Dependent Origination 2023 - Day 3 Dukkha

Yeah, today we're going to, well, now we're going to be a little pessimistic and talk about dukkha. So, yes. I just wanted to debrief you about some things. Last night I did the guided meditation, and I want to welcome you to customize it according to however it seems suitable for your mindset. So that was one kind of framework for the contemplation. But you're welcome to start with equanimity. You're welcome to start with whatever works for you. And then in whatever order that seems most suitable for the five aggregates. And the key there is to start to let go of any time the mind sees any little bit of clinging to the sense of self in relation to that particular aggregate or part of that aggregate.

You come to a level of stillness in the mind. And then all you have to do there is rest in that stillness, nothing else. Now, for any questions that you might have, let's leave that for this evening. So this evening is basically a whole chunk of time for us to do Q&A for dukkha and the preceding link that we'll explore, which is birth. Out of the way, let's discuss dukkha. Dukkha is, I like to just use the word dukkha because it is polysemous, which means it has so many different connotations and meanings depending upon context and usage of the word. And so dukkha can denote suffering, dukkha can denote uneasiness, dukkha can denote unsatisfactory, not worth holding on to, all things like that.

So what does the word dukkha mean, or where does it actually come from? When you hear the word sukha, not the cat, for those of you who remember the cat. I'm talking about sukha in terms of happiness that you experience in the first and second jhana. Piti and sukha. Sukha, we're saying, sukha means happiness. Sukha and dukkha. Su here means good or wholesome or easy or balanced. Du here in dukkha means uneasy or unwholesome or bad. And then ka actually is the Pali for stha in Sanskrit, which means to be stable, to be balanced. So sukha means that there is good stability. And that's why you feel happy. There's a good foundation there.

But dukkha means it's unstable, very much related to anicca. Anicca means impermanent. So dukkha is also used as an image. Back in the time of the Buddha and ancient India, they used to ride around in chariots, and when the axle of the chariot didn't exactly fit into the hole in the wheel, that was said to be dukkha. Have a proper axle and the wheel is off balance, what does it feel like? If you've ever been to Walmart and you're pushing around a cart and one of the wheels is out of balance, that's dukkha. Nature of existence. We're unable to really feel complete happiness because of the conditions themselves, all conditions themselves, having the nature of dukkha.

Everything is unstable. It's always changing, subject to change, all the time. Now, in ancient India, and as extensions of those philosophies, there were different views about dukkha. But before I get into that, I want to talk about the three types of dukkha, the three categories of dukkha. There is what's known as dukkha dukkha, viparinama dukkha, and sankhara dukkha. Dukkha dukkha is the plain and simple dukkha. It's just proper dukkha. That is the dukkha of pain in the body, mental suffering, disease, illnesses, sicknesses, aging, birth, death, grief, sorrow, lamentation. All of these are part of dukkha dukkha. Viparinama dukkha. Viparinama, that means to turn, to change. That's the dukkha of change. Unexpected things happening. So when we talk about viparinama dukkha, an example of that could be your flight gets cancelled, for example.

Way to the airport and you're looking forward to some time off and your flight gets cancelled, and you need to be there at a certain time because you have an appointment or something, things get in the way. That is viparinama dukkha. It's unexpected results or unexpected events that arise in your life. An example is you taking a really nice warm shower and all of a sudden the hot water cuts out and there's just freezing cold water. That change is viparinama dukkha. So the key here is to understand that and to let go of the expectations that things in life will run smoothly. They will not.

You have to come to terms with that. You have to be available to all kinds of changes, good, bad, or indifferent. And that's really mental resilience. That's what this training and practice is about. To have total mental resilience to all events. And the experience where the mind gets flustered by an unexpected activity or event is essentially the beginning of conceit and craving, because there's an expectation that things must be a certain way, or I must be a certain way, or the world and people must be a certain way. If you let go of these words, must, should, have to, it needs to be this way, you let go of viparinama dukkha. Because now your mind is very agile.

It can be in the worst of circumstances and yet still experience joy and happiness and bliss. That's the whole purpose of experiencing jhana. Is to be able to have the utility of this internal joy, this internal happiness, internal calm and collectedness. And then we have what's known as sankhara dukkha. So before I go with that, viparinama dukkha is also with, so we will see examples of that, but that's basically, as the Buddha would say, being attached to that which is unloved and being divorced or unattached to things that are loved. That's part of viparinama dukkha as well. Dukkha here is the dukkha of the world itself, of existence itself. We've all come into this samsara countless times, over and over and over again.

And that is dukkha. That is dukkha. Even if you've been in the deva realms, in the brahma lokas, in the arupa brahma lokas, still dukkha. By the very fact that all these states and realms and conditions are all impermanent. They will change. They will decay. That's the nature. So the whole point is for the mind to come into a place, into a dimension, into some level of clarity affected, and so sankhara dukkha is related to the five aggregates affected by clinging, craving and clinging. Now we'll explore that. The five aggregates affected by craving and clinging, are they one and the same or are they different? We're going to explore what that means.

So the inherent quality of existence ultimately is feeble, fickle, futile. Not worth holding on to. But there is that place, for lack of a better word, that space, that dimension, that clarity, that is the unconditioned. Conditions, and that is what you are doing with the meditation practice. That is what you're doing with the path. The path itself is conditioned, so you're using conditions, the right conditions, the path, that is to say right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right

collectedness. To come to what's known as right knowledge and right liberation. So you're using the raft to get to the other shore. Don't worry about this shore here. This is samsara. The whole point is to get off of samsara. And don't worry what's on the other shore either. You'll know what it is when you get there. So we'll talk about the three kinds of views that were prevalent at the time in relation to dukkha. These three views are essentially eternalism, annihilationism, and the middle path. So eternalism is all about the fact that, oh, this dukkha is inescapable. Or that, I will come to a level of being where I will leave the dukkha of this world and go to an eternal heaven.

That is another viewpoint. Eternity is boring. It's dukkha. Just imagine being there for millions and millions of years. Same old thing. Partying all night long, never getting a hangover, but doing it over and over and over again. That's the deva realm. For some reason, devas don't feel disenchanted. Very few do. And eventually, before they know it, it's too late. There are certain signs that they realize that, oh, this is impermanent. I'm going to leave now. And they immediately feel dukkha. And so eternalism doesn't work. And then there's a counterpoint to that with regards to eternalism. What about hell? An eternal hell. That's absolute dukkha. So annihilationism is the idea that, yeah, there is dukkha in this world.

But when I am gone, that is to say the five aggregates are dissolved, there is no more me there. There is no more dukkha there. So this leads to the craving for non-existence. In the first scenario, eternalism, leads to the craving for existence, a higher existence, an eternal existence. And the annihilationist view is, in order for me to not experience dukkha, I have to no longer exist. And so what happens? This has happened in the case of the Buddha and students. They misinterpreted what he was talking about in relation to Nibbana. He went out, went on his own retreat, came back, found out that those people killed themselves because their idea was, oh, the end of dukkha means the end of this life.

Not the case. Suicide is never the answer for anything, let alone letting go of dukkha. In fact, it adds to the dukkha. So how do you let go of dukkha? How do you experience the eradication of dukkha? So long as you're with the five aggregates, you can't. You can eliminate mental dukkha completely. And that's the mind of one fully awakened. No more mental suffering. But they are still subject to physical pain. They're still subject to aging. They're still subject to illness and sickness and disease. But they don't have any kind of mental suffering around that. Mental agitation around that, of that dukkha. That is the end of taking things personally, of identifying with them. That is the way to let go of that dukkha, which would lead to further dukkha in the form of more future rebirths, whether it's in this life or another one.

So I'm going to actually use the suttas to talk about dukkha, because here in Digha Nikaya 22, Maha Satipatthana Sutta, this is where the Buddha lays out all of dukkha, all of the different categories of dukkha. So it's an excerpt from the Digha Nikaya, and it says: And what, monks, is the noble truth of suffering? Birth is suffering. Aging is suffering. Death is suffering. Sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress are suffering. Being attached to the unloved is suffering. Being separated from the loved is suffering. Not getting what one wants is suffering. In short, the five aggregates affected by craving and clinging are suffering. out here but is listed in different places is illness, sickness and disease, so we're going to discuss birth later on today, so we'll first talk about aging and then go into illness, and what is aging in whatever beings of whatever group of beings there is aging, decrepitude, broken teeth, gray hair, wrinkled skin, with age, decay of the sense faculties.

That, monks, is called aging. Aging is inescapable. Even in the deva loka, aging is inescapable. It happens at a very, very, very slow rate, but it catches up with the devas at the very end of their lives, and they realize, oh, there is aging. And we're all experiencing aging, whether we want it or not. Some of us are more inexperienced with aging and some of us are less. Some of us know what it feels like to have wrinkled skin and some of us don't. But we'll all get there. Don't worry. So aging is inescapable. The notion that doing some kind of cosmetic surgery or plastic surgery is very, very on the surface.

There's still aging of the mentality. You have dementia. You have Alzheimer's. People forget. As the body starts to decline, the sense faculties decline, your vision isn't as good as it used to be. Your hearing isn't as good as it used to be. Your digestion, your heart, your liver, your kidneys, whatever it might be, they start to fail. They start to decline. And that's the truth of the matter. You can take as many supplements as you want. That's fine. You can do all kinds of things. But in the end, something or another will fail. Something or another will change and decay. When we talk about the decline of the faculties, it also means that the mind itself can start to lose focus, can start to lose its ability to concentrate.

There might be more agitation, or there might be a depression that arises. There could be a reflection on one's life throughout life, and the aging process is, wow, I've lived here a long time and I feel like I haven't done anything. That doesn't really matter because everybody feels that way. It doesn't matter what you've done. If you've been a superstar, a rock star, whatever it is, they all feel the same. And why do they feel that way? Because of conceit. Because there's still some sense of self tied to their personality as a musician or whatever career they have, with their job, with their responsibilities, whatever it is. So aging is suffering and it is inescapable.

It'd be great if we could, but we can't fix our aging, unfortunately. Just imagine, just recognize it, release, relax. The wrinkles are gone. And then we have illness. So I'm actually going to read an excerpt from the book. If you guys want to follow along, that's fine. This is the Dukkha book, page 22 to 28. Illness is suffering. It's known as byadhi in Pali. So this is what it says. There are different types of illnesses that one may suffer. These include but are not limited to infectious diseases, illnesses by malnutrition, hereditary diseases, and physiological diseases. Some illnesses are preventable and some are unpreventable. Some illnesses are acute and some are chronic. Others, style choices, and others are due to certain deficiencies or imbalances.

There are mental illnesses which can arise through various causes and conditions. Whatever the illness is, it will always cause some form of dis-ease or uneasiness or discomfort in mind or body or both, and thus all illnesses are dukkha. Health is a form of wealth and sukha. There are many beings who have wealth in the form of money and possessions, wonderful relationships, a good reputation, and so on. But all of those forms of wealth can be impinged by an illness. Illness causes trouble in the body, and by extension, one feels unhappy, unable to function as one would in an optimal way. And one's entire mindset is plagued by the effect of this illness. This can cause you to make rash decisions, or see people in a different light and create unruly situations due to misunderstandings.

Depending on the intensity of the illness, one can lose one's ability to enjoy life fully because the illness can become the central focus in one's life, causing one to never completely be happy or present. Even if you were present, the nagging pain or distress caused by the illness colors that mindfulness, with the Buddha, him having back pain all his life. The only escape was to be in the third jhana or in Nirodha, complete cessation of pain. But there is some kind of pain that arose, some kind of illness even that arose with the Buddha. We see that towards the end of his life, he experienced some kind of unease in the body, in his digestion and whatever it was.

And it was inescapable. That was a cause and condition for him to say, okay, I'm going to let go and experience parinibbana. In the spirit of fully understanding Dukkha, let's take a look at some of the types of diseases afflicting the human condition at one point or another in time. Infections. Infectious diseases are communicable illnesses born from pathogens such as viruses and bacteria, and can penetrate the immunity wall of a being. These diseases can manifest various types of aches, pains, and other disorders within the organs of the body, such as respiratory discomfort and dysfunction, cardiac arrest, or even complete death if not treated. The common cold is an infectious illness arising from the rhinovirus, which continues to mutate and has multiple variations throughout the year.

It is just a fact and symptom of life that at some point or another, this common cold will affect the body. And it brings with it fever, congestion, stuffiness, malaise, weakness, and other symptoms. And for about three to 10 days, one suffers through this period of the common cold. Other infectious illnesses can arise through various transmissions of viruses, bacteria, protozoa, and fungi. can experience an airborne transmission of viral droplets, foodborne transmission that can cause severe food poisoning and gastrointestinal pain. I had this experience while I was in India. I remember this was last year sometime around March or April, and this was a couple of months after my father passed, and we were in Mumbai.

I really thought my stomach was made out of steel, but it was whatever it was that I ate that went into my stomach. And I felt like, how you would be describing in the suttas, sharp winds carving up the belly, really, really painful. So painful that I became dizzy. So that is suffering. That is dukkha. It's inescapable. You can treat it. That's one of the wonderful things about modern medicine that we have. We can treat these diseases, but still we're experiencing their dukkha. Cause severe food poisoning and gastrointestinal pain, sexual transmission affecting the genitals primarily, but can then affect other parts of the immune system, such as the immune system, as well as the organs of the body.

Intravenous transmission through needles, vector transmission, such as through mosquitoes who can carry malarial infections and the West Nile virus, waterborne transmission, skin transmission that can cause fungal infections like ringworm, an athlete's foot, and transmission from the mother to the infant where the mother may have an existing infection, which then transmits into the fetus, thus causing the infant a pre-existing infection. of unease, from a subtle but noticeable discomfort in the body to excruciating pain and even loss of life. Some infections may lie dormant in the body and flare up intermittently during one's lifetime.

Malnutrition is a severe lack of proper and efficient nutrition of the body. It can happen for those who have a lack of nutrients and thus face the wasting away of the body. While for others who may be overweight or even normal weight, the body is unable to process certain nutrients effectively, thus causing imbalances as well as deficiencies of essential vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients. In the case of the malnourished due to lack of resources, there are several symptoms that can be easily noticeable, such as a distended abdomen, skeletal frame, dry eyes, dry skin, muscular wasting, loose skin, and brittle or sparse hair, among others. There are also internal symptoms such as slow heart rate, poor memory, delayed growth, skeletal deformities, loss of reflexes, as well as behavioral effects such as diminished cognitive capacities, lethargy, and anxiety.

In the case of nutritional deficiencies, the body can undergo large amounts of physical changes such as kwashiorkor and marasmus due to protein and energy deficiencies, respectively. Osteoporosis and rickets due to calcium and vitamin D deficiency. Goiter due to iodine deficiency. Keshan disease due to selenium deficiency. Anemia due to iron deficiency. Growth retardation due to zinc deficiency. Beriberi due to thiamine deficiency. Pellagra due to niacin deficiency. Scurvy due to vitamin C deficiency. Night blindness due to vitamin A deficiency. On the other end of the spectrum, there is malnutrition in the form of over-nutrition of the body. This can include metabolic imbalances due to overeating, causing obesity, which can lead to other ailments like diabetes and cardiovascular issues.

This is mentioned in the suttas as well. There is King Pasenadi who comes to the Buddha and he has to climb uphill. And he's huffing and puffing to walk, or sufficiently get enough exercise, so the Buddha offers him a meal plan, a diet. He says whatever amount of food that you're eating, cut it by a third and see how it goes. And he does that and he starts to lose weight. He has better cardio fitness, and when he climbs up the hill he's completely fine. All good.

Then there can be hypervitaminosis, such as too much vitamin A that can cause all sorts of vision, appetite, bone, skin, and liver problems, or too much vitamin D that can cause large amounts of calcium to be deposited in the bones, heart, tissues, and kidneys, causing dehydration, vomiting, fatigue, and weakness, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. As a result of vitamin B3 toxicity, the body may suffer from liver inflammation, pre-diabetes, high levels of uric acid, macular swelling and cysts, and vitamin B6 toxicity can lead to peripheral neuropathy and other neurological and psychological issues. Too much iron can lead to liver failure, brain and other organ damage, as well as shock, leading to potential death. Lots of dukkha there.

Then we have what's known as genetic disorders, and mental illnesses. Genetic disorders can be passed down from genes to another and can include physiological proclivity of the body towards certain conditions like a defective heart valve or other congenital heart conditions, Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease, Huntington's disease, and can include other physiological illnesses like hypertension, Alzheimer's, cancer, and even obesity, in the way some cars arise and being carriers of karma from one life to the next. This can include the diseases and defects the body may have a tendency to develop based on factors including but not limited to lifestyle choices, the strength of certain karma, and even environmental factors of being a subject to during their lifetime.

Choices and intervention through corrective surgeries can help prevent the tendencies of awakening certain illnesses carried forward by genes as well as treat pre-existing conditions. That's a good thing about today's world. Now we're going to talk about NCDs, or non-communicable diseases, which include problems with certain organs and bodily systems. This can include cardiovascular and cerebrovascular issues, diabetes, kidney disease, cancer, autoimmune disorders, and chronic respiratory disease. Vascular diseases can include strokes, heart failure, aneurysms, and vascular dementia, among a whole host of other diseases. Diabetes can be type 1, where the pancreas loses its ability to produce insulin due to the loss of certain cells as an autoimmune response. Type 2, where gradual insulin resistance can lead to a lack of insulin for the body, and this can be caused by a lack of exercise and excessive body weight.

high blood sugar levels. Kidney disease, where the kidney loses its ability to function, and it can be either acute or chronic in nature. Cancer is the overgrowth of cells which fail to die, and this can cause damage to the body leading to malignant tumors and cysts, and it can happen in any part of the body and spread if it becomes metastatic. Autoimmune disorders arise when the immune system attacks the body itself, and this can lead to various types of disorders, including diabetes, lupus, and over 80 different types of autoimmune disease. They can have genetic or environmental causes. Finally, chronic respiratory illnesses include asthma and COPD, which are treatable but not yet curable. Mental illnesses have an array of causes ranging from genetic to environmental to autoimmune disorder to brain damage, the womb, or external factors after one's birth.

Substance abuse, as well as infections and toxins, can cause mental disorders, along with disorder in the neurotransmitter systems of the brain. Mental illnesses can include, but are not limited to, various types of anxiety and depression, bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders, dementia, paranoia, and psychosis. That's a whole lot of dukkha, right? But this is the reality of the world. There are so many beings experiencing different types of diseases. Some of us are more fortunate to experience less crucial diseases, let's say, less excruciating diseases, just a common cold and fever and things like that. And some of us are experiencing chronic disease, chronic illness, of existence. Now the key is how do you deal with that?

How do you deal with it in the form of your mentality? You can't just, again, you can't just six R's away these diseases, these illnesses, but you can deal with them by calming your mind, collecting your mind. Your mental state has a big effect on how these diseases affect you. If there's a lot of mental agitation, if there's frustration, if there's anger, if there's whatever it is, it only makes it feel worse from a subjective perspective. It's like the disease is one thing, but then the mentality around it is another.

So that part is in one's so-called control, in the sense that you can use the 6R's to recognize anytime the mind starts to gravitate towards some kind of depression, some kind of agitation, some kind of anxiety, and you can slowly release that, let that go, relax, and replace it with a more wholesome and positive state of mind, a more resilient state of mind. It's definitely easier said than done. But the point is to keep doing it over and over and over again until at least your mental state is collected. And then you can deal with the physicality aspect, if it's possible. Then we will talk about death. And what is death? Of beings, there is a passing away, a removal, a cutting off, a disappearance, a death, a dying, an ending, a cutting off of the aggregates, a discarding of the body.

That, monks, is called death. Dying is actually very easy to do. It's very simple. What's difficult about it is all of the anguish experienced prior to that dying process, or the anxiety around death itself. Death anxiety, this is a big thing that was discussed in some psychological circles. You talk about death anxiety, that's really, you're so afraid of death, or some beings are so afraid of death that they can turn to violence. At least there, they have some level of control over who lives and who doesn't. And for that reason, it's some kind of resolution in their mind, some kind of safety net in their mind. But dying itself is like the snap of a finger.

The dying process is never so prolonged as it would seem. What happens in the dying process? This is very important to know, because we're all going to die. We're all going to die. If you don't know it yet, please understand, you are going to die. When a being dies... Right, that's right. Don't take it personally. When a being dies, there's a way in how that being dies. So the process of dying is basically the four elements that we talk about: the earth element, the water element, the fire element, the air element. That starts to cease in different ways. And the first to go is the air element, naturally. The body stops breathing.

Then the fire element. The body loses temperature, loses heat. Then the water element. The circulation slows down until the blood basically congeals. And then finally the earth element. The decay of the skin and the muscles and the bones and so on. That happens at a much slower rate. But there's also a decline of the sense faculties. And there is a cutting off of the aggregates and the discarding of the body he talks about. So we're also talking about the sense bases. How, or in what order, do the sense bases also depart in the dying process? First, there is a decline of smell. Then a decline of taste. Then a decline of sight. Then of touch.

Of sound, and finally mind itself. That's why it's so important, even if a loved one is medically dead, that is to say, their breathing has stopped, they are in cardiac arrest, and there is no more brain activity. The mind is still functioning. The mind is separate to the brain. The mind is still functioning, and there is still hearing going on. So that's why it's important. Even if somebody is in a coma, even if they're past the part of death, past the point of death, it's important to be positive and wholesome. Do some chanting, read a sutra, whatever it might be. Do not immediately weep for that person as much as you want to, because it can create confusion in the being that is going to go.

And so in the dying process, what happens is we go through a process of experiencing certain signs or certain states. There's a life review process that can go on. You start to look at certain karmic nexus points in your life. The veil between one life and the next is lifted, and this can create all kinds of memories that come up. This is why there is, as I said before, the emphasis on being wholesome, because the more you do that, the more you try to be wholesome, the more wholesome your mind will be, and the more automatic your inclinations and your choice will tend to the wholesome, which means at the of dying, where everything is just gone.

When the mind is experiencing those few moments prior to death, it's experiencing whatever were the highlights of that life. And if there were more wholesome highlights, the mind will gravitate towards that. But if the mind has been unwholesome, it will not be an easy death. The mind can go and die in confusion, and this can lead to an unwholesome state of existence. So that is why there is an emphasis on being wholesome and ultimately letting go of even identifying with the wholesome. So there's also what I want to talk about, which is how to let go of the fear of death and attachment to the body, because the fear of death is really related to the body.

The mind perceives death as a death of this body, because it takes this body to be me, mine, or myself. And so this is an excerpt from the Majjhima Nikaya 10, Satipatthana Sutta. This is section 14 to 30. So this is the contemplation on the dying process itself, or I should say the decay of the body: the charnel ground contemplation. So here it says, Again, bhikkhus, as though he were to see a corpse thrown aside in a charnel ground, one, two, or three days dead, bloated, livid, and oozing matter. A bhikkhu compares this same body with it thus. It's very interesting. When my father passed away, he was already starting to lose color before he passed away.

Starting to become a little more yellow, because his liver was failing and he had more jaundice and all these other things. And before he passed on, he was, we took photos with him. We took a photo of me holding his hand, and my sister did the same thing. My mother didn't have a chance to do it while he was still alive. And so when he passed on, it was just his corpse. And within the hour already, the body was decomposing. It had become green-yellow. And so we took a photo of her holding his arm, and you could see the difference between her arm, which was vibrant and normal skin color, and the corpse's arm, which was just decaying, green and yellow.

Yeah, really. It's very important to see these things. Get face to face with it. Understand it. See how your mind responds to it. See how your mind reacts to it. You might have a visceral feeling, a visceral sensation. That's a common reaction because there's so much anxiety around that dying process. Again, as though he were to see a corpse thrown aside in a charnel ground, bones bleached white, the color of shells, bones heaped up, bones more than a year old, rotted and crumbled to dust, he compares the same body with the dust. This body, too, is of the same nature. It will be like that. It is not exempt from that. So when you get a chance, you should definitely do these body contemplations because if you have an attachment to the body or if you are afraid of death, this is really going to help you with that.

And then there is the flip side of the dying process, which is those who are left behind, right? Death is much more difficult for those who are left behind. What is grief? Grief is not for the person who's dead. Grief is about, I no longer get to speak to this person. I no longer am able to interact with this person. So grief can also be in the form of relationships, the loss of a relationship.