The Nature Of Suffering (Talk 1)

The nature of suffering.

Half of this talk will be from Buddhism,

The other half will come from Stoic philosophy.

When the Buddha was asked to summarize his doctrine in a single word,

He replied,

Suffering.

The main doctrine of the Buddha starts with the four noble truths.

The first truth is suffering exists.

The second truth is the source of suffering comes from desire and attachment.

The third noble truth is there is a way to cease suffering.

And the fourth truth is the way out of suffering is the eightfold noble path.

The doctrine of the Buddha really rests on three legs.

The first is suffering.

The second is impermanence.

And the third is non-self.

Today we will talk about suffering.

The Buddha talked about the eight types of suffering.

Birth,

Old age,

Sickness,

Death,

Not getting what you want,

Running to what you don't want,

Losing what you have,

And the eighth was either a general misery of living or attachment to ego or the five aggregates.

One of the first maxims to understand of Buddhism is that impermanence is a part of life and that impermanence is not the source of suffering.

In other words,

When change comes to your life,

Whether it is in the form of illness,

Job loss,

Breakup,

Loss of money,

Loss of possessions,

Change is not the source of suffering.

The source of suffering comes from attachment to what you once had and to what you lost.

The idea is change is inevitable and cannot be stopped.

Suffering however will only persist if you hold onto things when change has already occurred.

Throughout much of life we make the mistake of assuming that change is the source of suffering and all our efforts to end our suffering and to bring back happiness are aimed at undoing change.

When really understanding the cause of suffering,

We would be better off learning to undo our attachment to the past and accepting change instead.

The next question is whether suffering is an internal process or if it comes from external sources.

To help you understand,

Let's use these two examples.

The first example I like to give is of chocolate cake.

So let's say we give you some chocolate cake,

You eat it and you enjoy it and it brings you some pleasure and subsequently the feeling of happiness.

Let's say now I lock you up into a dungeon and I feed you chocolate cake.

I feed you chocolate cake for breakfast,

I give you chocolate cake for lunch and I give you chocolate cake for dinner.

The first time you have the chocolate cake you still have some experience of happiness and pleasure but after the next few times you no longer enjoy the chocolate cake and you wish to eat something else.

But because I do not feed you anything else,

You start to become unhappy and experience negative feelings.

The question is then,

What is the source of your suffering?

Is the source of your suffering the chocolate cake?

Is it me who has fed you the chocolate cake?

Is it the fact that you are in a dungeon being fed chocolate cake?

Which one of these is the source of your suffering?

To clarify more specifically,

Is the source of your suffering from an internal source or an external source?

Can your chocolate cake be both the cause of pleasure and also of suffering?

For example,

Let's say you are coming in from outside on a very cool day and as you sit by a fire with your winter coat you start to feel great pleasure at being warmed up.

As you sit there longer and become warmer you unzip your jacket because now it is too warm and now you experience the full warmth of the fire.

Once you are fully warmed up you take off motor layers and now you can sit by the fire in a very warm and pleasant comfort.

Now let's take a different scenario where you come in from outside and I now tie your hands and I sit you down next to the fire.

As it begins you feel pleasant warmth from the fire and you feel feelings of pleasure.

As time goes on you feel warmer and warmer and because your hands are tied you cannot unzip your jacket and take it off.

You start to become warmer and hot and you start to sweat.

At this point you start feeling discomfort.

As it gets warmer and warmer your discomfort increases and you are sweating profusely.

And after a bit you realize you are suffering.

So what is the nature of suffering?

Is it me who has tied your hands that has caused your suffering?

Is it the fire which initially gave you pleasure but now is giving you pain?

Is it your jacket?

Is it the rope that has bound your hands?

Which is the nature of suffering.

To explain the nature of suffering the Buddha gave us the doctrine of dependent origination.

This is a 12 step process which explains how suffering occurs.

It is also used to explain the nature of reincarnation but we will not go into that today.

Dependent origination starts with ignorance,

Leading to formations,

Leading to consciousness,

Leading to materiality,

Mentality,

Leading to the six fold base,

Leading to contact,

Leading to feeling,

Leading to clinging,

Leading to craving,

Leading to being,

Leading to birth and death.

To understand suffering we will start in the middle of dependent origination at the level of contact or right before that at the six fold base.

So the six fold base,

The six senses,

Touch,

Taste,

Smell,

Hearing,

Along with mind and sight.

Whenever you see something,

Hear something,

Smell something,

Or think of something,

This is the six fold base.

When you encounter something,

Whether it's an idea,

A thought,

A smell,

A taste,

Or a touch,

The next step is contact.

This is the encountering of something.

The next step after contact is feeling.

So after you touch,

Taste,

Smell,

Think of something,

Smell something,

Or touch something,

A feeling arises.

This feeling can be either pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Or neutral.

The next step after feeling is clinging,

Meaning when you experience something pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Or neutral,

You identify with it.

You see this as part of self and you hold on to it.

The next step after that is craving.

This can be either craving or aversion,

Meaning if there is a pleasant feeling,

You want more of it.

If there is an unpleasant feeling,

You want less of it.

If it is a neutral feeling,

You do not much care for it.

As we stated in the beginning about the types of suffering,

Not getting what you want,

Running into what you don't want,

And losing what you have,

All of this can be explained in terms of feeling.

You have encountered a pleasant feeling and you want more of it,

But you can't get more of it.

You have a pleasant feeling and you lost it,

Or you have encountered an unpleasant feeling and wish to get away from it,

But you can't get away from it.

Most people make the mistake of trying to stop suffering at the level of contact.

Whenever we see,

Feel,

Taste,

Smell,

Or hear something,

And an unpleasant feeling arises,

We try to eliminate the contact that delivered those feelings toward us.

The idea is that it is not an efficient or possible way of stopping suffering because you can never stop contact in a permanent way.

The Buddha talks about interviewing not at the point of contact,

But at the point of feeling and clinging.

So when a pleasant feeling arises,

Or an unpleasant feeling arises,

Instead of clinging to it and saying,

This is me,

This is what I am experiencing,

You simply say this is a feeling that is unpleasant or a feeling that is pleasant,

And you try next to cut it off at the level of craving.

If it is a pleasant feeling,

You experience it,

But do not try to hold onto it if it leaves you.

If it is an unpleasant feeling,

You experience it and try not to wish it away,

And let it go when it passes.

The idea is,

When feelings come and arise,

You develop a sense of equanimity towards them.

Not wanting more of what is good,

Not trying to get rid of what is bad,

You are learning to control your desires and aversions.

Only by doing that will you cut off dependent origination.

One of the principal ways of practicing the development of equanimity is through meditation.

As you sit and meditate,

You will still experience things,

Thoughts,

Smells,

Sounds.

As you do so,

Feelings will arise.

As you sit there,

The idea is to develop equanimity towards each feeling that arises.

Pleasant thoughts,

Unpleasant thoughts,

Sensations of pain or itching or smells,

The idea is not to wish it away,

To sit there and be with it,

Not wishing anything were different.

As you practice meditation,

You will practice developing equanimity towards the things you experience.

The second part of our talk discusses the nature of suffering in Stoic philosophy.

The Stoic saw as the major source of your suffering in life the confusion of what was under your control and what was not under your control.

The idea was that all your suffering in life came up from mixing these two categories of things.

So what was under your control?

First,

Your judgments and impressions,

Which means the way you saw things.

And number two and number three were your desire and aversion,

What you wanted and what you did not want.

So your judgments,

Impressions,

Desires,

And aversions,

These were the only things in life that were under your control and the only things that truly belonged to you.

What was not under your control was basically everything else.

Money,

Fame,

Fortune,

Your possessions,

Your friends,

Your family,

Your health,

And even your own body did not belong to you.

And the reason it did not belong to you was because it was subject to external forces,

Illness,

Death,

Being robbed or being stabbed,

Your friends,

They could move away,

They could also be subject to illness or death,

Even your children.

So all your possessions,

Everything did not belong to you.

And the idea was that you spent your whole life trying to harness the things under your control,

Your desire,

Your aversion,

And how you saw things.

And by mastering those things,

You developed a peaceful life.

The great stoic phrase was that you would never fail to get what you want and you would never run into what you didn't want.

And this was not done by controlling your external circumstances.

This was done by controlling your will.

Thus,

In the same way,

For the stoics just as well as the Buddhists,

Your source of suffering was not external,

But an internal process.

This leads us to the idea I recognize as stoic choice.

So the idea was that whenever someone compelled you to do something,

There was a source of suffering in you,

But what was hidden behind it was a choice and a failure to realize choice.

The great example given both by Epictetus,

The stoic philosopher,

And Seneca was,

What if the emperor threatened you,

Do this or I will kill you.

For an ordinary person,

They think,

Oh,

If I don't do this,

I'm going to die,

Therefore I must do this.

I have no choice.

But for the stoics,

There was an understanding that there was always a choice.

So in this process,

Where the emperor threatens you,

You actually have two choices.

One is to do what the emperor said.

The second choice is to die.

If you understood you had a choice,

Then you had the freedom to choose.

If what was being asked of you was the worst thing,

Then you chose to die.

If you thought dying was the worst thing,

Then you chose to do whatever was asked of you.

But if what was asked of you was terrible,

Meaning you had to betray someone or you had to kill your parents or kill a family member or betray your friend or betray your country,

And you did not want to do that and preferred to die rather than do that,

Then you could choose to die without any sort of regret or with any sort of anger at the situation.

If you understand stoic choice,

You understand that it is not the emperor that compels you in that situation.

It is your own mind which compels you.

And what compels your own mind was fear of death and attachment to your life.

So your mind is not compelled by external circumstances or external actors.

Your mind is compelled by its own fear and desire.

Thus,

True freedom for the Stoics was not freedom to do whatever you wanted,

But to be free from desire and attachment.

It is said that if you understood stoic choice,

Stoic choice itself would free you not just from desire and attachment,

But it would free you from all your life's circumstances and even slavery.

The idea was that during those periods of time when Stoicism was popular in the Roman times,

Slavery was a very present part of society.

The people often seen are one was Epictetus and Diogenes,

And both spent a part of their lives in slavery.

It is very interesting what Epictetus says about slavery,

Since he says,

Being free does not make you not a slave.

So when Epictetus was young,

He was still a slave,

And he belonged to a kind of rich master.

His rich master served the emperor,

And because he was in Rome,

His master often took him to hear Musonius Rufus,

Who was a Stoic philosopher.

His master one day freed him,

And Epictetus opened a school of philosophy.

Later in life,

When he was exiled,

He opened a school,

And his school of philosophy became so famous that it is reported that the emperor Hadrian actually came to visit him.

What he said about slavery,

Epictetus,

That is,

Was that when one is a slave,

One has a single master,

That master tells you when to eat,

When to sleep,

What to eat,

What to drink,

And what to do,

And the idea is you only had to serve one master in life.

He says the moment you are freed as a slave,

You are actually not freed at all.

The idea is the moment you are freed from slavery,

You have to now fend for yourself.

The first thing you need is food.

If you need food,

You need money.

As soon as you need money,

You need employment,

And so as you find your employment,

You find your first master.

Desires increase,

You may find that you need more money,

And therefore you may find another type of work and find a second master.

You are to desire more and more things,

All the people that have control over the things you desire also become your master.

And worst of all was if you suddenly fell in love.

So when you fell in love,

You became the biggest slave of all and now had to do whatever the person you loved wanted.

You also gained the fear of loss of that person as a master of yourself.

So while you were a slave and you owned nothing and you had one master and had a very simple life,

Now the moment you were freed,

You now had 10 masters and a very complicated life.

The story of Diogenes was similarly interesting.

Diogenes was a philosopher who learned from Antisenes,

Who was himself a disciple of Socrates.

But at one point,

Diogenes was captured by pirates and sold into slavery.

But because he did not fear death,

He never hesitated to speak towards the pirates in a strong and confrontative tone.

When the other captives and slaves were complaining of not being fed or giving enough drink,

He confronted the pirates saying to them,

When farmers and herders bring their goats,

When they bring their cows and goats to the market,

They fatten them up so that they will fetch a higher price.

But you people are idiots,

For we all look famished and thirsty,

And because of that we will fetch a lower price for you than if you had fed and gave us adequate drink.

Even though he spoke very boldly,

He actually got what he wanted,

And all the people,

The slaves aboard,

Were given food and drink until the time they were sold.

Apparently when he was also sold as a slave,

He behaved in the same way,

Where he stood on the platform when he was being auctioned,

And he said,

I am looking for someone who is in need of a master.

If you purchase me,

I will become your master.

Apparently an individual did purchase him,

And Diogenes was put in charge of his state as well as the rearing of his children.

And that man apparently actually prospered when Diogenes was put in charge of his state,

Because Diogenes was a very capable person.

And later,

Diogenes was freed from slavery.

When he was asked later on,

He said,

I was not freed when I was freed from slavery.

I was freed when Antisenes taught me the power of choice.

So the idea was that he could choose to stay alive and choose to live whatever life he wanted.

If he had no fear,

And if he was able to control his desires,

It was to control his desires and his absence of fear that led to his freedom,

Not his simple release from slavery.

The idea is there is an active acceptance of his life,

Where whatever situation he was put into,

He kind of accepted it,

Knowing that any time if he did not want to,

He could rebel and choose death.

But as long as he accepted it,

He was willingly there.

Another paragon who is often quoted in Stoic philosophy is Socrates and his example of life.

Socrates was an Athenian philosopher who near the end of his life was falsely accused of impiety and sentenced towards death.

And while Socrates was in prison,

He had the chance to escape,

But he decided not to.

He wanted to accept the choice of the people that sentenced him,

As well as the choice of the city,

Since the will of the city that he be executed.

So the Stoic said of Socrates was that he was never jailed,

Because they said that to be jailed is to be put in prison against your will.

And Socrates was there willingly.

And because he was there willingly,

He was never truly jailed.

If you had to contrast that with modern times,

You might think of how people felt during the pandemic.

So during the pandemic in America,

Your bodies were free,

But your minds were confined.

There were so many things that you felt you couldn't do,

And therefore you felt very confined by an external force.

Your bodies could come and go,

But still you felt the stress of that confinement.

The reason behind that feeling was that there were things you wanted to do,

But could not do.

If you understood the nature of suffering,

Then you would have simply removed your desire to do all those things,

And then you would have been,

As Socrates was,

Willing to be there.

We might contrast that with how people who are astronauts behave,

Or people who work on a nuclear submarine.

So an astronaut who is out in space,

Their body is actually very much confined.

And they are confined to very small spaces.

And outside of that space,

Death and danger abound.

And yet,

Because the astronauts are willing to be there,

They do not see themselves as suffering terribly,

Because for them this is a chance of a lifetime.

So even though their bodies are confined,

Their minds are not,

And because of that,

They do not experience suffering.

People who work aboard a nuclear submarine are in the same sort of situation,

Where their bodies are confined to a very small space.

They do not see sunlight,

They do not have windows,

And they do not breathe fresh air.

But because they are willing to be there,

They do not have a sense of great suffering.

The idea,

Again,

Is that it is your mind which is the source of your suffering,

And not your external circumstances.

Henry David Thoreau said something very interesting about the nature of mind and suffering.

So Thoreau wrote pre-Civil War in the United States,

And he wrote that,

In the South,

You might have a terrible master.

In the North,

If you are a worker,

Your master may not be much better.

But the worst master of all is your mind.

He said,

I saw people who would be out in the road,

Who were free men well before dawn,

Still working until long after dark,

All in the name of desire and attachment and fear,

Saying that there is no worse master than your own mind.

One of the things we try to do is to turn our passive acceptance of our life and turn it into an active acceptance of our life.

And the idea is that this will make your life much happier.

People often don't realize that they have a passive acceptance of their life,

But it exists.

The idea is that your life would not exist as it is without your passive acceptance.

I like to use the example of a child in a coat to sort of explain it.

The idea is that if you try to put a child on a coat,

And the child did not really want the coat on,

He would shake his arms and move and wriggle,

And you would never get the coat on that child.

So for you to put a coat on a child,

It requires the passive acceptance of that child.

In the same way,

Everything in your life requires your passive acceptance.

If you feel you have to work,

If you have to do this,

If you have to do that,

If you truly did not want to go to work,

You would not go to work.

If you truly did not want to do that,

You would not do that.

But the idea is many people complain and groan about their daily circumstances,

Not understanding that there is some passive acceptance of their life in how they continue to live.

One of the goals of mindfulness is actually to turn that into an act of acceptance,

And that this is the way I live because I want to live this way.

I go to work because I want to go to work.

I help out here because I want to help out.

The idea is you're not being forced into anything.

You are making a choice.

This will conclude my talk on suffering.

Suggested reading.

One is the book Turning the Mind into an Ally.

This is an introduction to meditation and to Buddhism.

The second is Discourses,

Fragments,

And Handbook by Epictetus.

He was the Roman stoic philosopher.

If you have gained something from this talk,

I ask that you do one good deed in return.

The deed is not limited by size,

Only by sincerity.