LIFE – Let It Flow Easy!!
The First of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism says that, suffering, pain, misery exist in life. In fact there are many texts which also quote “All of life is suffering” as a quote from Buddha. Like many Masters and their teachings have been misinterpreted, Buddha’s teachings have been no exception in the way they have been interpreted. But clarity and confusion are bound to coexist on this plane of duality. My teacher always guided me in making things simpler to understand and practice. And as I reflect back on the learnings, its true that the flow of life or Wu-wei as the Taoists use ( actions with ease or effortless actions), life truly has the potential to be simple, provided we are able to understand what causes suffering.
My teacher always used to joke that the biggest pandemic the world faces is “Chronic discontentment”. And the more we awaken to our own mindset and our interpretation of situations around us the more how Chronic Discontentment pandemic affects each one of us becomes clear.
When we had to go to work, driving through jams, we cribbed about the traffic, why the authorities are so laid back instead of doing anything about the congestion, about building the infrastructure or the ever increasing levels of pollution, not being able to spend time at home or with family or pursuing our hobbies. In the current lockdown, when we had to work from home, we cribbed about there being no break, no discipline, lack of space ( physical or personal), noisy children, lack of productivity etc. Clearly, discontented with our situations at any given point in time, whatever they may be.
So what is suffering and why do we suffer?
Suffering means to endure, or bear or carry on with the pain or discomfort or hardship. There is a famous fable of the boiling frog. The story goes like this – that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out. However, if the frog is put into tepid water which is then brought to boil slowly, the frog will slowly get used to the rising temperature and will eventually be cooked to death.
This is what suffering is like – slow death. As we learn to endure, we become lethargic or rather we close our mind to go through the discomfort of making any change. A lot many of us, continue to go through our life like the frog which keeps adapting to the rising temperature of the water in the pot.
So what really causes suffering? There are fundamentally two reasons why we suffer and both these reasons work in tandem.
1) Desire to control – we want to control the outcomes, we want to control how others think, behave and act and this desire starts from everything and everyone in our life – from children, to spouses or partners, to parents, relatives, to colleagues, employees and bosses, management, to leaders, government bodies and authorities, neighbors, our house helps etc. When things do not happen, or people do not act the way we believe they should, it brings a great deal of suffering.
2) Expectations – our idea of how things should be, how it should all work out, our idea of what defines success , wealth, wellness, love, companionship or for that matter our idea of what God should or shouldn’t do. The expectation of how others should make us happy, make us feel loved, the expectation of how life should unfold.
3) Unconscious habit of judging and labelling everything – this is good, that is bad, this is right, that is wrong, our definitions and ideas and the unconscious habit of judging and labelling everything and everyone. This actually is a subset of the above two. When things do not happen based on how we want them to be or when people do not act or behave the way we want or expect them to, we judge it as bad and it is that thinking process or the desire to label it that brings suffering. If we can learn to take things for that they are, without judgment, the invisible chains that seem to control us would start to loosen.
In the ancient Indian vedic context – there are fundamentally two causes of suffering , “attachments” and “aversions”. The biggest attachment which is literally impossible to see and break away from is our attachment to ideas and our thoughts, our conditioned belief systems which indirectly controls how we experience our lives. When we become averse to anything, we first go through the motion of labeling it and then rejecting duality which is an important aspect of our existence on this plane(t).
However, despite knowing or becoming aware of the cause of our own suffering, most of us are unable to set ourselves free of the suffering and continue to go through life striving and not thriving. When I show my friends and family their causes of suffering, a very common response I get is “Easier said than done.” And every time, it reminds me of the story my teacher told me when I was unable to break through my own conditioned pattern of thinking and approach.
“Once, there was a young man walking down his neighbourhood and happened to see an old man sitting on the porch. Next to the old man was his dog, whining and whimpering. Everyday, he would notice the same thing – the dog lying next to the man , whining and whimpering. One day, when he couldn’t resist any more, the young man asked the old man “what’s wrong with your dog? He keeps whining and whimpering.” The old man said “he’s laying on a nail.” The young man asked “laying on a nail? Then why doesn’t he get up?” The old man replied “it’s not hurting him bad enough”.
We are like the dog siting on the nail, it hurts but we still find comfort in complaining and moaning – we are like the frogs gradually getting used to the rising temperature of the water . Chronically discontented with our lives, we seldom want to do the work of breaking away from the pattern, sitting on the nail we start believing that it is our destiny. It is not a matter of strength if one gets used to pain, suffering. Courage is in jumping out of the pan to safety, to get up and move away from the nail, to take charge of our lives, our mindset and work towards leading a harmonious life, a life of equanimity. To become a Master of our own lives by transforming our thought process.