Exploring ones own suffering
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I was watching one of Thich Nhat Hanh's talks on compassion, in which he discusses that the door to compassion for others is to gain insight into the ways that they suffer, but that before you can do that you need to understand your own suffering, and so gain a measure of self compassion.
So this was rumbling around in my subconscious for a few days, and last night I was up late, I had tried to sleep and had had a curious experience and had decided to wake up again, taking a cup of chamomile tea. While I was sitting on the couch with my tea, I was thinking about the heart, and the way my life has been marked by certain types of unsatisfactoriness, mostly to do with a lack of connection to others.
As I sat there I realised that often in my life I had spent time alone, but what I valued most was a true and deep connection with others. I consider myself a good friend, but sometimes I act a bit of a hermit, and a stoic at that, and I've never really admitted to myself the suffering that I've experienced, maybe even caused to myself, by not pursueing that deeper connection.
Then I came to the realisation that this was driven by some deeper desires. A desire not to be lonely, a desire for praise, some social ambitions, and that these were an unrealised craving within me that actually pained me. And in that moment I resolved to let go of these desires. It was like something opened up deep inside my heart, as I was sitting there at 01.30 in the morning.
It's odd, how a Buddhist teaching can rumble around inside you, leading to realisation days or weeks later...
Comments
Old thought patterns are comfortable so we often hit the snooze button when we hear the alarm telling us to wake from them.
Or years
Or decades
I have also had the experience of some passage I knew very well -- or thought I knew -- suddenly reveal its true meaning to me.
does it make us hypocritical if we know these teachings make sense but continuously fail at them anyhow? I feel like that a lot.
@RuddyDuck9 No, it makes you a student in practice. No one is perfect at them, not even the highest masters. Even they aren't Buddhas yet. Starting to know and understand them is a huge step alone, because even just knowing them and realizing you aren't living up to them, changes how you do things and think about things, one little step at a time.
Maybe if we had some way of celebrating each new realization, we wouldn't downplay them so much and 'forget' about what we learned and would enhance the speed with which we learn some new thing (instead of marking time with some sort of 'graduation' which I've always found pretty meaningless).
could we get like Buddhist achievement stickers like my kids had "I brushed my teeth today!" stickers?
"briefly grasped no-self!"
"I meditated for 5 minutes!"
"Finally saw my suffering about _______"
"I walked at least a mile in someone else's shoes today!"
One of the homework tools I was taught in high school was to underline important sections of the book in hand. So when I took to reading 'spiritual' texts, the habit came with me. But it was peculiar: On rereading a book I had already once read once or more, the passage I had underlined/emphasized/been wowed by seemed to be far less explosive. Perhaps the paragraph just before or just after what was underlined grabbed my attention now.
Naturally, the same thing happened again and again, in books, thoughts, emotions and elsewhere -- different times/different enthusiasms/different 'truths.' These days I'm less convinced by my own penny-bright, new and profound understanding. Yes, wow is fun and yes it has an impact. Yes, I love dancing naked in its moonlight. But whether it is 'true' will have to wait till the next time (if ever) I come in contact with it.
Maybe it's all a bit of chocolate: Good is good! And gone is gone ... trying to retrieve it is a mug's game.
I've never heard of a mug's game before, but I getcha. (I looked it up, too and it didn't say where that saying came from.)
@genkaku I have found the same, even in more recent books that I have on kindle and have highlighted stuff. Sometimes I remember I highlighted a lot in a book and when i go back I can't even figure why I found it important enough to note. Sometimes it's easy to see that some of those things were huge revelations 20 years ago but are such a part of who I am now that they don't see like a big deal. Some of them were things I had to learn and use to let go of something I was carrying.
I find most interesting the Facebook memories. I frequently see things I posted 7-8 years ago and am horrified at what I said! I would never say such things now, so while it seem minute, growth does happen in those moments
Sometimes I want to delete things I said but I enjoy the reminder that even though I still fail regularly, at least I don't fail to that extent, lol
One of the most interesting aspects of the whole affair for me was that I caught myself avoiding my own suffering. That I would unconsciously drive myself to look towards the next treat, the positive cloud, the good things, and stay focussed on them to the extent that I was blind to my suffering.
People have told me in the past that they envied me my very positive outlook on life, but apparently that doesn't come entirely without cost or effort. It was only when I consciously started looking at, what am I unhappy about? What pains me? Then I managed to gain a view of my deeper suffering.
But TNH was spot on, through recognising that suffering you find your self compassion, and so an awakening of the heart. Also you find hidden desires, which don't even make that much sense but which have lain hidden there for a very long time, since your early adult years.
But the desires, once i let go, have seemingly stayed gone. The place where I felt them is now empty.
I have found that a lot of what I really want in my life, comes from way back in my childhood. And instead of sticking with that, I let other people's desires and expectations get in the way. I think a lot of us do that, and we always end up finding our way back and then it becomes obvious that the people we were early in life are the people we still are. We just let other crap get in the way. Now if we could teach our kids how to be true to themselves and not let the expectations of others (including their parents) change them. It's a waste of time that so many people have to figure that out and go "back" to who they were when it was always with them, they only had to uncover it. Just like Buddha nature
I have always wondered about this. Are my goals different now because I'm more mature and have created more appropriate goals? Or because the world has worn me down and now I tow the line?
"Walked past freezer section and didn't buy ice-cream."
^^^ Tee Hee
You are practically a living Buddha @SpinyNorman - such restraint. An inspiration to us all
This is something I often think about myself. I believe my suffering has lessened over the years not just because I managed to resist high expectations as I got older, but being able to manage how I dealt with disappointments. I think back to when I was a teenager and the completely unrealistic way I viewed the world and I put it down to immaturity and ignorance on my part.
Also, the more I read about Buddhism the simpler my goals get. I am very happy to aim for things now that would of horrified me when I was younger. In fact I actually prefer my simpler goals to what I thought I wanted when I was a kid.
I have this problem now, @Boru . I'm going through my visions of the future and saying to myself, hey, this is not what's happening now. why don't you look at this in a simpler way? It makes the anxiety of the question of the future much easier to handle.
I found for myself and from what I was reading a few years ago that it was my visions for the future that were causing the problems. Not what was in the visions specifically, but the fact I was having them. I wasn't living in the present moment. I was living in a future that had not happened nor was ever going to happen.
My anxiety lessoned, through experience, when I just accepted that I can not shape the future. The experiences being suffering terrible injuries and becoming ill (fully recovered now). Because I felt these things I experienced were a "setback" to what I thought I wanted, when in actuality they were valuable lessons to not "count my chickens" so to speak. Anything can happen, and now I just roll with the punches with a smile on my face when in the past I would of felt awful or even cheated.
That's not to say I don't believe in planning or having hopes or whatever. I just don't believe in having an expectation to be in a certain place at a certain time. Like, having x amount of money in five years, have y job or visit z countries. These are just material things that are unimportant.
What is important to me is spending time with my family and friends. Most important to me is my girlfriend whom I love very much and she causes me to ponder about my attachment to my love for her. I have no real plans for the future, just that I want to spend it with her.
I fail at teachings everyday. Even when I'm doing something I know to be "unbuddha like". It's just human nature, I go easy on myself and say I'll try better next time.
I single out specific things to work on. I first started with a promise never to harm a living thing again. I used to be a hunter and even bought a new rifle before I first started looking at Buddhism seriously. I shot an animal and felt a remorse I had never felt before. That is when I made the promise. I haven't even hurt a fly since. When a wasp flies into my room I'll ignore it. I felt a change within me just by respecting all life and treating it as precious.
I'm not saying I'm a saint or anything. I still sometimes drink too much. I insult or whined people up sometimes. I could write a list. My point is that I am a work in progress, we all are.
Goodluck!
@Boru I know what you mean. I am SO attatched to my little family (Spouse, Dog, Me) and I know that this will cause me pain eventually, but I try not to think about it that way. Yes attatchment is suffering, but I feel good karma coming from the love that surrounds my little family. And since I'm not interested in becoming a Bhikkuni I don't worry much about it. I know I'll never get close to enlightenment, but I have become a better person, and the world has become easier to manage.
On the other hand. I have a very difficult time ignoring the wasps....
I too feel good karma when I'm with my girlfriend and family. One hot sunny afternoon I was just sitting outside with my father. We had a bottle of tasty cider each, and I just thought why do people start wars when there can be days like these, what more can anyone want from life?
Outstanding insights @Boru
Most people love bees but wasps are for some not so lovable. I used to make daily offerings for wasps in particular, on a Buddhist stupa. Yes I have strange hobbies. This offering usually consisted of some sweets which attracted them. That which you show karmic Metta towards will acknowledge your friendship. Wasps now look out for me. Thanks little insect guys.
The other day I had to disturb some ants. Some may have been eaten by birds.
It is the 'circle of life'.
Suffering should be understood.
http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/15611/suffering-should-be-welcomed-ajahn-sumedho
I think I will also make an effort to make offerings to animals and insects. I like the idea of the type of comradery you have cultivated between the wasps and yourself. Two different species looking out for one another, which is not uncommon in the "natural world". Although many people seem to be still surprised when animals work together for mutual benefit. It's like we are conditioned by human nature that screwing over people/animals/environment for short term selfish benefits is the norm.
As for the circle of life. I have spiders in my room, some are on a window in front of my desk where I sit at my computer often. There had not been any flies for the spider to eat for some time and one flew into a web and was trapped. I felt It wrong to interfere because I would be hurting the spider. So I sat there and was witness to insect murder!
No, you were witness to insect hunting.
Some humans still hunt.
Whether we consider humans hunting to be moral or not, is a personal choice based on subjective perception and view.
Insects hunt in order to survive. That goes for the vast majority of all Fauna.
Yes, I realise this. That is why I did not interfere. Spider has to eat too, even if it is at the flies expense and nothing at all to do with his buzzing around the room annoying me
.
I used to hunt myself. For me, I looked at hunting as a valuable survival skill. Something I wouldn't hesitate to do again if my survival depended on it. But I don't need to do it so I prefer not to for the animals sake. And I would not judge anyone who does hunt. Hunting is big thing in my family. My young cousin likes to hunt and doesn't understand why I won't shoot with him when he visits because I am the one who thought him to stalk animals and clean them for cooking. I don't think he hunts any more either. We just use the rifles for target practice now when he visits.
Back to the original post, @Kerome, thanks for sharing that; I've felt something similar re: being an "introvert" but desiring greater connection and expression. I have difficulty sharing in my sangha, for example, and this is currently a frustration for me.
I'm just coming to learn the teachings, though, that it's not the lack of connection or expression that causes the "suffering," but the attachment to/craving for/desire for the connection that causes the "suffering," (and that for that matter there is no "sufferer.") I think that's what you were saying, which is very insightful.
I'm reading "What Makes You Not a Buddist" by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, who relays a classic Buddhist example: Jack fears snakes. He enters a dimly lit room and sees a snake in the corner and panics. In fact, it's a piece of rope. Jack's friend Jill walks in and sees Jack's misperception and fear. She can switch on a light. Khyentse says, "When Jack is convinced that he is safe, this relief is none other than what Buddhists call "nirvana" - liberation and freedom. But Jack's relief is based on a fallacy of harm being averted, even though there was no snake and there was nothing to cause his suffering in the first place. It's important to understand that by switching on the light and demonstrating that there is no snake, Jill is also saying that there is no absence of the snake. ... She didn't make the snake disappear, just as Siddhartha didn't make emptiness. This is why Siddhartha insisted that he could not sweep away the suffering of others by waving his hand. Nor could his own liberation be granted or shared piecemeal, like some sort of award. All he could do was explain from his experience that there was no suffering in the first place, which is like switching on the light for us."
I'm finding, slowly, that by sitting and staying with the attachment - maybe the "deeper desires" you reference - I get used to, and less fearful of, my own "suffering," and it helps it dissipate.
Yes, that's how it worked for me. First to make the effort to see my suffering, discover what it was, and then to find the cravings and desires hidden behind them, find that they were old and no longer relevant, and renounce them.
The process of putting a name to things - to go from noticing cravings and desires to naming them and noticing what they were - was interesting, it was like I could see in a flash of sudden illumination, and then it all went dark again. But it was long enough, I could understand what they were and in naming renounce them.
I think it's really great that you are making the effort, @BoundlessAwakening.
@BoundlessAwakening
mind... blown I've never heard that one before.... !! It makes so much sense!
I've also noticed, @Kerome, that things come to me when they come, i.e., a realization could come much after the first encounter.
That's certainly true, and sometimes inconvenient. I've had realisations arrive in the middle of a coffee conversation, and have literally had to stop talking in order to follow the train of thought! Which is a bit embarrassing, but I'd prefer not to miss anything important
I really like this book. One point Khyentse makes is that Siddhartha taught in many ways depending on the needs of his audience. Jack might not be ready for Jill to just flip on the light, startling him. It might be more skillful of Jill in the moment to agree with Jack and calmly remove the "snake" from Jack's presence. Maybe later, when he's calmed down, Jack will be ready to hear that there was never any snake in the first place....
Sounds like when you smoke weed, watch a film and declare it the greatest ever made. Then in the cold light of day the following morning realising it was terrible.....Road Trip 2 anyone?
Or getting drunk and thinking that marrying your foreign house mate so you can stay in England is a great idea! Wrong........
Maybe these are a bit more gross than the examples above.
(surely, it would be your foreign house mate who would want to stay in England...? Oh, never mind....)
Gawd, I seem to remember nearly doing that once....though I was very drunk at the time.
This is over an hour long but deals with turning pain into a means of change ...