My Cancer Ango - 3 - Dukkha
Hey Everyone,
This cancer and my upcoming surgery puts me face to face with Dukkha, "Suffering" in its Buddhist sense.
I usually define Dukkha this way, not as old age, sickness and death etc. themselves. Rather, Dukkha is ...
... sickness, but only when we refuse the condition …
… old age, if we long for youth …
… death, because we cling to life …
… loss, when we cannot let go …
Our “dissatisfaction,” “disappointment,”‘ “unease” and “frustration” — Dukkha — arises as a state of mind, as our demands and wishes for how things “should be” or “if only would be for life to be content” differ from”the way things are.” Your “self” wishes this world to be X, yet this world is not X. That wide gap of “self” and “not self” is the source of Dukkha. Even happiness can be a source of Dukkha if we cling to the happy state, demand that it stay, are attached to good news, material successes, pleasures and the like, refusing the way life may otherwise go.
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Our Practice of Shikantaza closes the gap; not the least separation. Peace, Wholeness and Satisfaction result.
In the little Talk that follows, I also quote Master Dogen's advice on this, from his Shobogenzo-Shoji (Life and Death). Basically, he advises us not to run from death, nor toward it, and to realize that life and death is Nirvana itself. That doesn't mean that one can't take one's surgery or chemo, for one can. However, neither run from nor toward those either. They too are nirvana.
Gassho, Jundo
SatTodayLAH
