To Suffer or Not to Suffer

Hamlet's Sorrow

"To be or not to be". This statement was painfully uttered by the prince in Shakespeare's powerful tragedy Hamlet. In this soliloquy Hamlet ponders the age old question of life, death and the uncertainties of what follow. Shall Hamlet remain in this human realm which causes him great suffering or "escape" to oblivion? Paradise? or Hell?

It is a sorrowful condition that Hamlet is in. He has no peace in the human realm. Yet he has no guarantee that his life will be better by committing suicide. No doubt Hamlet did not practice Ch'an. If he practiced Ch'an he would be much better equipped to, as Shakespeare put it, suffer the "slings and arrows" of his tormentors. In some manner or another we have all experienced a certain degree of Hamlet's dilemma. How many times in your life have you ever wished that you were somewhere other than where you were at the immediate moment? The more you focused on the unpleasurable situation the more you suffered.

Do you believe that by Hamlet ending his life that he will improve his lot? The Ch'an practitioner knows he will only acerbate his problem. Whatever his condition is in this lifetime, he will carry that as the beginning seed of his next lifetime. But this is not the question of this essay. The question here is how does Hamlet end his suffering. As stated earlier, if he chooses life he sees only suffering, if he chooses death there is the uncertainty of what will follow. Poor Hamlet cannot find peace anywhere. Hamlet's greatest enemy is himself. He only sees his tormentor's actions. He does not see what has come before. To him the slings and arrows that he is suffering are uncalled for. To him there is no rhyme nor reason to these actions. To him there is no justice in the world.

Turn the Other Cheek

Have you ever felt this way? Are you confused as to why innocent people are persecuted? Why do animals suffer so? Did you ever feel that someone was unnecessarily picking at you or disliked you for no particular reason at all? Did you ever feel, like Hamlet, that the whole world was against you. It is difficult to use intellectual reasoning to fathom life's seemingly unjust course. It is the ineffectiveness of intellectual reasoning, which in fact, allows the suffering of what appears to be inequities to affect a person's mind, and thus cause suffering to such a person.

Why is this so? It is because the intellectual reasoning is only focused on the "effect" of a particular situation. If someone is to slap you in the face, what would you make of it? Rather, what would your "self" make of it? If you have not practiced Ch'an you would feel as if it is a personal affront to you. This affront would be more aggravated if there were other people present. What would your feelings be towards the person who slapped you? Would you hate this person? Would you have a feeling for revenge? Would you coward from this person? Indeed, it would be difficult to love this person. The Bible says to "turn the other cheek". Could you do so?

At the time of the slapping the conscious and subconscious mind will begin a speedy assessment of this assault on the flesh. For example, immediately after the slap, it is likely that even before it reaches your conscious mind, the subconscious mind is instructing the body to protect itself or to turn itself away from the assailant. The assault on the flesh is a significant occurrence in a persons life. Unless one is a pugilist, one is not accustom to having their body struck.

How one responds to this attack is very telling of a person. If a person is not living in the present moment they will only experience an attack on the flesh. Perhaps at that moment they would immediately plan and carry out their counterattack. If the moment is not propipitous for action, one will hold this feeling of revenge inside them until such time as they are able to carry out their revenge.

There are different types of attacks that one may experience in their lives. One may experience an unprovoked attack by a thief, a bully or the very unfortunate circumstance of a rapist. In these situations one truly must be living in the present moment to ascertain whether or not a counter attack or escape is the most prudent course of action.

Bodhidharma's Slap

Suppose you are in a Ch'an master's presence, and while you are meditating you begin dozing. Although you believe you are in a deep state of samadhi you are actually in a deep slumber. The next thing you experience is a whack! The Ch'an master has hit you with his incense board. It is highly unlikely that you would jump off your meditation cushion and engage in a counter attack against the Ch'an master. But what of your mind? What is your mind doing? Is it still calm? Most likely it is now alert, but is it calm? Is there a feeling in your mind of embarrassment? Of wanting to escape? What are the sensations that you are feeling? Where do they go in your body? Do you perceive this event as a fortunate event or an unfortunate event?

Once Bodhidharma, after his arrival in China, was approached by a very high level Chinese monk who wanted to test Bodhidharma's Ch'an understanding. Bodhidharma slapped the Chinese monk, all to the surprise of the monks who had accompanied the high level Chinese monk. All of the monks were shocked and angered by Bodhidharma's action except for the monk who had been slapped. This monk who had been slapped immediately began to bow to Bodhidharma. Do you know why? In the moment that Bodhidharma slapped this monk this monk realized his strong attachment to himself. He saw in an instant what the subconscious and conscious mind were sensing, perceiving, and plotting. He saw in the wink of an eye's time his "self," and how his self held on to every perceived hostile act towards it. Finally, he perceived a hand hitting flesh. A mere observation of nothing more than phenomena arising and passing. With this arising and passing of phenomena there is nothing to hold on to. So how can one have been slighted by another. If you can grasp the meaning of this Bodhidharma story you would be better able to understand those incidents that take place in your life which you perceive as an aggravated assault against yourself,and which you feel requires immediate retaliation either by words or action.

See the Roots of Your Suffering

There is one other aspect that will assist you in understanding those perceived assaults against your "self". As we discussed earlier, if there is a perceived action taken against you by another person, whether by words or physical conduct, from where does this action come from? You might say that this action comes from an incident that arose five minutes before or the day before. In all likelihood you will still be only seeing the affect of the perceived transgression against you. You might not see when this conduct actually took root. This is the problem that many people are afflicted with. Because they can only see the action that is being perpetrated towards them they do not understand from whence and where this action came from. As a result they feel that some form of counter retribution is required to protect the self. Perhaps not even as much to protect the self than as to satiate the self.

Have you ever said to yourself "I wish I wouldn't have said that", "I wish I wouldn't have done that"? More than likely these feeling come after you have engaged in some counter attack conduct after a perceived assault on the self.

Perceive the Scale Not Just the Weight

When people are attacking us or acting bad towards us we often feel as if a great weight is pressing down upon us. All we want to do is lift this weight from us. Unfortunately, many people try to lift the weight by counter attacking. This is only a temporary remedy as you will reap what you sow. After you have counter attacked you feel as if this mental weight has been lifted from you. However, when the re-counter attack happens the weight once again is put upon you. This is because the law of causality is working. In the law of causality, whatever has been taken away must be replaced at a latter time. Whatever action is caused must at some later date be returned. The counter attack merely serves to place the unpleasantness back in the court of the person who has served the unpleasantness to you. After sending this ball of retribution back to this person most assuredly they will once again return it to you. You are engaged in a crazy and endless tennis game of retribution. And you will suffer. You will suffer for not just this lifetime but for lifetimes.

How does one stop this madness? One stops it first by perceiving what is occurring at the time the retribution is happening. One must see it as one side of a scale. What has previously been lifted from your side of the scale must now be returned. If you received this retribution you must be without any thought of hostility or anger or revenge in your mind. You cannot think of taking any counter conduct towards the perpetrator. Try to see this retribution as something that has taken its seed perhaps countless lifetimes ago. You must hold the ball. Do not send it back with more retribution. Any momentary satiation of lifting the weight from you through revenge will soon be replaced with a new ball. However, if you do not send the ball of retribution back to the other person you will be liberated. Then you will eliminate a small part of your karmic affliction.

Accept the Retribution and Repay Karmic Debts

As you begin to conduct your life in this manner, your life will change - as you now plant "good karmic seeds." You did not have to wait for the next lifetime to obtain the serenity of the discovery of where this retribution comes from. Your suffering in this lifetime will be diminished and hopefully some day eradicated. As you see those who wish you harm as merely repaying something that you have done to them in the past, it is as if you have now repaid an old debt. Now, do you want to borrow more money? Do you want to owe someone something that will have to be repaid in the future? Or do you want to live a peaceful life.

When you see life in this manner, that there is a series of retribution that come to you, then you will begin to obtain wisdom to understand life's seeming injustices. You can understand why things happen because you no longer are looking at the effect. You are looking at the entire scale. So when someone who appears to be innocent suffers so much you know that that person's suffering arises from past events that have occurred in that person's life, or a past lifetime, and the retributions are now coming to this person. It is our blindness that causes us not to see the entire scale. Once seeing the scale, our life and those around us will be enriched.

It is hoped that you will go through life understanding this concept of cause and effect. When the retribution comes to you you should not be so sorrowful about it. You should use it as a measure to practice, to keep your mind in the present moment. Do not think immediately of retaliation. Use your wisdom to understand what is occurring.

Retribution Comes Like the Flu; No Need to Suffer

Some people go though their life such that because they are happy at present, when the source of their happiness is taken away from them, they are sorrowful. Ohh, how they suffer from the fact that their happiness has been taken away! When the happiness returns they are constantly worried about when their happiness will be taken away from them again. They constantly worry about things that may happen to them in the future. They worry about paying their bills, they worry about whether their boyfriend or girlfriend will leave them, they worry about whether they will pass a test or not. They are constantly worrying about whether they will be late to arrive at an appointment. Always worried, always suffering, it is all in the mind, nothing but the mind.

You should see life as a series of times when you have a healthy body and when you have the flu. Most likely those of you that are reading this essay have had many encounters with the flu. Most assuredly the flu is perceived by you as not a comfortable event in your life. More than likely you will have several more bouts with the flu in your life.

Yet while a person is healthy they do not go around worrying "Oh my goodness I am going to get the flu someday. Oh I know I am going to get the flu, woe is me. I am so worried about the flu - it will make me feel so uncomfortable. I will have to blow my nose. I will be hot and cold and I will have to lie in bed and my body will ache. Ohh, and I may even throw up. Oh what suffering."

From where does this suffering come from? The suffering comes from the mind. Why? Because the person who is perceiving the flu does not have the flu right now. They are only thinking of the suffering that the flu may bring them. However, we do not think this way when we are healthy. We do not think about the flu that we are going to catch. Yet it is nearly inevitable that we will catch the flu again.

Then why are we constantly thinking of other unpleasantries that could happen to us in the future. Such as economic, family, or scholastic failures that have not yet come to pass. We worry about them; we keep them in our mind. These thoughts are so real to us. Our suffering is so real. Yet is has not happened. Then why do we suffer? We suffer because our mind creates the suffering, not the event itself. How many times in your life have you worried about something that never happened? How many hours, days or months did you spend worrying. What a waste of time. Like the worrying about the flu, potentially good moments spent worrying about bad moments. Live in the present, there are no regrets of the past and no fears of the future there.

Returning to the flu example for a moment. I once attended a seven day Ch'an retreat. During this retreat one of the participants had a severe case of the flu. After we finished the retreat I asked him if he was o.k. His response showed a great deal of wisdom. "You should try this sometime. It was quite an experience. I did not feel uncomfortable." Why didn't he feel uncomfortable? Because the suffering is created by the mind. His mind was not on the idea that having the flu was uncomfortable. It was merely in the present moment. He did not suffer thinking how long he had had the flu or how much longer he would have it. He was only in present moment. Even when you have the flu there are times which are more uncomfortable than others. Nevertheless when your mind is in the present moment there is only that moment. There is no suffering in the present moment.

It is hoped that as you go through life you will not be like the poor soul Hamlet who suffers so from his own mind's wanderings. You should be like this fellow from the Ch'an retreat, always keeping your mind in the present moment. Not coloring your life with pleasant or unpleasant. Merely experiencing life at its fullest. You should understand from where the retribution against you originates. Do not send the ball back. Walk in peace and wisdom.