What is Dukkha

I don't think there is or was anyone with most expertise and insight into what this words meant other than the Lord Buddha himself. But he advised each one of us to understand the meaning by ourselves, since that is the way to Nibbana.

What I am going to write in my blog today is my understanding of Dukkha as I have experienced and seen it up to date. I am sure my views will change an evolve with time and more practice but what is going to help me or not is what I understand today. So I will share my understandings as of now.

During this past year, I have had many changes in my life. Some have been positive and happy experiences and other have been not so and has brought much unhappiness and worry to me. But all these things have made me contemplate on the unfolding of life. Life is a chain of events. They arise, stay for a recent amount of time, even if it means seconds, then fade away. No matter how big or small these events are they all have the same characteristic. Same with emotions. Usually our emotions are associated with these events. Either they arise along with the events or after or before an event. Either way they too arise in the mind and stay for a while and fade away. I have watched this happen over and over again over the past year.

I have found that getting emotionally involved with any of these events creates a lot of energy within myself. The energy can be negative or positive. Negative means it creates anxiety, restlessness and worry etc within my mind whereas positive ones create elation, joy, excitement, restlessness etc. When I have looked deep into all these emotions, the positive and the negative both, I have noticed that they both create a kind of waves in the mind. It really is insignificant what emotional value we attach to it. Either way it is a movement. It's like throwing a pebble into clam, clear water. Does not matter whether you throw a pebble or a diamond, it creates ripples. I see the same in the mind. Good or bad the mind moves.

This movement I have found to be Dukkha or suffering. One might say, if things are happy why should you call it Dukkha. What I have experienced it that as a result of that arising and fading away, this happiness too will go away and in its place, we will have an emptiness which we will find not to our liking. Or it might be replaces by a negative event. So it goes on and on and on. I find this exhausting. I mean at the the end of the day everything boils down to this principle.

But I get involved nevertheless. I am sure I do that because my understanding of this constant change which the Buddha called impermanence is not strong enough.

But I have come to this understanding of Dukkha.

When I saw that I felt a sense of sadness. Then what is all this living for. The things we do, the things we strive for to make things better if at the end it all falls into this ever churning cycle. I contemplated on this too.

I realised that the things we do, the things we strive are actually not the things we need to put forth energy into. I mean don't get me wrong. We need to earn a living and put food on the table and pay the bills and so on. But all of us strive for much more than just living and putting food on the table. We need cars, vacations, nice clothes, parties, friends and fancy foods etc. All of these things that we put forth most of our energy into ultimately end up in that principle of arising, staying and fading away. At the end what does it leave us with? Memories, yearnings, expectations all of which I see tends to create restlessness in us. But only a few us notice this. Most of us tend to think of it as life.

I beg to differ. I think we don't understand life fully. As a result we don't know how to live it. I remember somewhere in a talk or in a book Ayya Khema said that we need to learn to live life. I will not fully agree with her. The things we have been passed on by our elders, society, norms, customs etc are there because we have created it. Not necessarily out of understanding how to live life. Therefore I think we need to figure out how to live life fully, Not just because we were born into it, not just because most of the world and people around us tell us to live in a particular way, not just because we have no other choice.

I believe when we learn to live life as it ought to be done, there will be a lessening of Dukkha,  I have learnt that when you learn these skills and methods of living, your life becomes easier rather than difficult. Your emotional responses to life becomes more peaceful rather than conflicting. As this unfold our emotional ups and downs to events of life will become less and less.

This is not "NOT FEELING". In fact its the opposite. You feel and see things fully and clearly. But it does not sway you in one direction or another, because your mind had seen that no matter what, it all follows the arising, staying and fading away principle. Within that, it's best to stay serene rather than get involved.

I have found this way of living, at times when I am able to, to be very peaceful and enjoyable. In fact it much more enjoyable than getting involved emotionally. You can simply sit back and enjoy the drama. Once its over you can quietly leave, instead of crying for the fact that you don't have it anymore or wondering when you get to see it again. You are in your sweet spot.

The Buddha said that where there is Dukkha arising, in that place itself is the cessation of it. I am beginning to see how right he was. I used to avoid dukkha or run away from it but now I simply cannot even if I wanted to. Because I have this deep belief that I need to stay with it until I am out of it. For once Dukkha runs it course out, there will be that sense of peace and quiet. But  it has to be faced with and dealt with.

So these are some of my understandings of Dukkha. I am sure I must have rambled on but for me writing these feelings/thoughts is essential so that I can come back to it again and again. These things have a way of vanishing into thin air. So the only way to make sure I don't lose them is to write them down.