SUFFERING AND THE CAUSE OF IT

Today I want to touch on the subject of suffering. The Buddha says suffering is part of life. Some time ago we touch on the subject of mental suffering, emotional suffering and physical suffering. Today I want to share with you one other aspect of suffering as mentioned by another great teacher called Lao Tzu. He was the one who taught us the Way or TAO. Lao Tzu lived in the year 500BC and he taught TAO. TAO is the Way, the way of life. Just to borrow part of his teachings on suffering, he says there are two types of suffering. One is unavoidable suffering, cannot avoid and the other is avoidable suffering. The cycle of birth and death, you cannot avoid. The other suffering you cannot avoid is old age, you cannot avoid the pain of old age, cannot run away from it. The third form of unavoidable suffering is death of love ones. How you address it, how you go through life addressing these avoidable suffering is something we are going to talk about today.

Avoidable suffering is something that we all go through and the root cause of all is ego. The avoidable suffering is the ego, your attachments to things, your desire for things. Let’s analyse this, because of the person’s ego he can cause suffering for others or himself. His personality, he demands you to think like him, “I am right, you are wrong.” He inflicts suffering on you and you accept it and suffer mental or emotional suffering due to your weakness. Attachment to love ones, attachment to material things also cause you to suffer because you hold on to it. Relationship for example, sometimes parents, they hold very closely to their children, they cannot let go but the child has to grow up. The child has to get married; the child has to live his or her own life. If you are totally attached to that child, you suffer emotional pain and suffer when the time comes for the child to leave you. It is a fact of life. Attachment to material things, you value certain things a lot but when you lose it, you suffer pain, mental suffering, you lose this or that e.g. you bought a new car and then somebody scratched it. How painful it must feel. Attachment to things can cause you suffering. Desire for things also can cause you suffering. Relationships, you desire this girl but you don’t get her, she rejects you, and you suffer emotional suffering.

Now how does a person overcome all these sufferings? The Buddha has taught a very good way. He says live a life of acceptance. Accept what is. Don’t’ have this desire for things that eats you up and when you don’t get it, you suffer. If you don’t get it accept what is, you accept the situation or circumstances and no more suffering. It is your ego, like I said the root cause is Mr Ego, Mr Ego drives you to desire certain things because if you don’t get it the ego gets hurt. So ego will drive you even further to get what it desires. If you don’t get what you want you suffer so badly that some people end up in hospital. So remember these things. If you are able to address Mr Ego and understand why you suffer, it is a way to get rid of suffering. Understand why you suffer, what is the cause of the suffering. If you can pinpoint this and move on and look at Mr Ego in his face and say “You don’t come and disturb me.” I am in control. You get out of my life.” You see this is a fight between you and your ego. Don’t go and scream and yell at yourself in public but in your quiet moments when you do contemplation and meditation, you address this. The great teachers have taught this, two thousand years ago, Lao Tzu, Buddha taught the same thing. Even today we talk about the same thing. What they are trying to tell humans is that you are the cause of your own suffering. Unavoidable suffering, Karmic causes you cannot escape but most of the suffering we suffer today is our own doing. So go back and analyse all thoughts on suffering, emotional suffering, mental suffering and things which we take for granted.

Now detachment is another way of addressing your suffering. To detach does not mean you don’t care. Nothing wrong in acquiring material things. But detach from it. Detachment is to accept the fact that one day in reality that material thing that you have acquired will be no more. Be prepared for it. For if you are not prepared for it when it happens you suffer.

Learn well the practice of being aware of the situation and then accept it for what it is. Now I tell you why, because in our mind we say “this is good, this is bad.” “this is beautiful, this is ugly.” This must stop because if we discriminate like this when we eat; you say this food is no good, “horrible”. You are suffering but for the other person who ate the same food it is good, so who is right and who is wrong? It is all in your mind. If we live a life where we do not discriminate “good” “bad” “hot” “cold” you just accept what it is, there is no more unhappiness in you. A person can try to make you unhappy but it is a choice that you make by not allowing that person to make you unhappy through your own ability to see yourself and say “I am neutral.” Why do we have to do this? Because God is neutral, the universe is neutral. God does not judge, He does not say you are ugly, you are pretty, you are good or you are bad. Nature does not judge. It rains or shines on anyone from the poorest to the richest, we can learn so much from nature. So as human beings if we learn to accept what is, I guarantee you, your life will be at peace. Even unavoidable suffering like aging, if you accept the fact the when you age all the looks will go, you won’t suffer. Some people cannot accept their own ageing, they go for all sorts of surgery to look young like Botox jabs until they land up having a surprise look. Why? Because they have not accepted that fact that due to aging, your muscles will sag but if you accept it there is no more suffering. Death, if you accept death, there is no more suffering. You move towards it, you prepare yourself for it but if your mind cannot accept and you resist it, then there is suffering.

So live a life whereby you accept, which is also the path of surrender. It is only words “I surrender” but importantly it is your mind, how you change your mind to be in a situation where “I accept what is.” If tomorrow the sun is hot, I accept what is, “It is hot, so what?” If it rains, I accept that it rains. I don’t curse the rain or the sun. Then your mind eventually is in a situation where it becomes neutral. The way out of suffering is a neutral mind, no judgement. When you eat food, don’t judge. Don’t say not enough salt, not sweet enough, no, accept for what it is and then you will be happy, if not you will be focusing and swearing at the person who made it. “Why did you cook this way, why didn’t you warm up this food?” Why all this agitations? Be thankful for the food you eat as it is sustenance for you. That is what life is. You all want to be happy but the monkey mind, the ego, says “no, the food is no good, not sweet enough or too sweet” because the ego want to express itself, it is so big that it has to say something.

So for all of us here today, find that Mr Ego in us because Mr Ego knows how to bluff and mask itself and pretend that it is your good friend, so be very careful. Once you can get hold of this Mr Ego, you look at him or her, then you are able to be in control, if not you will always be suffering and in an unhappy state.