Can We Finally End Our Suffering?

In this talk, we explore the Third Noble Truth -- that the end of suffering comes when we end our cravings. I argue that some suffering can never be eliminated in this life, but that we can practice with it and learn how to step away from the suffering that is optional.

Transcript

Tonight,

I'd like to talk about one of the classics of Buddhist teaching and one that I've always had difficulty with.

Many of you are familiar with the Four Noble Truths,

Which was the foundation of the Buddhist teaching.

The first truth is that life is suffering.

The second,

That the cause of suffering is craving and attachment.

The third is that the end of suffering comes when we eliminate craving and attachment.

And the fourth is that we can do this via the Eightfold Path.

And one of the most difficult things for me to get my head around has always been this Third Noble Truth that says,

If we just get rid of craving and attachment,

There will be no suffering.

And I think many of us hope for that.

Most of us come to this practice because in some way we're suffering.

Some of us have more physical suffering,

Some of us more emotional suffering,

But we don't come to practice because everything in life is wonderful.

We come because we want ease and comfort,

As we should.

But is the teaching then that if we just practice hard enough and long enough,

We will stop craving everything,

We will stop wanting,

We'll stop being attached to things,

And it will be all good.

There will be no more suffering.

So that is the classic teaching of the Buddha.

And then Norman Fisher,

Who many of you know and have read his work,

In a collection of Dharma Talks,

A wonderful collection called,

When You Greet Me I Bow,

He writes,

We all think we're trying to get rid of suffering,

I want more suffering.

He says,

Suffering is absolutely what we need for awakening,

For spiritual growth.

And Thich Nhat Hanh routinely taught that there is no happiness without suffering.

So which is it?

Is it that we should all cling to the hope that we can get rid of suffering if we just no longer are attached to anything?

Or is suffering really the path we're seeking?

Sometimes this has been called the great bait and switch.

The bait is this idea that we can all come and get to this place where nothing hurts anymore and life is always good.

And the switch is that this practice asks us to look what's unpleasant,

What's painful,

Squarely in the face,

To look right toward it,

Not to look away.

Now,

One of the important things I've learned about the word dukkha,

Which is the Pali word for suffering,

Is that dukkha also means unsatisfactory.

And when we use that definition,

Then the third noble truth is life is unsatisfactory.

And that makes a whole lot of sense because it calls into relief our judgments about everything.

And of course,

We're all making judgments about everything all day long,

About this being satisfactory and that being unsatisfactory.

And if we think of it that way,

Then there's unsatisfactoriness in just about every moment.

My car door isn't closing properly.

That's unsatisfactory.

We didn't all mute ourselves at exactly the right time when we started the sutra service.

Oh my God,

So unsatisfactory,

Right?

My Apple Watch told me today I only got 6,

000 steps,

Not the 10,

000 I was supposed to get.

So unsatisfactory.

So,

I most resonate with the teaching about suffering,

That we can change our relationship to suffering.

We can change our relationship to what we encounter in life that we don't want,

To what we lose,

To what we find unsatisfactory that we can't get rid of.

One of the other helpful distinctions I find is the difference between suffering that is necessary,

That's not optional,

And suffering that's optional.

I mean,

Certainly there is suffering that we can't control.

There is physical pain.

There is illness.

There is all the suffering we see in the world that breaks our heart,

Which is a kind of emotional pain,

And that we will never get beyond feeling.

But then there is a lot of our suffering that's absolutely unnecessary.

It's the amount I suffer because of the glitch in my car door,

Or my falling short of my goal for my steps each day,

All completely made up.

And think about how much of your suffering is completely made up based on standards that you've set for yourself or standards that other people have set for you.

And the more awareness we have,

The more we can notice when we're creating the suffering that's optional,

And that we can decide to turn away from that.

And when we turn away from that,

Then we can really be with the real suffering around us,

The heartache and the pain that we can't control.

Much of the unnecessary suffering that we create actually keeps us at a distance from other people.

And that when we get beyond the needless standards and judgments and self-criticisms,

When we get beyond that,

We can just be with the stuff that's hard,

The stuff that's painful in life.

We can be with each other.

And it's that being with that is healing,

That we can open up to the real pain of caring for others.

And that when we do that,

We actually feel better.

I mean,

Think about impermanence,

This core teaching of Buddhism.

I look around me and I see all these promises that we're going to solve aging,

We're going to stop ourselves from aging,

Because old age is somehow a big mistake in the design of the universe.

Aging is an illness that we need to cure.

This is where I find that Norman Fisher's teaching is so helpful.

When he talks about the joys of letting go,

The joys of simply being at ease with the arising and the passing away of physical strength.

He tells us that suffering is pivotal for this life,

That it's what gives us the incentive and the vision and the strength to really grab hold of our lives spiritually.

It's why we all come here.

So if we accept the truth that there is necessary suffering,

And that it will always be here,

That no amount of practice will ever get us beyond that,

Do we just give up hope?

Is that just a very depressing final place to land?

But actually acceptance of the hard parts of life and hope are quite connected.

Acceptance isn't resignation.

Acceptance can be a very lively engagement with conditions just as they are.

And acceptance,

Real acceptance,

Can actually strengthen hope.

Because if we accept the truth of a terrible situation,

Perhaps it's our own devastating illness,

Perhaps it's the horrors of starvation in the world,

Or the horrors of people being mistreated in our own country,

We can still do everything we can.

We can still do everything we can in our corner of the universe to help,

To ease the suffering.

That we don't give up hope when we accept what's wrong.

That we accept with awareness,

And we strengthen our ability that way,

To face whatever happens with compassion,

But also with resolve.

And we know that actually coming together and sharing our suffering eases it.

I mean,

We're all here tonight in part because we get comfort from being together and talking about the truth of life.

And so this presence,

This witnessing,

This being together is an essential part.

And it happens no matter what we do.

In my own field of medicine,

There's so little in many ways that we can do in the face of old age,

Illness,

And death.

But one of the most powerful things we can do is what any of us does as a friend,

As a partner,

Which is just to be with the person as they go through whatever they're going through.

We know that putting a hand on a shoulder,

Touching someone else's hand,

Literally reduces pain.

There are neuroimaging studies that show that just the fact of touch by another person is the equivalent of a mild pain reliever.

And of course,

One of the things we do for each other right now,

For example,

Is to share our suffering,

To normalize it.

There's a famous story that many of you have heard about a young woman in the time of the Buddha.

Her name was Kisa Gotami,

And her only son fell ill and died very suddenly when he was just a year old.

And Kisa was stricken with grief,

And she took her dead baby in her arms and went from house to house,

Begging people in the town for a way to bring her son back to life.

And when she finally carried the child to the Buddha,

And she told him her story,

He listened patiently,

And then he said to her,

There's only one way to solve your problem.

Go and find me a mustard seed from a family where there has never been a death.

And so Kisa was filled with hope,

And she ran off right away to find a home,

A family that had never known death.

But every family she visited shook their heads and said,

Of course,

We've experienced death.

And finally she understood what the Buddha had wanted her to find out for herself,

That suffering is a part of life.

And of course,

Loss comes to all of us.

But when we are present with each other,

When we share,

Yes,

This has happened to me,

Yes,

I know what that feels like.

It's enormously helpful in easing this suffering,

Easing this unsatisfactoriness.

Of course,

Many of us are quite good at doing that for other people,

But we're not good at doing it for ourselves.

Last week I read a little teaching from Barry Magid who reminds us that these bodhisattva vows that we make to save all beings,

To ease the suffering of the world,

He says,

It's not a vow to save all beings except this one.

No,

It's a vow to save everyone,

Including ourselves.

And so what we teach is that this commitment to easing suffering,

To sharing our suffering,

Also needs to be a commitment to caring for ourselves,

To finding a compassionate way of being with what hurts in us.

This is where Bernie Glassman's idea about bearing witness is so important.

Just to remind you of our reading,

He says,

When we bear witness,

When we become the situation,

Homelessness,

Poverty,

Illness,

Violence,

The climate crisis,

Death,

The right action arises by itself.

The training and the practice is to witness,

Not to deny,

But to broaden our vision.

It's an ever deepening,

Never ending practice.

We don't have to figure out solutions.

We just bear witness to ourselves and to each other,

And in that way,

We heal.

Thank you.