When things are going bad, we Nichiren Buddhists often trot out Nichiren's maxim: "Suffer what there is to suffer, enjoy what there is to enjoy. Regard both suffering and joy as facts of life and continue chanting namu-myoho-renge-kyo..."
But do we accept suffering as a fact of life? I know I don't. I fight it. I avoid it. I want it to end as quickly as possible.
Here's someone with an interesting take:
...Indeed, most of what we call suffering comes into our lives as a consequence of our refusal to suffer. We suffer estrangement and isolation because we refuse to suffer the joys and the pains of intimacy. We suffer addictions to avoid suffering the pain within our souls. We suffer depression because we cannot suffer our anger or grief. We suffer guilt because we will not suffer the humility of asking for and accepting forgiveness....
Check it out.
8 comments
There are many causes for suffering in the enviornment. But perhaps the ultimate cause for suffering is our attachment to things being other than they are.Say you had a dog which you raised from being a puppy who suddenly died while seemingly young and healthy, you will feel sad. It's not that we shouldn't have pets or feel affection for them that would be eavoiding the joy as well as the suffering. It seems to me the enlightened attitude is to realize that the good times of the relationship could not not go on forever but that there was much joy in caring for the animal and in the reciprocation of love and now it is over and it's time to bury the animal. There is nothing wrong with this it is the way things are. We can accept it as good. It is good that the animal was well cared for and it was inevitable that the dog would graduate to the next level and that is also good.We can't avoid suffering and to try to leads to avoiding life. Through an acceptance of life in all it's interlocking forms it's possible to accept that which causes suffering as the flip side of the cause for happiness and see how one is impossible without the other.If not for burying your dog you couldn't have watched your kids play with it.
The Great Nirvana Sutra says:"Understanding suffering without suffering,there is the absolute truth, ...Understanding extinction without extinction,there is the absolute truth."
I gotta disagree with you, there. Saying that suffering is all in the mind, or all about how we look at our experience, is total intellectualized bullshit. Maybe that's not what you're saying. But if it is, wow.I recently saw someone suffer excruciating physical agony. It was suffering of the most raw, human, inescapable kind. It's not something that can be fixed by having a better attitude or understanding more about Buddhism.
If there is nothing you can do acceptance is still better than trying to fight or avoid something there is no way out of. Your whole world only exists in your mind, I can't see how you can discount attitude.
If the starving could just accept their agony and whistle a happy tune. If the beaten and abused could just accept it -- understand it -- it would be so much better for them. It's all a matter of attitude, right?Sickening. Just sickening. That pose of cool, intellectual detachment isn't Buddhism. It's smug, self-satisfied, shallow "understanding."
Since they are starving to death either way their attitude becaomes the only thing that makes any difference. What's your prescription? That they make themselves even more miserable by being filled with hate and anger?
Unless the suffering is physical as in continuous excruciating pain, which then would indicate some pretty bad karma, there is no need to suffer at all. Those that suffer like the person you saw should do something to change their karma, as in chant.My point is that as a practicing Buddhist you should see that things are temporary in nature and not swing from high to low over things that, lets face it, people bring upon themselves.
I need to add that there is nothing that can be done for people suffering in hellish conditions except to get them to practice Buddhism. The law of cause and effect is very strict and those people born into these conditions are receiving retribution for past actions. However, even in the midst of hell, there is happiness to be found.