Author Archives: ij

This, Too, Shall Pass

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My Dad used to laugh about a fellow he’d often see while driving his bus every day in downtown Vancouver. This guy was obviously a street person, maybe a little off his rocker, and he always carried a sign saying “The End Is Near!” It entertained my father to no end. (Little pun there). 

Actually, the street person might have been one card short of a full deck, but he was absolutely correct. In fact, “The End is Here!” Things, events, lives, circumstances…are ending every moment. It’s what the Buddhists refer to as impermanence. Nothing, as it turns out, is permanent, not even the massive Rocky Mountains or the sun that rises every day. That might seem a depressing thought at first, but it can also work in your favour because it means that difficulties and bad times and suffering end too. And the end of suffering, as it happens, is the Third Noble Truth. 

Suffering does indeed, come to an end.

We’d all like to escape our misery by just being able to push it away or pop a pill, attend an inspirational sermon, watch a good movie, or read a great book. And while all of those things might give some temporary relief, quite often the root of our unhappiness remains because it is self-perpetuated. The cause is often created in our own minds. 

As I have mentioned before, taking some time to pay attention to your own thoughts can be quite a revelation. Realizing how much our thoughts influence our attitudes, moods and behaviours in every moment of our day-to-day existence is the first step to understanding what the Buddhists call the “nature of mind”.

It isn’t as much about control as it is about awareness. And if we pay attention long enough, we become aware of another Buddhist saying…”all that arises, must cease.” 

We are less successful when we look for distractions in the external world than we are by simply paying attention and noticing how thoughts and circumstances come to their own, natural end. Sounds kind of mundane, doesn’t it? But we’re impatient sometimes; we want to end our discomfort in a hurry and a quick-fix method sometimes sounds pretty good…lose 10 pounds in two weeks, pop this pill and you’ll feel better, look younger, etc., etc. No wonder so many people end up in emergency rooms or on therapist’s couches!

In fact, there are a number of psychotherapists out there now who incorporate Buddhist thought into their practise. There is an excellent book called “Thoughts Without A Thinker” by Mark Epstein, M.D., on this practise.

When the larger life events happen like the loss of something or someone, and they do, it takes time to recover emotionally and to adjust. What we are really aiming for is to simply not make it worse for ourselves! Clinging, desire and aversion, all work against us when it comes to recovery.

My mantra in the last few weeks has been “this too shall pass”, because I know for a fact that it will. Every day I notice I am a little less fearful or overwhelmed. I expect the odd setback like a lost night of sleep or a moment of discouragement or depression. But we’ll get through.

And there is one more Noble Truth, the Fourth, which contains the Eightfold Path, the path to the end of suffering. If you’re with me this far in this small series, I’ll explore that in the next blog posting! Be there or be square 🙂

IJ
(PS…my writing here is really just skimming the surface of the Buddhist philosophy, it is not meant as an in-depth study by any means, but I will pass along some links to Buddhist websites at the end for those of you who are interested in studying it further)

A New Year and the Second Noble Truth

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I’m not normally a very negative person, but thank goodness for the end of 2008! Good riddance.

I look forward to the next year, knowing that it is going to be very different from the last few in many ways. But I’m ready!

We are two days into our official job layoff and the world is still turning as it always does. I’ve been thinking a lot about the Second Noble Truth because it certainly applies to our present situation. It is “There is the cause of suffering, which is desire and clinging.”

Desire is something we all experience at varying levels during our lifetime…but I think that in the developed world, desire has become out of control and almost obscene. On YouTube there are thousands of videos dedicated to “unboxing”. They almost always feature young males opening up their latest games or electronic gadgets, oooh-ing and ah-ing over them. Now, of course, I’m part of this electronic world too…I have a laptop and a cellphone, and I received an iPod for Christmas, so I can’t really get too high and mighty :-). But it’s almost disturbing to see the level of desire for objects and how quickly we then tire of them and move on to the next.

Beyond “things”, there are many other types of desire…the desire for success, for more money, sexual desire…the list goes on. And there is another type of desire that the Buddha describes; the desire to “get rid of”, also referred to as aversion, such as trying to escape bad feelings or wanting to get away from someone who annoys you, for example.

Some desire is relatively harmless…such as my desire for a Mustang convertible, for instance 🙂 I’m not making myself sick over it, I don’t obsess, and my life isn’t ruined because I don’t have one! But I remember years ago reading a quote about how humans have a hole in themselves that they are always trying to fill…some of us have more of a problem than others. We are in constant need of things or achievements, or we are haunted by past events or become addicted to a myriad of intoxicants or behaviours.

There are people in my life who seem to have this deep darkness that they are perpetually trying to fill, and it causes me great sadness.

Desire is certainly a cause of suffering, and the other is clinging or grasping; when we want to hang on to something that is impossible to hang on to, or relive an experience over and over, which is also impossible to do. You can’t step into the same river twice.

Change is inevitable, constant and unavoidable. Change is indifferent, it can be good or bad or neither, but there is no stopping it. And it is the one thing we resist more than anything else, (unless it’s “good” change, of course!).

I get up in the morning and see a 51-year-old person in the mirror…how did that happen? My husband gets up and realizes he’s no longer going to work at the same place he has been for the last 29 years. How did we get here? I can’t hang onto my youth, and he can’t go back to his old job.

So what do we do?

The first step is to recognize that by desiring and clinging, we cause ourselves suffering. That one step back to get a better view of our circumstances and to see the thoughts that make us miserable, actually makes a difference. When you can see that YOU have created your own suffering, that also means that YOU can end it. It’s quite a revelation. It’s the end of suffering, which is the Third Noble Truth and the subject of my next blog entry.

What a cliffhanger, eh? 🙂

Take a moment to look clearly at the desire and the clinging in your life that creates your own suffering. I’ll join you.

Happy New Year!


IJ

On The Precipice and The First Noble Truth

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It is nearing the last day of my husband’s work before he is permanently laid off, and right now I feel as though we are standing with one foot in the past and the other in the future. I suppose if you look at it that way, a person is always in this position, but today it seems a more significant stance. 

Last night I lay awake for quite awhile with the thought that a person can have everything in one moment, and lose it all in the next. This happens to all of us at one point or another in our lives. Our story is about the loss of a long-standing job, for others it might be the loss of a loved one, or their house burning down to the ground…ultimately it is the loss of our own lives. It would be a pretty depressing thing if you let yourself think about it too often!

I know better than to let myself get on that train of thought, so last night instead of getting too caught up in my own misery, I reminded myself of what the Buddhists call the Four Noble Truths: 

There is suffering.
There is the cause of suffering, which is desire and clinging.
There is an end to suffering.
There is a path to the end of suffering.

Quite often when I find myself about to get caught up in sad or angry thoughts, I remember the Four Noble Truths, and I have to admit I’ve repeated them to myself quite a bit lately!

When you look at them, they seem quite simple. A lot of Buddhists consider them to be “beginner’s Buddhism”, but those who are wise enough know that they are the backbone of the Buddhist philosophy. How to stop suffering was Siddhartha Gautama’s (the Buddha’s) quest and what drove him on a spiritual path. The original word in the Pali language was “dukkha” which was translated as “suffering”, but the actual meaning of dukkha is closer to something like “unsatisfactoriness”.

We experience dukkha in very small ways every day. Standing impatiently in the slowest checkout line in a supermarket is dukkha. Running around the house desperately looking for your lost keys, is dukkha. Suddenly remembering an embarrassing incident from your past and fretting about it all over again, is dukkha.

And realizing with great fear that in two days you no will longer have a job, is dukkha.

Dukkha, or suffering also comes in the aftermath of wonderful experiences, happy times and great accomplishments, not because of those wonderful times themselves, but because we want to hang onto them and feel that way forever, or repeat them over and over again. This is also suffering.

Of course, there is physical suffering and pain, illness and growing old. But the main focus here in this post will be on mental and emotional suffering….because that, as the Buddha taught, is something we can actually change.

Today, you who are reading this post will experience dukkha on some level or another. I guarantee it. It may be very small and almost indistinguishable, but it will be present…on the other hand, if you, like me, are going through a difficult time right now, you’ll have no trouble recognizing it.

The interesting thing about suffering is that it ebbs and flows. If you “stand back” from it for just a moment, you’ll begin to notice that its intensity is not constant. Sometimes you’ll even forget about it for a moment, or actually find yourself feeling good. This is something very important to note! Because most of the time, we actually perpetuate our own suffering…we will actually REMIND ourselves of it again and fall right back into it! Is that stupid, er what?? This is human nature.

So today, I’m going to “watch” my thoughts very carefully, and every time I find myself slipping into that unhappy train of thought, I’m going to say to myself “Ah hah! That is suffering.” If you are interested in joining me, please do.

In the next post, I’ll explore the Second Noble Truth in more detail.

IJ