Everything is suffering. Is it really?

[Jishin]

Having to cut and paste this into my translation software is causing me suffering. English please, as you are a native English speaker. I don't read Hebrew. My father believed that "religion is the Opiate of the people," so I never went to Hebrew school.

Gassho, J

stlah

PS = Jewish word for Dukkha/Suffering = Tsuris. The Jews were a couple of thousand years ahead of the Buddha on this. "All of life is Tsuris" ...

https://momentmag.com/jewish-word-tsuris/

[emoji106][emoji3]

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

[Guest]

In the Four Noble Truths we see that, if we apply the first insight , that there is suffering, not that life IS suffering. It is just a recognition that there is suffering that is part of the human condition. The second Noble Truth tells us what causes this and that is the desires (tanhas) for sense pleasures, the desire to become something (special) and the desire to get rid of things we do not like (aversion). It is not that we should not have desires but that they should be let go of which means not to grasp so tightly on to these desires. Jundo likes Vanilla ice cream and Ryumon (Kirk) likes strawberry. Nothing wrong with that, but if Ryumon is unsatisfied because his bowl of ice cream is empty and is suffering until he gets more, this may be a problem. So, we loosen our grip as Uchiyama says. The third Noble Truth is that there is a way to cease suffering but interestingly the way we allow the process of cessation to unfold is to completely be willing to be in the presence of suffering, as we know this is the nature of our being human. We open our minds to it and embrace it. In other words, we allow what is here to be here instead of trying to push it away which is what creates suffering in the first place. Our practice is continually entering this suffering and learning to be with it and be patient with it. We are patient with it because we know like everything else, it eventually changes or transforms into something else. Then, maybe we do not suffer so much. Maybe then, we have the wisdom of how things are and that suffering is not something that exists separate from my own experience and because it is perceived as separate, we try to push it away (looping back around to the second Truth again). As the Heart Sutra says there is no suffering and no end to suffering. Maybe Kirk gets his ice cream bowl filled with vanilla, "ah, more suffering, if I chose to." Or maybe give the bowl to Jundo, since Jundo prefers vanilla, or maybe be patient (not longing for) until the day when strawberry ice cream appears once again.

Gassho,

Daiman
St/lah

[Seiko]

In my view, the presence or absence of suffering depends on our (my) reaction. For example, if I drop and break my favourite teapot, how I react is up to me.

Gasshō
Seiko
stlah

[Houzan]

Thank you all. I will not take it literally and read it as “everyTHING is suffering” (e.g. a table IS suffering, which don’t make sense as TNH points out as well). A better way of putting it: life/ your experience is suffering IF there is a gap between X and Y (driven by delusion).

Gassho, Michael
Satlah

[Jundo]

... A better way of putting it: life/ your experience is suffering IF there is a gap between X and Y (driven by delusion).

Life/our experience is suffering if there is a gap between X (how things are) and Y (how we demand they otherwise be), and we do not accept, float with, allow, become whole with that gap between how things are (X) and what we would otherwise wish (Y).

Shikantaza closes the gap, as we sit radically with how things are, allowing thing to become as they become, even allowing that we may not like that gap, and float along.



Zenmaths!

Gassho, J

stlah