Dukkha

Dukkha

"One of the first things [the Buddha] has you do is try to take the personal sting out of your suffering. This is very hard for people to do. We’re obsessed with the particulars of our suffering. I’ve noticed that people can go over and over and over again the particulars of why they’re suffering and why their suffering is special. 

This, of course, keeps them more bound to their suffering.

So it’s important that you look into why you may have that feeling: what sort of special attention you want to demand, or you feel you deserve. I’ve run into some people who develop that feeling of deserving special attention to the point where, if they’re not given that special attention, they see themselves as martyrs. There’s a certain enjoyment in martyrdom, but it still leaves you unprotected. It’s still not a solution for suffering.

You don’t want to focus on the particulars. You want to focus on a different kind of detail: the universal details. This is one of the reasons why the Buddha has us develop the brahma-viharas: realizing that everybody is suffering and it would be better if we could all find a way to true happiness; feeling compassion for all those who are suffering and empathetic joy for those who are not.

In other words, if you see that someone’s better off than you are, you don’t give into feelings of jealousy or resentment. You don’t want to pull them down to your level or what you perceive as your level. After all, if you really look carefully into people’s hearts, you find that even people who look happy on the outside still have their suffering. It may seem minor to you, but it’s still suffering. Remember, we’re all looking for happiness and many of us have found at least a measure of happiness but it’s not secure. So there’s no need to feel jealousy for people who are in what seems to be a fortunate but actually is a very unsecure place. You’re happy for them but you also need to have compassion for their insecurity.

Then there’s equanimity, realizing that there’s an awful lot going on, both in the world and in you, that your choices cannot change. There are people you would like to see happier than they are, but they’re not. 

There are things you can’t change in one way or another in your own life. 

You realize that other people have the same problem: There are things in their lives that they would like to change but they can’t.

This is how equanimity gives rise to a sense of samvega: the realization that we’re all suffering in one way or another, and in a lot of ways we can’t do anything about. Unless we practice.

To think of all the suffering in the world is not meant to get you depressed. It’s meant for you to question yourself: How can I find a way out? If I can find a way out, how can I share it with others? This means that instead of looking to other people for a cure for your suffering, leading to your happiness, you want to find what you can within.

This way, having looked at all the sufferings of other beings, and developing a sense of goodwill for all beings, you come back to the particulars of your suffering from a different perspective. Instead of looking at what makes your suffering special or different, you want to look at it in terms of what it has in common with everyone else’s."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Particulars of Your Suffering" (Meditations6)