Hey everyone,
It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 449.
For the last few weeks I've been talking about suffering,
So today I want to start to try to put suffering in context.
In the ancient mindfulness texts,
It's said that mindfulness is about one thing and one thing only,
Suffering and the end of suffering.
And the Four Noble Truths are the framework for that.
So to put suffering in context,
Let's unpack those Four Noble Truths over the next few Wake Up Calls.
And today,
Let's look at the First Noble Truth.
And the First Noble Truth says that there is suffering.
So in a way,
We've already looked at that over the last few Wake Up Calls,
The three kinds of suffering,
The ordinary suffering of the pain and sorrow of life and death,
The suffering of change,
And the suffering of insecurity,
How deep down and sometimes at the surface,
We notice we're on fundamentally shaky ground,
Just here for a moment.
The Second Noble Truth,
Which I'll talk about next week,
Says there's a reason why we suffer,
There's a cause.
The Third Noble Truth says suffering can end,
We can cultivate a life which has much less or possibly even no suffering.
And the Fourth Noble Truth is the path to that end,
To the end of suffering.
Since I've talked about what suffering is already,
What I want to say about the First Noble Truth today is that suffering is a good thing,
Which might sound strange,
But from a mindfulness perspective,
It's actually a big premise that suffering is a good thing.
And the reason for that is because without suffering,
There's no possibility of understanding what it is,
What its cause is,
What its end is,
And then there's no possibility of liberation.
So I'm not saying that this is true,
Because I don't know.
It could be that beings who don't suffer,
Other beings,
That we don't think suffer,
That they actually do suffer,
And that they can also come to the end of suffering and attain liberation,
And that we humans just don't know that.
Or that there are conditions in their realms,
The realms of other beings,
Which I'm going to talk about in a minute,
That would allow them to attain liberation.
But as far as we do understand,
Other beings don't wring their paws or ruminate over not getting what they want or getting what they don't want.
And they might fear predators,
But again,
As far as we know,
They don't have an existential fear of death.
And again,
From what we know,
They either don't notice or they're fine with the ever-changing ephemeral nature of life and don't feel either secure or insecure,
As we understand those words,
About living on shaky ground.
So when I say only human beings experience suffering and other beings don't wring their paws,
I'm pointing to this sliver,
But it's a foundational sliver,
Of the cosmology of mindfulness,
Which I find really interesting,
And that's what I want to talk about.
So I just said other beings and talked about wringing paws,
But there are more than two kinds of beings in this cosmology,
More than just human beings and animal beings.
In this cosmology,
There are six,
And they live in what are called realms of existence.
So the six realms of existence include three lower realms,
The animal realm,
The hell realm,
And the realm of hungry ghosts,
And then three higher realms,
The God realm,
The jealous God realm,
And then us,
The human realm.
In the lower realms,
And again,
This is cosmology,
So,
You know,
We're fable,
These are fables,
This is storytelling,
Or maybe it's true for you,
But it's a good understanding,
It's good to understand this so that you can understand why suffering is so important.
So in the lower realms,
According to this cosmology,
It's not possible to wake up,
To attain liberation.
And let's look at animals,
For example,
Animals are focused on basic existence,
Food,
Shelter,
If they're sheltering animals,
Reproduction,
Escaping predators.
So there's not time,
There's not mental space,
Even if there was capacity,
And maybe there is,
We just don't know,
For practice.
And this is also true for different reasons in the other four non-human realms as well.
And plus,
And maybe you could already see where this is going,
Right?
This isn't just cosmology,
In a sense,
It's not just cosmology,
Because we humans can also live in these realms,
I guess you would say metaphorically,
But it doesn't necessarily feel like a metaphor.
So for example,
We might experience not having enough food,
Or not having adequate shelter,
Or the conditions that enable us to love and reproduce safely,
Or we might feel that our whole life is about escaping predators.
And we might feel that,
Or all of those things,
And also have a perfectly reasonable home and food budget and community,
But because of trauma in our lives,
Or intergenerational trauma,
The objective benefits or relative safety of our circumstances are obfuscated.
We can't see them,
We can't feel them,
And this is very real for us.
Or we may fall prey to the dominant societal narrative of never having enough material wealth or the right community.
Or as lawyers,
We might feel like our whole work life is set up to avoid or attack predators,
And this begins to permeate our non-work life as well.
And so if our experience is like this,
If we're essentially living in an animal realm,
Then we too are so concerned with survival that we can't wake up.
The hungry ghost realm is similar.
Their beings supposedly live in limbo with these big bellies and these tiny mouths,
And they're never satisfied.
And even if we're very much alive,
If our experience is of never being satisfied,
Never being satisfied with who we are,
With what we have,
With what we have to offer,
Then our focus is there.
Our focus is not being satisfied,
And so we also can't practice from there,
And we also can't wake up from the hungry ghost realm.
And then the hell realm is a realm in which beings are consumed by anger and hate.
Feels like some of our country,
Some of our world is living in a hell realm right now.
And when we live in this realm,
It's impossible to practice because anger and hatred distract us at the very least,
Preoccupy us.
They might be burning us up.
So then we have these god realms,
And you might think that those would be good places to practice,
But they're not because in the god realm,
The regular god realm,
Everything is blissful.
And I know people who live there.
You know,
They have plenty,
More than plenty,
And so they have no reason to question anything or to look outside their bubble,
No reason to stretch or grow or wake up.
And then I also know people in the jealous god realm,
Which is a place of striving for power.
Or if I don't know them,
I can see them.
I can see them in the world.
At least two politicians come to mind right now who appear very different in character,
But who also appear to me anyway,
To be living in the jealous god realm where their thing is gaining or holding on to power.
And they're fueled by ego.
And again,
No incentive to wake up,
No ability to wake up because consumed or at least distracted by ego.
Which leaves the human realm,
Right?
When we aren't living in a hell realm,
When we're not living in a hungry ghost realm,
Not living in the animal realm or the jealous god realm or even the regular old god realm,
We're these amazing beings.
You know,
We're intelligent and perceptive and intuitive with these great big hearts and minds and for many,
But not all of us,
Able bodies.
We're living in a place where we have the mental,
Emotional,
Spiritual,
If you will,
Other space to devote ourselves to practice.
So you could say,
You know,
From a lawyer perspective,
The human realm is the Goldilocks realm,
Right?
It's the sweet spot.
It's the place where we're not in survival mode.
We're not full of hate or desire.
We're not checked out or trying to dominate the world.
And from that realm with our intelligent,
Perceptive,
Intuitive minds and hearts,
We can practice and we can gain intimacy with our habits and patterns and we can become inquisitive about how to cultivate them to better serve and connect with others.
And then over time,
Eventually we can wake up little by little,
You know,
Day by day and maybe even someday attain liberation.
So let's sit.
Finding a comfortable posture,
Whatever your most supportive posture is for you for today and one which is also upright and dignified because this is a great thing that you have decided to do for yourself just right now,
You know,
So taking that in,
That some part of you right now is firmly in this human realm,
Maybe all of you is firmly grounded in this human realm.
Finding your breath,
The breath in the body,
And just relaxing into your experience,
This experience of being human,
Of breathing,
Or if it's more supportive for you,
Of attending to the sounds in your environment.
And then as the mind-body settles in,
The invitation is to see what is happening moment to moment,
Where are those moments of being a settled human,
Being present,
And how do they feel?
Maybe on the in-breath noticing those moments with a yes and on the out-breath with a thank you.
And if there are other moments,
Moments of feeling like being in the animal realm of survival mode or in one of the realms of aversion or hatred or desire,
Just notice those as well.
Don't follow the storyline,
Just notice and let go and see if it's available to you to come back to the present moment,
The sense of just being human right here,
Right now.
Yes,
Thank you to this beautiful mind and body that you have,
This beautiful ability to be present,
Even if only for one breath,
Celebrating any moments during this sit together or during the day,
When your feet are on the ground and your heart is open,
This amazing human realm,
How fortunate we are to have this ability to see and to practice together.
Thanks everyone for coming to the wake-up call today,
Great to sit with you.
Have a safe and wonderful Thursday and weekend and I'll see you next week.
