So this week we are looking at the first noble truth that there is pain and it's to be investigated,
To be understood,
To be known and what we do every week is we explore the ways in which we hold on,
The ways we're in pain and often it's mental pain and I think that what I've experienced is that some people complain that by talking about suffering and by putting that as the first noble truth,
Buddhism is kind of a pessimistic path like the party pooper religion.
The purpose of focusing on suffering is actually to understand so that we can be free from the causes of it,
So that we can be really happy.
It's sort of like you have to understand the illness in order to understand what the cure is going to be.
My teacher Gil Fransdal told this story one time about some women that he knew and this was in the 1960s in Menlo Park which is south of San Francisco,
Kind of the southern part of the Bay Area and it was also a pretty central hangout for the Grateful Dead and Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and the whole psychedelic movement was happening at that time.
So this young woman was in high school in Menlo Park and she and her friends heard that there was this Zen teacher in San Francisco who could teach them how to get high without taking psychedelics,
Without taking drugs.
So they drove up to San Francisco to see Shunraya Suzuki Roshi,
The founder of San Francisco Zen Center and Suzuki Roshi at that time was living in Japantown at a little temple in a Japanese community and this was before he started the Zen Center.
So these girls came and he received them and they told him that they were there because they heard he could teach them how to get high without taking any drugs and he sat down and welcomed them and proceeded to give them a teaching about the Four Noble Truths,
About the truth of suffering,
The truth of the arising of suffering,
The way that it diminishes,
The cessation of suffering and the practices that lead to the end of it.
Well,
This is not what these young women wanted to hear.
They wanted to get high without drugs.
They weren't there to get a lecture about suffering.
But this Zen teacher Suzuki Roshi appeared to be so happy and so contented when he talked about suffering that in hearing him talk about suffering and watching him be so relaxed and happy with it,
These three young women became Zen students and I think one of them still is practicing in this tradition at least.
I think that's what I heard from Gil.
So yes,
Buddhism does emphasize suffering.
It's an important factor to look at and make an honest assessment of.
It teaches us to not turn away from it,
Not shut down or pretend that life's suffering is different than it is.
And in this sense,
It's meant to be quite realistic.
And at the same time,
The Buddha also emphasized happiness.
Sukha is the name for happiness in the Pali.
The Buddha was known to be very happy.
And he referred to the people who had engaged in this practice of meditation and the freedom from suffering as the happy ones.
If you read the teachings of the Buddha,
The instructions the Buddha gave for this path to end suffering,
The path is called a happy path.
And he emphasized doing the things that cultivated various kinds of well-being,
Ways of gladdening the mind,
Joy,
Gladness,
The cultivation of well-being.
And that creates the conditions actually to be with suffering when we're stable in our ease.
It prepares the ground for us to see suffering in its depths and its fullness.
Often what we see is on the surface and we identify it as our immediate experience.
But what else is there?
The deeper roots inside.
As we go deep inside and feel the core,
We can start to see the central suffering of our lives.
It's been a companion for our lifetime.
We've been carrying the roots of this sort of contraction all of our lives.
And it's not always ours.
If we're really quiet and we're still,
We can feel our deep attachments.
The things we care about most or the things that we resist the most,
That's the task of practice to see our attachments in this deep way from a place of well-being,
From a place of compassion and forgiveness,
From stability and being grounded.
And happiness and joy are part of that.
And it's not always easy.
It's not always accessible to be with our deep suffering.
But when we're stable and we're grounded,
It's easier to see it and to care about it.
So Buddhist practice is not just about sitting with suffering.
In some circles,
There's this idea that the first noble truth says that life is suffering.
And the Buddha never said that.
That's not really the Buddhist teaching.
The teachings are understood as saying that within life,
There is suffering.
And there is also happiness.
So this dharma,
This dharma that we are looking at or experiencing together,
Is not about finding something,
Some experience or some idea that brings us happiness.
The dharma is really more about discovering the absence of things.
To discover the freedom and the peace and the happiness that comes from the absence of clinging,
The absence of compulsivity,
Of grabbing and holding on and attaching,
Of resisting,
The absence of resisting things,
The absence of attaching.
It's reliable but often scary,
This idea of letting go of our attachments.
So the purpose is to really get to know our suffering and to see it clearly.
And this is part of the path to come to the absence of it,
The absence of suffering,
To let go of our clinging in a deep way.
And this is what I'd like to base our discussion on.
And over the next days and weeks,
We'll look more deeply.
This week,
We've looked at the prognosis.
There is suffering in this life.
And next week,
We'll look at the cause.
So thank you for your consideration of this teaching.
