance become active. Touched by pain, they then yearn for sensual pleasure. Why is that? Because the untrained, ordinary person does not know of any other escape from pain beside sensual pleasure. While relishing sensual pleasure, the untrained, ordinary person, relies on (previously latent) underlying tendencies to lust for pleasure. So, they can’t understand – in their experience just as it actually is – the production and cessation of these feelings; the attraction and the disadvantages of them; nor can they know the actuality of leaving this suffering behind. When they don’t discern these processes, they [likewise] dwell in ignorance of experiences which are neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

“Experiencing a pleasant sensation, they know it while merged with it. Experiencing an unpleasant sensation, they know it merged with it. Experiencing a sensation which is neither pleasant unpleasant, they know it merged with it. This, I say, is an untrained, ordinary person: a person tied to birth, aging, and death; one tied to grief, complaining, anguish, distress, and despair – a person bound up with dukkha.

“When a trained student of the noble ones contacts suffering, they don’t fret and are not wearied; they don’t complain or beat their breast; they don’t get confused. So, they just have the one pain – the physical, and not the mental pain. Just as if someone were to shoot a person with an arrow, and didn’t shoot them a second time. So the victim would feel the pain of only the one arrow. In this way, when a trained student of the noble ones contacts a feeling of pain, they don’t fret and aren’t wearied; they don’t complain or beat their breast; they don’t get confused. So, they experience the one kind of suffering; the physical suffering, but not the mental suffering.

“When in contact with pain, they don’t resist it. Not given over to resistance, then latent underlying patterns of resistance don’t possess them. And, touched by suffering, they don’t attach to sensual pleasures. Why? Because a well-trained student of the noble ones recognises the escape from suffering [that is other than] sensual pleasure. So, not relishing sensual pleasure, the well-trained person does not rely on the underlying patterns of sensual pleasure. Hence they see – in the experience as it actually is – the arising and cessation of these feelings. They see then the allure and disadvantages of these feelings. And they can know the reality of leaving suffering behind. As they know these processes, neither will they dwell in ignorance of experiences which are neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

“Experiencing a pleasant sensation, they know it while not merged with it. Experiencing an unpleasant sensation, they know it not merged with it. Experiencing a sensation which is neither pleasant unpleasant, they know it not merged with it. This, I say, is a well-trained student of the noble ones: a person separated from birth, aging, and death; separated from grief, complaint, anguish, distress, and despair – a person separated from dukkha.”

“So, this is the difference – the distinction, the distinguishing factor – between the untrained ordinary person and the well-trained student of the noble ones.

“A wise person, being discerning,
doesn’t experience a [concocted] feeling of pleasure or pain.
The difference, then, between the wise and
the ordinary person is one of skilfullness.

“For a person who discerns constructed dhammas,
clearly seeing this world and future worlds,
pleasant things don’t confuse the mind,
and unpleasant things don’t bring resistance.

“Passiveness and opposition are dispersed –
gone to their end, do not exist.
Having known the stainless and sorrow-free,
these ones understand thoroughly, beyond becoming.”

∞

Getting Lost in Resistance

By admin

On November 2, 2016

In Dukkha, Resisting Death

When we are identified with dukkha, we double our pain. In the sutta which I’m presently translating, the Nikaya Buddha is exploring what distinguishes a “well-trained student of the noble ones from the untrained ordinary person,” in respect of experiencing life’s pleasures and pains. If we understand this, we can transform our lives.

He says that we encounter suffering and naturally resist; especially by turning toward pleasure. By the way, when he says ‘sensual pleasure’ he means pleasures of the mind, too – not just of sight, sound, smell, taste, and the bodily senses. These five are what Westerners have been trained to think of as ‘the senses’; but, here, we include the pleasures of thinking, imagining and dreaming.

Furthermore, I should warn you that the point is not to live without pleasure happening – that’s not living – but the point is not to found our deepest well-being in what is changeable and connected with what is changeable. Being identified with what is changeable is a recipe for all the bitter dishes we are serving ourselves all over the groaning planet.

While we are untrained, we don’t know any better. So, in this next passage he goes into how our unaware approach to dukkha works; how our habitual patterns block insight, which is the key to freedom. He points out that if we depend on sensual pleasures, then we can’t have the requisite distance to see what’s going on, can’t have insight into the dynamics of our pervasive frustrations with life:

“While relishing sensual pleasure, the untrained, ordinary person relies on pleasure; and so they can’t know – in the experience as it actually is – its production and its cessation; its allure and its disadvantages; nor the actuality of leaving suffering behind. As they don’t discern these processes, they dwell in ignorance of their neutral experiences.” (Those which are neither pleasant nor unpleasant).

Then reminding us of what he’s doing here – inviting us deeper into training of the heart by naming the difference between the untrained and trained person – he finishes this part of his talk, by saying:

“This, I say, is an untrained, ordinary person: a person tied to birth, aging, and death; one fettered by grief, complaint, anguish, distress, and despair – a person bound up with dukkha.”

Doubling Our Pain

By admin

On November 1, 2016

In Dukkha

I am translating a sutta, presently, on the sad fact that we double our pain, unnecessarily. In Buddhism this is referred to with the simile of the ‘second arrow.’ The sutta, from the Samyutta Nikāya, is called ‘The Arrow.’ The sutta opens with a warning about the danger of grasping after limited escapes, in compensation for our raw suffering. There is a better way to be free of suffering.

The Arrow (Sallatha Sutta: SN.36.6)

“Practitioners, an untrained, ordinary person has pleasant experiences, unpleasant experiences, and experiences that are neither pleasant nor unpleasant. A well-trained student of the noble ones also has pleasant experiences, unpleasant experiences, and experiences which are neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

“So, what difference is there – what distinction, what distinguishing factor is there – between the well-trained student of the noble ones and the untrained ordinary person?

“When an untrained, ordinary person contacts suffering, they fret and are wearied, they complain, they cry and beat their breast, and they get confused. So, they have two pains – the physical pain and mental pain.

“Just as if someone were to shoot a man with an arrow, and then, right afterward, they were to shoot him with another one. Hence he would feel the pain of two arrows.

“So, in the same way, when in contact with a feeling of suffering, the untrained, ordinary person frets and is wearied; they complain, lament, and get confused. Hence, they experience two kinds of feelings, the physical and the mental suffering.

“When they are in contact with suffering, they resist. So, given the resistance, they fall into latent underlying patterns of resistance. Touched by this suffering, they are then thankful for sensual pleasures. Why? Because the untrained, ordinary person does not know of any escape from dukkha beside sensual pleasure.”

∞

Getting the Problem Situation in Perspective

By admin

On June 30, 2016

In Body, Death, Enquiry, Focusing, Positivity, Practices

For the small child I was, the dukkha was in the lack of understanding, not in the bare fact of the encounter with death. The dukkha is in the fear. From a point of view, the encounter with death is inescapable. But, fear and bewilderment – they’re optional (at least for an adult.)

So, we’re talking about an unhelpful interpretation of dukkha. If we say that the bare fact of biological birth and death, and the illnesses that inevitably accompany human life, that these are dukkha – that is, that they are either representative of a universe out of whack, or are unsatisfactory in some way – then, either way, such a view only means we don’t like the universe as it is.

(And, more subtly, we are affirming death as existing as a ‘something’ and existing on its own side. We’re giving it ‘self-nature’ of a particular kind, and so getting caught in dualistic understanding. But this is a point I’ll take up later.)

Dukkha is not primarily about the way things are; but, it is mostly to do with our narcissistic reaction to ‘things as they are.’ (Ironically, our reactions are dependent on the fact that we have evolved enough to reflect on the way things are.)

Hence, we would mistake the level at which the remedy is to be applied. It needs to be applied at the level of our reaction to death, not on the literal or physical level of impermanence. It is this literalist reading – life stinks, and we need to not be reborn – that has led some in the West to think that the Nikāya Buddhism is life-denying and pessimistic. If we interpret the Nikāya Buddha’s message in this limited way, we trivialize his insistence that there is a way to end our egocentricity.

If the Nikāya texts are any sort of guide, we can see that the historical Buddha had insights at the level of interactional, bodily, experiential space that were exceptionally subtle. They are still powerful, today. The historical person was a human – Siddhartha Gotama – a person of such-and-such a name, and such-and-such a clan. He had ‘experiencing’ – his felt life – just like we do. Surely, it was this experiencing that he was interested in freeing from dukkha, transforming the ‘bad space’ of egocentric reactivity, into the peaceful non-resistance of the awakened heart.

However, Gotama’s interpretations of this experiences were inevitably framed within the concepts available in his time; even when he extended or refreshed that culture (as it appears that he did). Those concepts included the state of scientific knowledge of his time.

We humans have learnt much about our situation in two-and-a-half thousand years, and new perspectives from modern disciplines enrich our understanding. They can enrich the tradition, too. We can’t stop the process, anyway. I once read an ecologist saying that you can’t place an organism in an environment, without the environment getting into the organism.

Understanding the tradition is like that. It penetrates you, and it is itself changed by changing you. It is handed on by becoming the way you are, in body, speech and mind. So, it’s just the way of the universe, that if the Buddhadharma comes West, the West gets into it.

Nevertheless, the process is not arbitrary. If we grant that the Nikāya Buddha might be speaking from his non-conceptual knowledge, using old concepts freshly, and perhaps introducing some entirely new ones – and, that, in the process he is carrying forward the culture of his contemporaries – then we might see that the meaning of these texts needs to come to us in the same way. That is, it needs to be confirmed by our non-conceptual, experiential understanding. It needs to be re-affirmed and renewed in our bodies, and then explicated in idioms with which we can resonate.

Then, through a conversation with the tradition, we can verify individually, and contemplatively, that the Nikāya Buddha is talking about a distorted way of experiencing life, and hence distortions of our encounter with death. It’s this distortion which can cease.

The distortion is the result of unskilful thinking – thinking infected with patterns of error, with those of craving and grasping – which, as a result, give us the particular kind of sickness, old age, and death which is the subject of our fear and distaste. The Nikāya teachings say that the cessation of the delusional way of life is the cessation of that kind of death.

It is the task of this project to explicate how the distortions happen, and how they cease. And, to show how there can be both death and no death – without contradiction. That is, both these can be said without opposing each other. But, this will be a ‘process’ understanding – employing logic, but not founded in logic.

Attentiveness is the place of the deathless;
inattentiveness is the place of death.
The attentive do not die;
the inattentive are as though dead already.

– Dhammapada, verse 21. Translated by Christophe J. Ash

There is Death-Dukkha

By admin

On June 27, 2016

In Body, Death, Enquiry, Practices, Radiant Citta

I need to explain how I see the central point about human discord. How do we translate ‘dukkha’? While it is true that ‘dukkha’ has a number of meanings, depending on its context (and that it’s so that the use of the translation ‘suffering’ has a flattening effect on the term), when it comes to thinking about the deepest layers of its meanings, we can find an experience-near meaning, after all; one which helps clarify the personality’s functioning in relation to dying and death.

The interpretation which I prefer is that one based on the etymology found in the Pāli English Dictionary. I like it because it makes the most sense of the family of uses that the word has, across all its contexts.

The PED says that the word is made up of ‘duḥ’ plus ‘kha.’ Those mean: ‘bad’ and ‘space.’ Some think that this refers to the space at the hub of a cart-wheel. Whatever the case, we can take it to mean: a bad space. And, if you like the wheel image, it means a badly functioning centre. It’s a space that doesn’t work well. That’s helpful, I find, for understanding the Nikāya Buddha’s use of ‘dukkha.’ There is death-dukkha because we are operating from the wrong kind of space.

If we aren’t aware of the space from which we know the deathless, then our understanding of the events which we name will be skewed. Birth, ageing, illness, death, getting what you don’t want, not getting what you do want; separation from what is delightful, and the fluctuations of the five sentient processes (of form, feeling-tones, perceptions, intentionality, and consciousness) – all these can be seen in perspective, when seen from a completely satisfactory space, a non-dukkha space.
With the realisation of the deathless, we see through all these life events as not what we took them to be. So, I take the Pāli ‘maranam dukkham’ to mean: “There is death-dukkha.” Without the vision of the deathless, there can only be a distorted relationship.

There is no suggestion, as far as I know, in the texts, that the Nikāya Buddha was experiencing dukkha when he had bodily pains, or when he was dying. Dukkha is created by our wrong relationship, our reactivity. With our everyday-variety narcissism comes birth-dukkha, illness-dukkha, death-dukkha, association-with-the-unpleasing-dukkha, separation-from-the-pleasing-dukkha, not-getting-what-one-wants-dukkha, and the dukkha of clinging to our five sentient processes.

This clinging, this is worth escaping – by recognising it, entering it with mindfulness and clear comprehension, comprehending its cessation, and establishing ourselves in the way of liberated understanding. The result is more energy for life.

Framing the Escape from Dukkha

By admin

On June 25, 2016

In Body, Death, Enquiry, Positivity, Time, Space, & Knowledge

Conscious human experience includes sickness, old age, and death; and, obviously, none of them are particularly pleasant. However, there they are. These touch everyone, in some way.So, it is claimed by many Western Buddhist writers that the ‘First Noble Truth’ is: old age, sickness, and death are dukkha. The most common translation of ‘dukkha’ is ‘suffering’ The Buddhist path is about ending dukkha.

Again, and again, I’ve scratched my head, wrinkled my brow, and bent down to understand this. Are they really saying that the mere fact of the event which we call death, this event is unsatisfactory, in itself? Are these writers and speakers, then, saying ‘life sucks,’ for no other reason than nature is like that? (I have actually heard that, from some Buddhists.)

Does it mean, then, that ‘escape from dukkha’ – which the Nikāya Buddha definitely recommends – means that we, being nature ourselves, need to escape from nature? Again, some people do believe this. I kid you not. To them, the Buddhist path means: ‘no more human birth’. This is their answer to what they see as cruel nature. What is happening, here? They can’t mean that human life is a mistake, a disease?

As you can hear, I’m not impressed with this approach; and I don’t think that such an approach could give rise to twenty-five hundred years of cultural transmission, as has been the case. For me, how could the evolution of life-forms be something we must escape, rather than carry forward in a healthy way? That human life is afflicted with some myopic habits which thwart its carrying forward healthily – that I can get; but the view that ‘being born is an error’ has more, I imagine, to do with the cultural, political, and social circumstances of the people who hold that view. It’s not about the big life we have here.

So, this project is asking: What is the Nikāya Buddha’s approach to death, given that we avoid thinking about death, and yet we all must die? What does he mean by the ‘deathless.’ He says that seeking the experience of a ‘deathless element’ is a saner response to the fact of death, than seeking solace in changeable things, things subject to arising and ceasing. So, what does ‘deathless’ mean to him?

“Suppose that, being myself subject to birth, having understood the danger in what is subject to birth, I seek the unborn supreme security from bondage, Nibbāna. Suppose that, being myself subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, having understood the danger in what is subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, I seek the unageing, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, and undefiled supreme security from bondage, Nibbāna.”
– The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, translated by Bhikkhu Nānamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi.

However, if I’m genuine about dialoguing with the texts, I have to account for a crucial text oft-quoted by these writers.; particularly this one from the Samyutta Nikāya, which on first blush seems to support the notion that the Nikāya Buddha has an anti-nature view and that Nibbāna, is a cure for nature. A common translation of this text goes like this:

“Now this, practitioners, is the ennobling truth of dukkha: birth is dukkha, ageing is dukkha, illness is dukkha, death is dukkha; being yoked with what is displeasing is dukkha; separation from what is pleasing is dukkha; not to get what one wants is dukkha; in brief, the five sentient processes subject to clinging are dukkha.”

– From the Samyutta Nikāya. Translated by Christopher J. Ash.

On the surface it does looks like he’s saying, ‘Nature is dukkha.’ This being so, escaping life would naturally be the outcome of ‘the ending of dukkha.’ However, it seems to me that this is a literalistic interpretation. And, a life-negating one at that. My approach does not assume that unpleasant experiences such as illness and death demonstrate some ultimate flaw in life processes; nor that they demonstrate, as is sometimes said, that life is tragic. These seem to me unprovable readouts. In this project, I will have to propose an experience-near, verifiable alternative understanding.

How will we investigate the matter of dukkha and the ending of dukkha? Of course, we can listen to the wise, and think logically; but, crucially, we must include and cultivate the grounding which our bodies provide, to know for ourselves the best way to approach this matter.

In a sense, I’m suggesting that we ground ourselves in nature; ask nature how it sees the matter of dukkha and the ending of dukkha. Such grounding carries our knowing forward in fresh and creative, and life-enhancing ways. Such knowing stays in relation to sickness, old age, and death. It doesn’t dissociate. This is wisdom.

Do you have a view on this? How would you ground your agreement or disagreement with my approach?

The Oberver is the Observed

By admin

On August 30, 2015

In Body, Mindfulness, Practices, Time, Space, & Knowledge

When there is a division between the observer and the observed there is conflict but when the observer is the observed there is no control, no suppression. The self comes to an end. Duality comes to an end. Conflict comes to an end.

This is the greatest meditation to come upon this extraordinary thing for the mind to discover for itself: the observer is the observed.

– Jiddu Krishnamurti, 2nd Public Dialogue, Brockwood Park, England, 6th Sept. 1973

We are talking, presently, about the very core of the ego-system, the false core self (attan). Another way to talk about our disconnection from healthy aloneness (and, so, from the thought and experience of death and dying) is to think of the role of the ‘bystander’ or ‘observer’ self.

Because we take a position of ‘me’ and ‘mine’ on our five sentient processes – basically acquiring them for the agendas of the fictional versions of a person – then we lose our vitality, and an access to a life in which death is an integrated part. The Bystander plays a role in this.

(Here, in the use of the word ‘bystander,’ I’m not talking about the same phrase in present-day psychology, used when discussing the ‘bystander effect.’ That describes the apathetic response of urban people, when a stranger is being attacked, or in some other trouble.) I’m speaking, here, of an idea that was floated by Tarthang Tulku in his book, Love of Knowledge, published in 1987. I think, though, if researchers were to consider what Tarthang Tulku says about the ‘bystander’ in our process, they’d have a valuable perspective on the ‘bystander effect.’ We are, instead, speaking of the sense that there is an observer of your inner life, a monitor, who stands back and sees from an indefinable region in yourself.)

It is saṅkhāra (the fashioning tendency) which creates the ‘second,’ the inner-companion self. As I see it, when we create ‘the second,’ the sense of an inner companion to whom we are talking, in here, we have a bystander self. With it, there arises the subject-object split. With it, there arises the sense of being a locatable knower (a self who knows, who is at the centre). The bystander self remains thirsty for self-knowledge, of course, because it can’t see itself. The seeking is consciousness (viññāṇa). This craves to know itself, and every other person appears to it as an opportunity to know itself.

It appears to each of us, in the default conventional consciousness of our culture, that the knower is somewhere inside us, ‘over here’ at a metaphysical distance from the objects of knowledge ‘over there.’ Even thought itself appears as an object perceived as separate from the knowing bystander self.

“Positions and conditions are the outcome of the model that assigns knowing to a self. In this model, knowledge results from the projection of a knowing capacity out into an unknown world. The self appears as separate from the events it knows – a ‘bystander’ that extracts knowledge from experience without becoming directly ‘involved’ in experience. The personas of the self as ‘perceiver’, ‘owner’, and ‘narrator’… can all be understood as aspects of this ‘bystander-self’. The term ‘bystander’ emphasizes the element of ‘positioning’ that is inherent in the activity of knowing that the ‘bystander’ carries out.

The ‘bystander’ protects its own territory and position. It stands back, not embracing or embodying what time presents, asserting its independence from the world that is known. In its knowing of experience, it remains opposed to what it knows, even though it also claims ownership over it.”

– Tarthang Tulku, Love of Knowledge

In the Buddhist text called the Itivuttaka, there is a sutta called the Fetter of Thirst Sutta (Tanhāsamyojana). In it, the Nikāya Buddha says (my translation):

“Practitioners, I don’t perceive any single fetter by which beings are so bound and [which keeps them] running on and and on in samsāra for so long a time, other than the fetter of craving. It is certainly through the fetter of craving that beings are tied to, and wander in, the rounds of samsāra for a long time.”

A person with craving for a companion (Taṇhādutiyo puriso)
wanders on the long journey of samsāra;
And, they cannot go beyond it,
in this realm, or any other.

Having understood this danger –
that craving gives rise to dukkha –
It’ would be best a practitioner goes about mindfully,
free from craving, without grasping.

(Iti 1.15)

The most difficult craving to see is the craving to know ourselves by having ourselves reflected by the lives others. All the relationship drama seems, to the bystander (the inner observer), so truly genuine and necessary. Because of this, not being understood (seen) by the others can bring about the most volatile, hurt or angry states. The bystander maintains these patterns of expectation. The ‘bystander’ self doesn’t include itself in its observations, of course. It believes itself to be outside of the flow of time. It owns the flow. You can get how hidden this must remain, and why it is not unearthed easily. If, through mindfulness, one sees that this bystander is actually a part of the flow of what it observes, such seeing brings a revolution. And, it brings value beyond measure.

Better than one hundred years of living and not seeing the deathless dimension
is one day of living and seeing the deathless dimension.

– Dhammapada, verse 114. Translated Christopher J. Ash