Wednesday, January 25, 2006
dukkha
Hope you all have been enjoying the Yin classes so far. At the very least, do give it a go as it offers much in terms of learning opportunities. One of the important things you can learn is the true nature of all things. We have talked about anicca, or changeability, impermanence. When you are holding your pigeon pose for the 5th minute or so, you begin to feel an intention in your mind to move into something more comfortable, or to be somewhere, anywhere, besides here. As I have continued to remind you all during the class, stay with the feeling for a while and just observe. For the situation is telling us something important, pointing to something essential in the nature of all things.
For one thing, you will find that, no matter what position you are in, no matter how comfortable initially you are, even in corpse pose, shavasana, after "x" number of minutes, things change very certainly, and you find the same intention to want to change your position sneaking in. That "wanting to be somewhere else where you think you will be better off" is the signature of dukkha. We are victims of dukkha without realising it.
Dukkha is often translated as "suffering". This translation makes it hard to accept that dukkha, as taught by our teachers, is a basic trait of all things in existence. I mean, you experience life as a mix of good and bad times, not bad all the time admittedly. How can even "good things" have dukkha at their heart? How can all life be dukkha? We are not "suffering" all the time!
I appreciate a translation of dukkha as "unsatisfactoriness". While the word is unwieldy, it helps us to understand the concept better. That "wanting to be somewhere else where you think you will be better off" feeling stems from an unsatisfactoriness that we sense in the situation we find ourselves in. When we slow down, contemplate, hold a Yin Yoga pose or meditate, we can detect this basic unsatifactoriness found in all situations.
This is the situation we have set ourselves up in:
1. We want to get away from pain.
2. We want to pursue pleasure.
but
3. No pleasure is ultimately satisfying nor enduring.
thus
4. The constant pursuit of pleasure and running away from pain takes us away from our present reality, from living fully in the present.
All our lives, we live like this. A kind of life without freedom. It is a problem. It is a very trapped, incomplete way of living because it is based on a fallacy: that things will "eventually work out", things can be perfect, whole and complete. . . one day, some day, in the future. . . that we can hope to "live happily ever after". How about living happily now with whatever we have?
If we do not understand the true nature of all things which is dukkha -- we are in fact denying ourselves of living in the present - which is the only time we can live in. All the time we long for something better in the future or when we long to return to an ideal golden age in the past, we have missed an opportunity for enjoying the blessings available to us in the present moment right within our grasp. We miss out on participating in our lives. We postpone living our lives. In a way, this is how almost all of us CHOOSE to live. Isn't that strange? Has it happened to you? Have you experienced at a time when you look back one day and wonder where all your life up to the present moment has gone? Well, we have missed out on living it because we are too busy rehearsing for a future or rehashing a past in the crystal ball of our minds. We are sustaining a fragile illusion. Living in a world of our imagination and finding disappointment time and time again, without resolution, when reality hits us.
When we are enlightened, or awake, this is what we are awake to: that all things of this world have at their core a basic unsatisfactoriness stemming from its changeability. Ignorance or denial of this fact make us live in conflict with what reality presents. Whereas acceptance of this liberates. We experience fully both the joys and pains of the moment with an understanding that joy is never everlasting nor perfect, pain is never unrelenting nor evil -- AND that all the joys and pains of the moment is all we have to live in, the mix of ingredients making up our life. We start to recognise that the very transitory, incomplete nature of something in this world is its charm. Even a tiny moment of joy has its enjoyment magnified because you can see its fragility in the grand scheme of things. Then you find you begin to develop an. . . ease. . . in your heart. A sure sign that we can transcend all the dukkha of this world and live freely, perfectly at ease with all the unease that is our world.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
For one thing, you will find that, no matter what position you are in, no matter how comfortable initially you are, even in corpse pose, shavasana, after "x" number of minutes, things change very certainly, and you find the same intention to want to change your position sneaking in. That "wanting to be somewhere else where you think you will be better off" is the signature of dukkha. We are victims of dukkha without realising it.
Dukkha is often translated as "suffering". This translation makes it hard to accept that dukkha, as taught by our teachers, is a basic trait of all things in existence. I mean, you experience life as a mix of good and bad times, not bad all the time admittedly. How can even "good things" have dukkha at their heart? How can all life be dukkha? We are not "suffering" all the time!
I appreciate a translation of dukkha as "unsatisfactoriness". While the word is unwieldy, it helps us to understand the concept better. That "wanting to be somewhere else where you think you will be better off" feeling stems from an unsatisfactoriness that we sense in the situation we find ourselves in. When we slow down, contemplate, hold a Yin Yoga pose or meditate, we can detect this basic unsatifactoriness found in all situations.
This is the situation we have set ourselves up in:
1. We want to get away from pain.
2. We want to pursue pleasure.
but
3. No pleasure is ultimately satisfying nor enduring.
thus
4. The constant pursuit of pleasure and running away from pain takes us away from our present reality, from living fully in the present.
All our lives, we live like this. A kind of life without freedom. It is a problem. It is a very trapped, incomplete way of living because it is based on a fallacy: that things will "eventually work out", things can be perfect, whole and complete. . . one day, some day, in the future. . . that we can hope to "live happily ever after". How about living happily now with whatever we have?
If we do not understand the true nature of all things which is dukkha -- we are in fact denying ourselves of living in the present - which is the only time we can live in. All the time we long for something better in the future or when we long to return to an ideal golden age in the past, we have missed an opportunity for enjoying the blessings available to us in the present moment right within our grasp. We miss out on participating in our lives. We postpone living our lives. In a way, this is how almost all of us CHOOSE to live. Isn't that strange? Has it happened to you? Have you experienced at a time when you look back one day and wonder where all your life up to the present moment has gone? Well, we have missed out on living it because we are too busy rehearsing for a future or rehashing a past in the crystal ball of our minds. We are sustaining a fragile illusion. Living in a world of our imagination and finding disappointment time and time again, without resolution, when reality hits us.
When we are enlightened, or awake, this is what we are awake to: that all things of this world have at their core a basic unsatisfactoriness stemming from its changeability. Ignorance or denial of this fact make us live in conflict with what reality presents. Whereas acceptance of this liberates. We experience fully both the joys and pains of the moment with an understanding that joy is never everlasting nor perfect, pain is never unrelenting nor evil -- AND that all the joys and pains of the moment is all we have to live in, the mix of ingredients making up our life. We start to recognise that the very transitory, incomplete nature of something in this world is its charm. Even a tiny moment of joy has its enjoyment magnified because you can see its fragility in the grand scheme of things. Then you find you begin to develop an. . . ease. . . in your heart. A sure sign that we can transcend all the dukkha of this world and live freely, perfectly at ease with all the unease that is our world.