Let me begin with a quick primer on the Four Noble Truths of
Buddhism. They are: Life means suffering; The origin of suffering is
attachment; Cessation of suffering is possible; There is a path to the
cessation of suffering (The Eightfold Path). I have been taking a course in the
concept of non-duality and no-self from a Buddhist teacher here in Mesa. It is
very interesting, but a real challenge to wrap one’s mind around. However,
there is one concept that I have been contemplating during meditation, that I
think I’m beginning to understand, and that I’d like to share with all of you.
I came across a quote last week that states this concept
pretty clearly: “It’s not our preferences that cause problems but our
attachment to them.” In the Four Noble Truths, the key word seems to be
suffering. However, I have come to understand that the suffering is not the
acute kinds of suffering that we might bring to mind upon hearing the word, but
rather a state of being we allow ourselves to remain in. One of the primary
ways in which we do that is by clinging to our preferences and opinions about
the way we think things or people ought to be, and believing that perspective
to be the reality of that which we experiencing.
Almost reflexively, we tend to categorize our experiences
into things we like or don’t like; things never seem to be just as we want them
and that is a big part of constant suffering. Certainly this is quite easy to
see in the polarization occurring during
the acrimonious election season in which we currently find ourselves, but it
pervades how we see almost everything we experience and everyone we meet.
Rather than accepting things or people as they are, we immediately make a
judgment about them. It is important to understand that it doesn’t make a
difference whether that judgment is positive or negative, but rather that we
are making one at all. Now, right at the outset, let me say that I know that we
are conditioned to do this from the time we are infants. We are taught what
(and who) we should (or shouldn’t) like according to our parents’ preferences
and biases, and are also often asked what we would like in any given
situation. That said, actually suspending
judgment and giving up our attachment to our preferences is a very difficult
thing to accomplish, and one that most of us (including me) will probably never
attain. So what’s the point?
The point is that our preferences and opinions are something
we ourselves impose on our experiences from our own minds, and in so doing are
unable to see the truth of them that is being distorted by our biases and
prejudices (also known as preferences and opinions). If we are able to look at
each person and thing we experience without wanting them to conform to our
notion of what they should be, we are then able to see them as they are. You
may say, “Okay, how is this related to the suffering you mentioned earlier?”
The fact that the world of experience does not conform to our ideas of how it
should be is our suffering. Many of
us are pretty anxious about how the upcoming election will come out. Regardless
of which party or candidate we prefer, we are all suffering because
we want it to come out a certain way and can in no way be sure it will. If we
were truly able to view it with no preference as to how it should come out, and
were able to accept the outcome as it is, with no judgment as to its rightness
or wrongness, our suffering in this instance would disappear.
So it is with
everything we experience. Whether it is as simple as the way our spouse puts
the roll of toilet paper on the holder or as momentous as not wanting a loved
one to have died, our attachment to our preferences keeps us in a constant
state of discontent, and that unremitting discontent is the nature our
suffering. An important thing to understand is that trying to erase our
attachment to our preferences does not mean that we stop caring about things or
that we stop trying to improve our world, only that we wish to experience the
truth of everything just as it exists. When we do that, then the actions we
take in response to that truth will be appropriate and in harmony with reality.
The goal each time is to be able to say, “It is what it is”, and more
importantly, to accept it.
The last line of the poem “Hsin Hsin Ming”, by the ancient
Zen patriarch Sosan, expresses what I have trying to say quite succinctly. It
reads:
“Do not search for the truth; only
cease to cherish opinions.”
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