Buddhism is Isness, Part 2

The other thing people get wrong about Buddhism is that it's nihilistic or somehow focused on suffering. This is a common misunderstanding. It's easy to see why someone might feel this way: the first noble truth, after all, is some variation of "life is suffering." I like to tweak this translation to something more like "suffering exists in life." But whatever, it seems to start from this very negative place. Life is suffering. Often, newcomers to Buddhism don't love that, which is fair. Who wants to focus on suffering? 

But what Buddhism, and zen in particular, is trying to do, is a get person to ask: where is that suffering coming from? Often, we view suffering as something external to us, outside stuff making us suffering internally. In zen, this duality of inside and outside is immediately broken down in zazen. There is no such thing as inside and outside, and the practitioner begins to experience this after practicing zazen (seated meditation). This takes some time, but it does become apparent. (what does this mean for the literary cliche "you can never really know anyone?" I've been writing toward this cliche for years, in an attempt to dismantle it). 

So, where is suffering coming from? Buddhism says it comes from our mind, which is an intermingled part of the world. So, what Buddhism is doing here is going: take responsibility for your life, for your own suffering, for the stories you tell yourself, unwittingly, that cause your suffering. We practitioners don't get to blame our suffering on something external - we are making it. Caveat: if you get beat up, abused, harassed, neglected, yes, those things are "external" forms of suffering that buddhism acknowledges as real, but what buddhism is really focused on is our sense of dissatisfaction, that life is dissatisfying, that we can never get what we want, and we can never avoid what we don't want. 

So, we're wrapped up in this very neat game of: I want what I want, and I want to avoid what I want to avoid. Capitalism plays on this perfectly. It's the default mode for all human beings: to focus on my own pleasures and my own safety, my own aversion to displeasure or suffering. Then to tell a story about that in an attempt to harden it into a reality. 

Buddhism says: let go of that bullshit game, that bs story. Don't chase after what you want, and don't be averse to what you don't want, because guess what: you're not in control. Over and over, the practitioner learns: I'm not in control. So, let go. Let go of this self that wants and craves and wants to avoid pain and suffering. 

Here, buddhism is isness. Just be. Just be what you are. So, in sitting zazen, we simply sit. We just are what we are. All kinds of thoughts, emotions, cravings, aversions come up, but we are not those things. What are we? Buddhism asks. Who am I? Over and over, this question. Over and over, letting go of that egotistical self that wants life to be just so. Letting go in order to what: experience life as it is. Not as we want it to be. Right there, as-it-is, is liberation. Freedom. Freedom of the desire to control everything, and in that desire to control, when we fail, which we constantly do, that's where suffering is. And buddhism says, just drop that control and you're free. So, Buddhism is practicing isness, which itself is freedom, and which allows people to be compassionate to other people who are swept up in the cravings and aversions and attempts to control life that inevitably lead to suffering and pain. 

Okay, so I thought I was only going to do two of these posts, but I'm going to do one more, probably about life and death, and how zen buddhism views those things.