Life is Suffering, Buddhism 101

I am living in sunny Marin County, CA. I live across the street from a wonderful park. The kid's playground is closest to our place. I love waking up to the sounds of the birds talking and singing. I love the sounds of the children in the playground.

I have noticed, however, that along with the joyful shrieks and laughter there is almost an equal amount of crying. It is not disturbing, the crying. It stops as soon as the mom or dad or babysitter comes and gives a bit of comfort or a distraction. But it is interesting. Even as kids, we get blow back from seeking fun. If we eat too many cookies, we get a stomach ache. If we climb too high, we can have a fall. Years ago, when we lived in Forest Row, Sussex, England, I was shocked at the public playgrounds. The ground was cement. The play structures were heavy metal battering rams. The swings were easily maneuvered to go over the top.

I took it to be a sign that the British believed in toughening up the kids, the stiff upper lip and all that. Forty years later, the playgrounds here in Cali have soft stuff covering the ground, all the safety features that any town can think of and the kids still manage to take good tumbles and get bonked with great regularity. I really have no opinion whether one way is better than the other, except the memory of guiding my 2 year old daughter away from the equipment that looked actually deadly. When we were kids, we had no playground and lived in the woods and we still managed to get broken arms and lots of cuts and bruises. I still have a few tiny pebbles in my knee from taking a great tumble off my bike. Cleaning the cut was much more painful than getting it so I told my mother that I got all the gravel out. Oh well.

 I think that it is our job as parents and teachers and care takers to protect the children as much as we can. This is logical and human. Who wouldn't? But, when we can't, what is that? When we can't as adults avoid pain, when our quest for pleasure bites us in the ass, what is happening?

Oh ya, there is that karma thing. And the thought that suffering is our great opportunity to grow. It is our path to enlightenment. It is not about keeping a still upper lip. It is not about ignoring or deluding ourselves about what is going on. How many times have you heard about a person becoming transfigured in the last stages of cancer? "She taught all of us so much." I've heard it a lot. Don't get me wrong. I am not a fan of pain and misery, but rather, I am trying to sort things out.

Yesterday I went to a retreat at a Vipassana center, Spirit Rock. The subject of the day was Compassion. The teachings were brilliant, as always. And of the over 50 people who spent the day together, from many countries, many economic levels, many ages, we all had the same intention. We wanted to be more powerfully, actively compassionate.

One thing we quickly learned was that practicing in little ways prepares us for the big moments. We also 'got' it that if we are not compassionate towards ourselves, we had little chance of being that way toward others. One of the little exercises we did was partner up and for five minutes our partner asked us over and over "What do you really admire about yourself?" Damn, it was hard. I bet not one person said "My beauty." We are hardwired to being critical. This seemed to be the same for very high achieving people who spent their lives being told they were great, (they don't really think they measure up.) as well as for people who had been beaten down by other people telling them that they were losers. Amazing, really.

There was too much going on to recap all the aha! moments. But on this subject of suffering and pain, the mindfulness teachings are amazing. When we examine what it is that blocks our natural instincts for compassion for ourselves and others, the answers are right there in us. Ask yourself this question and sit with it for a moment. I am going to do so.


The Four Noble Truths (Sanskrit: catvāri āryasatyāni; Pali: cattāri ariyasaccāni) are regarded as the central doctrine of the Buddhist tradition, and are said to provide a conceptual framework for all of Buddhist thought. These four truths explain the nature of dukkha (Pali; commonly translated as "suffering", "anxiety", "unsatisfactoriness"^[a]), its causes, its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation.
The four noble truths are:^[b]

1. The truth of dukkha (suffering, anxiety, unsatisfactoriness^[a])
2. The truth of the origin of dukkha
3. The truth of the cessation of dukkha
4. The truth of the path leading to the cessation of dukkha

The first noble truth explains the nature of dukkha. Dukkha is commonly translated as “suffering”, “anxiety”, “unsatisfactoriness”, “unease”, etc., and it is said to have the following three aspects:^[c]

• The obvious physical and mental suffering associated with birth, growing old, illness and dying.
• The anxiety or stress of trying to hold on to things that are constantly changing.
• A basic unsatisfactoriness pervading all forms of existence, due to the fact that all forms of life are changing, impermanent and without any inner core or substance. On this level, the term indicates a lack of satisfaction, a sense that things never measure up to our expectations or standards.

The central importance of dukkha in Buddhist philosophy has caused some observers to consider Buddhism to be a pessimistic philosophy. However, the emphasis on dukkha is not intended to present a pessimistic view of life, but rather to present a realistic practical assessment of the human condition—that all beings must experience suffering and pain at some point in their lives, including the inevitable sufferings of illness, aging, and death.^[6] Contemporary Buddhist teachers and translators emphasize that while the central message of Buddhism is optimistic, the Buddhist view of our situation in life (the conditions that we live in) is neither pessimistic nor optimistic, but realistic.^[d]
The second noble truth is that the origin of dukkha can be known. Within the context of the four noble truths, the origin of dukkha is commonly explained as craving or thirst (Pali: tanha) conditioned by ignorance (Pali: avijja). On a deeper level, the root cause of dukkha is identified as ignorance (avijja) of the true nature of things. The third noble truth is that the complete cessation of dukkha is possible, and the fourth noble truth identifies a path to this cessation.
According to the Buddhist tradition, the Buddha first taught the four noble truths in the very first teaching he gave after he attained enlightenment, as recorded in The Discourse That Sets Turning the Wheel of Truth (Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta), and he further clarified their meaning in many subsequent teachings.^[e]