Are You Still Suffering?

fogueria: Just clarifying (sorry :)) once again –

you are still suffering, correct, at this point in time?

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If you are talking about my personal sense of grief and anguish over Jessie’s death, the answer is no, foggie, I am not suffering at this time.

That poison arrow has been removed, by Amida’s grace - not just in my life, but in her sister’s as well. Of course, we miss her deeply, but the angst is no longer what it was. Jessie’s manifestation as a Buddha - a being now enlightened, unbound by space or time, really did heal all that for both of us - as I describe in Jessie Checks In.

Now - let me tell you what IS the truth - at this point in time - for you as much as me, as much as ANYONE who reads this:

Each and every one of us is still subject to cravings and aversions driven by blind passion - “bonno” in japanese, or “kleshas” in the original language.

You - and anyone you might think of as a dharma teacher - is still struggling right here. How can I be sure? Because only a Buddha has ceased such struggling. Just to give one example known worldwide: His Holiness the Dalai Lama frankly admits to such struggling, in his books, and in direct answer to the question about whether he is indeed a Buddha - yet.

It’s important to understand what Shakyamuni found out under the tree of awakening, from which he emerged as a Buddha, as he pierced at last the secret mystery of suffering - and found the key to the END of suffering at last.

Here is what he found: when we are carried by an attachment - a craving or an aversion - we become VULNERABLE to suffering.

The attachment itself is not the suffering. Furthermore, the attachment itself does not create the suffering. Rather, the attachment creates the conditions in which the suffering may arise.

What is the triggering event for the arising of suffering? Simply this: if what happens next doesn’t meet the conscious or unconscious demands of our attachment - our craving or our aversion - we experience a state of dis-ease.

Depending on the strength of the attachment, it may be small suffering, it may be medium sized suffering, it may be great suffering. But in each and every case, the underlying STRUCTURE of the suffering is the same: an attachment arises - and then life doesn’t cooperate- and we experience dis-ease - suffering.

Why is this so? Because, as the Buddha found out beneath that tree as he pierced the mystery and became the World-Turner: everything is in constant flux, no state is permanent, everything is impermanent.

A Buddha, free of attachments, regards and experiences this constant flux, this impermanence, with total equanimity. With no cravings, and no aversions - he is 100% ok with it all - even as he regards the rest of us endarkened beings with boundless compassion.

So whatever happens, a Buddha remains in a state of blessed coolness - of NIRVANA. Suffering for such a being has ended at last.

So, foggie - your question is not the most skillful one - either for you, or for me, or for any of us. The skillful question is, rather, is whether or not I am finished with my cravings and aversions.

And of course whether or not you are finished with yours.

And this is what Shinran honed in on, about himself - and heard as well from his teacher Honen, who had honed in on the same question. No matter what he did, and with how much sincerity and dedication he did it - he really could not move that stone - he could not find full and final release from his own attachments, whatever they were - his own cravings and aversions.

This is the single practical question, the SHIN UGLY question, that forms the backbone of Shinran’s teaching - and of this blog, as well.

Because of the Buddha’s great compassion, we are not left in limbo, stuck with a problem that has no resolution, or a question that has no answer. We are not left with a “cloud of unknowing”, to borrow the phrase from a Christian mystic, or “only don’t know” to borrow a similar phrase from a Buddhist one.

As plain people, totally unsuited to scale such mystical heights in the quest to sever our blind passions, as Buddha did, we have been given a simple, easy and blessed path to the selfsame end - the end of suffering at last.

Why? Because we simply are in need - infinite need - of such boundless great compassion in order to escape the endless rounds of birth and death as non-buddhas, at last.

It’s not my job to persuade you (or anyone) that Shinran’s perspective here is the most effective way to come to the full and final END of suffering at last. It is up to each of us to do our own deep listening.

But I do think that exposure to this dharma proclamation is useful for any and all of us who truly aspire to Buddahood - who are honestly seeking answers to that fundamental question about how to end suffering once and for all.

Here is how one of Shinran’s teachers, a man named Seikaku, explained it in his treatise, Essentials of Faith Alone.

When persons aspire to free themselves from birth-and-death and attain enlightenment, there are two routes open to them: the gate of the Path of Sages and the gate of the Pure Land.

The Path of Sages consists of performing practices and accumulating merit while living in this Saha world, striving to attain enlightenment in this present life. People who practice the Shingon teaching aspire to rise to the stage of great enlightenment with their present bodies, all followers who endeavor in the Tendai school seek to attain the enlightenment known as “the stage of purifying the six sense organs” in this life.

Although such indeed is the final objective of the teaching of the Path of Sages, since the world has reached the age of the corrupt dharma and entered the period of defilement, not even a single person among millions can attain enlightenment in this present life.

Hence, those who endeavor in the gate of the Path of Sages in the present age become weary and withdraw in their attempt to attain enlightenment of becoming Buddha with this present body.

In remote anticipation of the birth in this world of Maitreya, the Compassionate One, they look to the dawning sky 5,670,000,000 years in the future, or awaiting the appearance of even later Buddhas, they become lost in clouds of the night of countless transmigrations through innumerable kalpas.

Or they merely yearn for the sacred sites of Vulture Peak or Potalaka Mountain where Avalokitesvara dwells, or for the small reward of another birth as heavenly or human beings.

Although any spiritual relationship with the Buddhist teaching is admirable, immediate enlightenment seems completely beyond hope. What is longed for remains within the three worlds, and what is hoped for is still life within transmigration. Why should they undertake much practice and cultivate understanding, seeking such a small reward?

Truly, is it not the result of the dharma being too profound and our understanding too shallow, having become so far removed from the Great Sage, Sakyamuni?

Second is the gate of the Pure Land, in which, directing the merit of practice in the present life, one aspires to be born in the next life in the Pure Land to fulfill the bodhisattva practices and become a Buddha. This gate meets the needs of people of these latter days; it is truly a marvelous path.

Note how Seikaku hones in on the the practical question: what meets the needs of people for enlightenment in these latter days. This is not a question of dogma. It is not a denial of any of the many and varied pathsways on the Path of the Sages. It is simply a question of what can produce the desired outcome: Buddhahood - enlightenment - the end of suffering at last.

Here’s perhaps the greatest of the great dharma sages - Nagarjuna - weighing in on the same subject, as quoted by Shinran:

Nagarjuna states in the Commentary on the Ten Bodhisattva Stages:

If a person desires quickly to attain
The stage of non-retrogression,
He or she should, with a reverent heart,
Say the Name, holding steadfast to it.

When persons doubt as they plant roots of good,
The lotus [in which they gain birth] will not open;
But for those whose shinjin is pure,
The flower opens, and immediately they see the Buddha.

Commenting on these words of Nagarjuna, and the teachings of Pure Land sages, Shinran goes on to state:

With these passages from the sacred words of the Buddha and from the treatises, we know in particular that the great practice is not a foolish being’s practice of directing his or her own merit toward attainment of birth. It is the fulfilled practice that Amida directs to beings out of great compassion.

You can read all this, and so much more, on the site that contains all of Shinran’s works, right here.

The most important of those works, The True Teaching, Practice and Realization of the Pure Land Way was written to respond to the honest concerns of other Buddhist teachers, who questioned whether a path solely based on grace could even be a form of Buddhism.

That is not what Shinran shared with uneducated laypeople, though - only because it requred a lot of scholarly background to understand. His teaching for plain people was simple teaching, in plain language - which is all any of us need in order to be filled with both gratitude and certainty - the true fruit of SHINJIN - true entrusting - which seals us for birth in the Pure Land at the end of this lifetime.

Does that mean entrusting Amida for salvation - for the end of suffering - for birth in the Pure Land - is RIGHT and that other ways are WRONG?

That is an unskillful question - a question for scholars and debaters - who can argue endlessly about anything and everything. Shinran didn’t say it - and wouldn’t say it - and neither will I.

The skillful question is - what is going to work for me - plain person that I am - in an age where Buddha Shakyamuni’s energy field is weakened by great distance in time and space - to end my suffering at last.

It’s not about what is TRUE - that’s not the basis of Buddha’s teaching - so much as what is TRUE FOR ME - what is EXPEDIENT, what is PRACTICAL, what will get the job DONE - at last.

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