Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The First Noble Truth

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-=[ Responding to Suffering ]=-

... an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man.

-- Jimmy Carter


A lot of people get a quizzical look when I tell them I’m a practicing Buddhist. I understand that I may not fit the stereotype of a spiritual seeker: I cuss a lot, get angry, sad, happy, horny -- the full catastrophe! LOL I certainly demonstrate little patience and don’t tolerate fools easily. What’s more, I am politically motivated, an engaged activist. Too often people don’t see the connection. From my perspective, spiritual practice is not as an escape from the world, but a way to engage it in a conscious and ethical manner.

In short, my activism is a response to suffering. I mean, look around, there seems to be a lot of it going around, and, as the historical Buddha very likely put it, there’s a lot of suffering in life. Indeed, Buddhism’s first truth is simply an acknowledgment that to live is to know suffering (dukkha). But what is suffering?

I have a simple formula for suffering. For me, suffering is pain (what is) combined with stress (what we bring to it):

pain + stress = suffering

I gave it away early in the post because I need to construct my post rather quickly today. LOL

Let me expand on this a little just so we can create a foundation. Suffering arises because when we experience pain -- when we are injured or startled, or are treated unfairly -- we normally react by lashing out at others and even at ourselves. We are conditioned to believe that this will somehow lessen our pain. It’s almost like shooting yourself in the foot as a response to being shot. In Buddhism, the image of two arrows is used. We act in such a way that a second arrow is shot, at us or others, on account of the pain of the first arrow. When we shoot the second arrow, we “pass on” the original pain. We have to admit, if we look at this critically, it’s a childish coping strategy. If we’re honest with ourselves, however, we recognize that we all do it to a certain extent.

So! According to my “formula,” suffering can be understood as a kind of resistance or reaction to the pain of the present moment. We tend to react physically, emotionally, and/ or mentally when we experience unpleasant sensations, emotions, or thoughts. With physical pain, the tendency is to become tense or to contract around the area where the pain is coming from as if this will somehow lessen the pain. Some doctors say that 80 percent of what patients experience as pain is the not the result of the original cause of the pain, but rather the resistance to the cause. See?

pain + stress = suffering

It’s the same with emotional pain. A perceived slight from someone close to us, or the break-up of an intimate relationship, will result in a flood of emotions, culminating in psychological and often physical pain. We might generate anger (more on anger in a later post), judgments of others, and ourselves, and rationalizing it. The tension usually builds compelling us to seek release from the pain through food, shopping, sex, or mindless entertainment. As humans, we do this individually and through groups, as well as in our communities and nations.

For me, the work of spiritual practice is not to get rid of the pain, but rather to learn how to open to pain and suffering, when they appear in ourselves and others. In this way, I can learn to be present with the pain, but without suffering and without compounding the pain.

My political work and activism is informed by this framework of responding to pain. The people you see spreading all the hate and vitriol are effectively causing themselves and others suffering. It’s a suffering based on the delusion that we are somehow not connected. Compassionate responses to such behavior can manifest in many different ways. Sometimes it can take the form of what I learned to call fierce compassion. Its modern-day equivalent would be called “tough love.” A lot of what I’m seeing today calls for this type of compassion. The tricky part -- indeed, the hardest part -- is maintaining a compassionate attitude in the face of so much mindless hate.

Love,

Eddie

13 comments:

  1. <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">Hey Eddie, </span><span style="">How are you? <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"></span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""> </span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">You said: So! According to my “formula,” suffering can be understood as a kind of resistance or reaction to the pain of the present moment.  </span><span style="">I get where you are coming from, however, I will add to it that I think suffering is a way of creating something that doesn’t exist .  You can’t touch or see "suffering" we create it.  We create it to make us or someone else wrong (intelligent eh?LOL).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>As humans we have a tenancy to put meaning to EVERYTHING when really there is no meaning to anything, except what we make it mean.</span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""> </span>

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  2. <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">As an example, I live Vancouver, Canada, so am present to the situation in the US, clearly a black man is president, his name is Barack Obama, and he is one of the most inspiring and empowering men I have ever known, he creates change.</span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""> </span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">He is on the News here all the time too, good and bad stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I haven’t been present to any of the racism that everyone brings to existence, including yourself. You opened your blog today with the quote: </span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; line-height: normal; text-align: center; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span style="">... an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man.</span><span style=""></span>

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  3. <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">Ok, so for me I don’t have any agreement with that quote, in fact it concerns me, but consider that someone who is inclined to be an ignorant racist, would feel like he got some agreement to his cause if he came past your page and read the quote, he would be like, well hell yeah cause a black man shouldn’t be president, or whatever ignoramuses think ...so while that wasn’t your intent, that’s what he/she got.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Play it forward.</span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""> </span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">Love </span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">Zoe</span>

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  4. ps. I really dont like this new commenting thingy cause it wont let me post my whole comment at once, very frustrating LOL

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  5. pps. do you think that if you did a poll and asked 100 budists, that they would agree you are a practising budist? just curious :)

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  6. ppps. I bvoted for you :P

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  7. Zoe: That's strange because I have the response word limit set to 3,000 words...

    I think your take on racism leaves a lot out. Racism is systemic, it's not a personal bias. Racism is prejudice + the power and ability to deny a group or individuals full access to the same privileges and rights as others.

    So, you continue to project your bias into somnerthing that I am rreporting. I am not the cause of racism, I am pointing it out.

    BTW, Jimmy Carter, a former US president and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, is a WHITE man from the South born during a time of Jim Crow and segregation. You don't read my posts on racism, so I guess you haven't seen how I have DOCUMENTED its existence. To stay quiet in the face of evil is to be complicit in that evil.

    And that's where my spiritual practice comes in. Spirituality isn't walking around a half-inch aqbove the ground totally divorced from the real world. At least it isn't for me. Spirituality is a conscious path engaging the REAL world  -- both the good and the bad. IN FACT, the core practice of Buddhism, at least for me, is to be able to open to what is without adding to it. If by pointing out injustices and acting out against them, makes me part of the problem, then so be it.

    Here's a quote from another Nobel Peace Prize winner. He wasn't a Buddhist, but he elaborated on one of the most iumportant aspects of Buddhism -- interdependence -- in a most articulate and passionate manner:

    "I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerne3d abbout what happens in Birminghyam. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all directly."
     -- Martin Luther King, jr., Letter from a Birnmingham Jail

    As a recovering addict, I have a special appreciation for the First Noble Truth because it coincides with the principle of First Step: In order for a problem to be solved one must first admit there is a problem. Admitting and seeing the problem is not the same as generating the problem, as you seem to be implying. Seeing clearly, becoming open to everything, whether good, bad, or neitral, is the first step toward removing the delusional filters. Admitting the problem is the essence of the First Noble Truth.

    Without that, there is nothing but suffering.

    Finally, I really don't know why you would ask me if other Buddhists would consider me a Buddhist. I find that irrevelant. I will say that no one's asked me for my Buddhist card yet and none of the members of my Sangha have ever questioned my commitment to the dharma.

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  8. On another note, the response system here is allowing me to post longer posts. I don't know what the problem might be. Let me know if you continue to have this problem.

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  9. <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style=" color: black; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bias is a term used to describe a tendency or preference towards a particular perspective, ideology or result, especially when the tendency interferes with the ability to be impartial, unprejudiced, or objective. ...</span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style=" color: black; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t get how my point of view, has any bias ...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>my view doesn’t interfere with my ability to be impartial, unprejudiced or objective .... </span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style=" color: black; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I can’t see where I said you are the cause of racism in my comments, that’s what you made what I said mean, what I said was, you contribute to racism existing (and your statement: </span><span style=" color: #404040; line-height: 115%;">If by pointing out injustices and acting out against them, makes me part of the problem, then so be it.  Means that you are agreeing to an extent).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span><span style=" color: black; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am not implying that what you are doing is wrong, I am sure that what you write is taken in by the people you WANT inspire more so than the people you don’t, but the people you don’t still exist.</span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style=" color: black; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sometimes it feels <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>like you aren’t listening to me, instead you are including your view on who you think I am before you take in what i say, and then have an opinion of it, BIAS </span></span><span style=" color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></span>

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  10. <p style=""><span style=" color: #404040; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Also, you REALLY didn’t need to point out that Jimmy was WHITE, even though I wouldn’t know him if he was staring me in the face I was pretty certain of the white factor :P</span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style=" color: #404040; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">NOW the quote from MLK is exactly my point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It is not words of attack or talking injustices the plural, he just said INJUSTICE, it can be interpreted on many different levels and have the same impact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Its empowering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style=" color: #404040; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">With regard to your comment that admitting the problem is the essence of the first noble truth ....</span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style=" color: #404040; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There is no PROBLEM with suffering, so I don’t really get what you mean here?? Because without suffering there is no life, isn’t the First Noble Truth that life means suffering ....where is the problem?</span></span>
    <p style=""><span style=" color: #404040; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Second Noble Truth is that the origin of suffering is attachment .... </span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style=" color: #404040; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I sometimes read in your blogs that you are attached to proving your point with facts from history, rather than what is now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style=" color: #404040; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">History keeps repeating itself for a reason, we don’t let it go, it creates who we are as a species everywhere all the time, when it doesn’t need too.</span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style=" color: #404040; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Finally, I didn’t ask whether you thought my question was relevant, what I asked was if you did a poll with 100 practicing Buddhists, would they agree you are a Buddhist <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>...it’s a yes or no answer</span></span>

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  11. I dont get why it wont let me post when i have less than 3000 words either, it comes up with an error that says i can not post when it exceeds 3000 .... yet i dont have 3000 words

    xx

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  12. Zoe: don't our actions and the actions of history have reverberations that affect us NOW? Racism exists NOW. what would you do? sit on your hands while lives are being destroyed?

    Your bias is that you want to look at things divorced from their context. Essentially you're saying that if I don't point out cause and effect, if I just ignored the reality of injustice and racism, that it will cease to exist or go away. You're projecting onto ME the cause and effect of racism. You don't realize how offensie that is to someone who experiences racism on a daily basis. I won't even get into that.

    I'll just observe that's a naive, culturally biased way of looking at REALITY.

    To say that there's no problem with suffering is to mistate the point of Buddhism. Finally, the Buddha taught wo things: he taught about suffering and the END of suffering. the implication being that suffering is not enough. History keeps repeating itself because as a species we become attached to dysfunction. Dysfunction such as racism and injustice. Part of attachment, my friend, is ignorance. Ignorance comes from denial. The present doesn't come out of the blue. the present comes with reverberations of past actions. Continuing to make the same actions and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

    If you don't find my posts on racism empowering, it's because that isn't my purpose. My purpose is to tell the truth. It's uncomfortable, it isn't pretty, but that racism exists is a fact. And to sit on your hands waiting for it to go away isn't very empowering. MLK knew that. He wrote it from a fuckin jail cell. but I'm no MLK, I want to point out that the shit he faught against STILL exists even after all these years.

    finally, who gives a fuck if other practicing Buddhists would consider me a buddhits or not? I don't give a shit. what,. we have a Buddhist police in effect?

    The historical Buddh'as last words were, "Be a lamp iunot yuourselves." there's no need for a ridicoulous poll of other buddhists whether "Eddie" is a buddhist or not.

    SMH

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  13. I couldnt even contemplate entering my response into these comment boxes with the amount i ended up writing, so in response:

    http://aconversationwiththewisevshopefull.blogspot.com/

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