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What is suffering is nonself
Hi,
I am reading "In the Buddhas Words" from Bhikkhu Boddhi. On page 342 which is from SN 22:45; III 44-45 there is a section where I would like to get some opinions from you guys out there.
The first two sentences, make completely sense to my and I understand them.
... form is impermanent.
What is impermanent is suffering.
Where I struggle is with the next sentence
What is suffering is nonself.
Any input is highly appreciated to help me make the next step on my journey.
Have a great day
MyJourney
I am reading "In the Buddhas Words" from Bhikkhu Boddhi. On page 342 which is from SN 22:45; III 44-45 there is a section where I would like to get some opinions from you guys out there.
The first two sentences, make completely sense to my and I understand them.
... form is impermanent.
What is impermanent is suffering.
Where I struggle is with the next sentence
What is suffering is nonself.
Any input is highly appreciated to help me make the next step on my journey.
Have a great day
MyJourney
0
Comments
This sutta should help clarify: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.059.than.html
If not, could you please explain what exactly it is you don't understand? Thanks.
I would personally read that sentence as "The thing that is enduring the suffering is not 'me'". Another way to say it would be "What I think "me" is, is really not "me" or "What I think I am, is really not what I am"
The mind that exists before words, before conceptions and abstractions is free of suffering. For we humans who carry these ideas forward as a society, who teach them to our young, these mental states become inevitable.
It is not that this non-self suffers, but that this non-self is suffering. When through practice we shed our true minds of these unhealthy and unrealistic mental trends (that we call non-self), suffering is no more.
Namaste
MyJourney,
That seems to be a common sticking point! Consider looking at it with the phrasing: "What is suffering is without self"
nonself is not another object, as in: "it is actually the 'nonself' that is suffering".
Rather, it depicts an absence... as in: "there is actually no substance that is suffering"
With warmth,
Matt
Thank you for the answers. That helps me to understand this better. Will have to think about over the next few days.
Have a good day
MyJourney
One day a great snow fell, and it rose in drifts as high as Shen Kuang's waist. Still he kept on kneeling. At last Bodhidharma asked him, "Why are you kneeling here in such deep snow?"
"I want to put an end to death," replied Shen Kuang. "I was really unsuccessful lecturing. Please, transmit the fit way to me."
At last Bodhidharma told him how to "Use the mind to seal the mind."
Yet the other said, "Quiet my mind."
"Find your mind," said Bodhidharma. "Show it to me and I will quiet it for you."
Shen Kuang looked for his mind outside his body and inside his body. He looked where there was light and in the middle of things and so on. At last Shen Kuang said to Bodhidharma, "I can't find my mind!"
"This is how well I have quieted your mind," said Bodhidharma.
At these words Shen Kuang understood things and got the name "Hui Ko" (Able Wisdom - Eka in Japanese) and became "Zen man number two" in the line after Bodhidharma.
http://oaks.nvg.org/bodhidharma.html
So look for who it is that is suffering, and you will find that no-self is suffering.