pingali@.cs.umass.edu (Sridhar Pingali) (03/06/91)
The following is an excerpt from the Summer 1989 issue of the Inquiring Mind (a journal of the Vipassana community). This is taken from an interview with Joseph Goldstein, a wise and wonderful Dhamma teacher. ------------------ begin excerpt ------------------------- IM: Some vipassana teachers believe that Buddhism teaches that life has suffering. Others understand it to mean not just that life *has* suffering, but that it fundamentally *is* suffering. How do these two different perspectives arise? JG: I think it has to do with confusion around the word "suffering". When people hear that Buddhism teaches that "life is suffering", the conventional connotation does not always make sense, because there is a lot of joy in life, and fulfillment, and happiness, and beauty. And the Buddha was not in any way denying that; that is all part of our experience. Indeed, the Buddha gave many teachings about how to be happy in this life, how to fulfill one's aspirations. He often spoke about the benefits of generosity and morality and meditation as being the causes of many kinds of blessings. So the word "suffering" often misleads people. I think in some way a better word is "unsatisfying"; this process of changing aggregates (*) is ultimately unsatisfying, precisely because it is continually changing, because at a very deep level there's no rest, no reliability, even in happiness. The Buddha's last words contain such a deep truth: "Subject to decay are all conditioned things. Strive on with heedfulness." This is a call for us to examine what are our deepest values. What is the reference point for our lives? Is it something which itself is subject to decay, subject to change? Or can we align the meaning of our lives with the highest fulfillment, that which is beyond life and death? This is the Buddha's great offering: An understanding of what is possible and and a path to realize it. I hope this does not get lost in the transmission of Buddhism to the West. It is not a matter of finding the lowest common denominator of our understanding and preserving that because it is the consensus. In very many respects, genuine realization challenges the popular view. The Buddha declared after his enlightenment, "O House- builder, you have now been seen, you will build no house (body and mind) again...Attained is the unconditioned. Achieved is the end of craving." Can we use the example of the Buddha's enlightenment to seek that heart of wisdom which may be beyond our own current level of understanding? ------------------------ end excerpt ------------------------- (*) the aggregates (skandhas) of body, perceptions, feelings, mental formations and consciousness. These can be seen to be in a constant state of change - arising and falling away, arising and falling away until it becomes clear that there is, in fact, no security - no resting place - to be found anywhere in this body-mind process. Sridhar Pingali