Transforming Suffering : Reflections on Finding Peace in Troubled Times by His Holiness the Dalai Lamma, His Holiness Pope John Paul II, Thomas Keating, Joseph Goldstein, Thubten Chodro

CHAPTER ONE

The BuddhistUnderstanding of Suffering
Geshe Lhundub Sopa

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it seems that people around the world are deeply troubled. There are financial worries for some, poverty, hunger, and starvation for others. Family concerns and personal stress grow as people work harder and longer hours to purchase consumer goods. Environmental and social problems are everywhere, and we are faced with war, violence, and terrorism. These are troubling times.

The Buddha spoke of what he called dukkha. This word is hard to translate. Some translate it as suffering, but a better translation is dissatisfaction. Dukkha is actually an ancient word that refers to what happens when a wheel rubs because the hub is not on correctly. So, as our life goes along, we feel the rub, we experience dissatisfaction with how things are going. Religion cannot inoculate us against the painful conditions of life. We all get sick, lose loved ones, grow old, and eventually pass away. But religion can provide spiritualities that address dukkha, our dissatisfied mind or troubled heart in the midst of the painful conditions that life brings us. Spiritual practice can lead us to an inner peace expressed in loving kindness, compassion, and empathetic joy. Even in the midst of the troubles of life, we can find happiness.

This inner peace of mind and heart is important for many reasons. The Buddha points out that it is especially important due to the fact that our dissatisfied mind, our troubled heart, can lead us to think, feel, and act in ways that contribute to suffering, to making our troubling situations even more painful for ourselves and others. For example, our dissatisfaction with another person can lead to anger and even hatred for that person. Those feelings are troubling in themselves but can also lead to acts of violence. We also may be dissatisfied with other races, nations, or religions; and we may respond to this dissatisfaction as a group in ways that are hurtful.

The Buddha teaches that our dissatisfaction with others is connected to a belief that someone, some race or nation or religion, is separate and different from ourselves. Their differences are seen as threatening to us, to our satisfaction or happiness. So we define the other as an enemy. This, in turn, leads to all sorts of troubles. Here we find a fundamental ignorance of our common humanity, of the fundamental unity of life, of its interconnectedness of which we are all parts. It is this ignorance that we have to overcome in order to find inner peace and happiness in a way that also supports the peace and happiness of others.

Venerable Henepola Gunaratana

I am the teacher in a meditation center. Normally, meditation centers draw people with troubles, especially younger people. Working with troubled people is a yeoman's task. We need to listen to them patiently and teach them by our example how to be patient with themselves. Patience does not mean that you let others walk all over you. It means waiting for the right time to say the right words with the right attitude to the right people.

We also need sometimes to agree with them and sometimes to agree to disagree with them. We never expect them to agree with what we tell them. If they don't agree with us, they need to feel free to say that they don't agree with us. And we both have to learn to agree to disagree. This is true not only for individuals but for societies, organizations, and religions. Everyone needs to learn to respect each other's cherished values, beliefs, and feelings. The ideal for the human family is harmony, unity with diversity.

Reverend Heng Sure

I once took part in a church activity called Data Sabbath. People set aside their technological devices, taking a total break from the "power grid," and coming back to friends and family. For those of us who are troubled by the fast pace of modern life, this idea has much to offer. It shows us that real peace and happiness that are truly meaningful and satisfying are not to be found on a technological highway going a hundred miles an hour, but with no one at the wheel. When is there time to ask the big questions about where we are going? What is this life about? To take some time to slow down, to set the technological world aside and return to the divine, to nature, to family, to oneself is very important not only spiritually but humanly as well.

Ajahn Sundara

Most people think that contemplative Buddhist monasteries are quiet and peaceful places and that we just sit on our cushions all day. Actually, monasteries can be filled with activities, and sometimes my life has never felt so busy! Yet there is a spaciousness in that kind of environment that allows all that we find difficult to experience and be with--our inner resistances, aversion, despair, a sense of the meaninglessness of it all--to be accepted in consciousness and let go of. Spaciousness on the physical, psychological, and spiritual levels allows the heart to rest and provide the context we need to allow change and healing to take place. Unfortunately, in our modern world, this commodity is considered pretty worthless. Thus, we rarely find the means to access that inner spaciousness of awareness so much needed to discover our own humanness and the way to real happiness.

Venerable Chuen Phangcham

What does happiness mean? Some say that it means life without problems, having food, clothes, medicine, housing, and so on. For the Buddha, happiness is peacefulness, living peacefully without hatred, greed, anger, in the midst of the problematic situations of life. It means living with a calm and clear mind, an awakened mind that is free from delusion. The Buddha's path leads us to this Nirvana.

The first level of the path has to do with changing how we live. We refrain from killing, stealing, lying, taking intoxicating drinks or harmful drugs, and any sexual misconduct. We cultivate a life of loving kindness, universal compassion, generosity, sincerity, truthfulness, mindfulness, and wisdom. Here are the seeds of true happiness.

On the second level of the path, we practice meditation to deepen these virtues in our mind and root out the vices that restrict our freedom. We develop a calm and peaceful mind, step by step. Mental defilements, unwholesome thoughts and feelings, are loosened and subdued; the mind becomes more and more free, loving, and wise.

On the third and final level of the path, we deepen our wisdom. We find that we are not separate from one another. We are one with others and part of the unity of all things. Everyone is a brother or sister to be loved. As this new vision of life grows in our consciousness, we feel united in heart with all beings and want to bring peace and harmony into the lives of everyone. In doing so, we not only find happiness, we bring it to everyone we meet. This is the ideal of the Buddha: "May peace prevail on earth, and may all living beings be happy."

Venerable Henepola Gunaratana

There are many kinds of rings: wedding rings, engagement rings, earrings. But there is one ring that we all have, whether Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew, or no religion. All living beings have suffering. Suffering is universal. We cannot totally eliminate it. Because of our modern technology, we have discovered various things to combat suffering, prolong our life a bit, overcome many sicknesses, eliminate some poverty, provide better sanitation, and so forth. But in spite of all these modern developments, suffering still exists. It has not totally been eliminated. It can never be fully eliminated from the world.

For instance, can we stop falling sick? Can we stop growing old? Can we stop sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair caused by separation from loved ones? There is also suffering associated with not getting what we want, or getting what we do not want. And when we do have what we want, we worry about losing it or protecting it. Then when we look around us, we witness crimes, wars, killings--all kind of things that we really don't want to see or hear. But we do not have the capacity to stop these painful things. Today people are especially prone to the suffering of stress, fear and anxiety, nervousness and depression, worry and anger, restlessness and a lack of self-worth. These states of mind come and go as we adjust to the different stages of our lives.

Nobody is born with a big smile; everybody is born with a big cry. Why do we cry? We cry not only because we are separated from our mother's comfortable womb but because we are thrust into this world, and at that moment we start crying. This crying about our human condition continues all our life. It may not be always heard, but the cry is always going on deep within our hearts. That first cry is symbolic of the cry we carry for the rest of our life. The more beings there are, the more cries there are.

Now, being ignorant of the source of this cry in our hearts, we seek happiness in the things we enjoy in the world around us. We often think that something new can bring us happiness, like a new car or house. I once knew a man who had been married six times. He was certain that his next marriage would bring him the happiness he was seeking. But the truth is that no matter what we use to stop the crying, the suffering of our lives continues due to the fact that we do not understand it. Indeed, understanding suffering is essential in order to do something about it. Just as if we were sick and didn't know what was making us sick. Until we find out what kind of sickness we have, how can we find a cure?

Our inner cry has two causes. One is what we call in Buddhism an insatiable greed. By greed, we mean that there is something in us that is never satisfied. No matter what we have, we want more. The second is even more important. We call it ignorance. We don't know what it is that makes us so dissatisfied. There is something in us that does not understand what is happening that makes us dissatisfied or unhappy. These two causes combine an...