Suffering: Understanding Gets at the Root of The Problem

Suffering: Understanding Gets at the Root of The Problem

In order to become free from suffering we must first have some understanding of its causes. Suffering exists from the very beginning of life. We have no conscious recollection of existence within the confines of the womb, but the common experience is that we emerge from it crying. Birth is a great trauma.

Having started life, we are all bound to encounter sufferings of sickness and old age. Yet no matter how sick we may be, no matter how decayed and decrepit, none of us wants to die, because death is a great misery.

Every living creature must face all these sufferings. And as we pass through life, we are bound to encounter other sufferings, various types of physical or mental pain. We become involved with the unpleasant and separated from the pleasant. We fail to get what we want; instead we get what we do not want. All these situations are suffering.

These instances of suffering are readily apparent to anyone who thinks about it. But if we look at a very deep level, we will see that suffering is the inordinate attachment that each one of us has developed toward this body and toward this mind, with its cognition, perceptions, sensations, and reactions. People cling strongly to their identity—their mental and physical being—when ultimately there are only evolving processes. Clinging to an unreal idea of oneself, to something that is, in fact constantly changing, is suffering.

Attachment
There are several types of attachment. First there is the attachment to the habit of seeking sensual gratification. An addict takes a drug because he or she wishes to experience the pleasurable sensation that the drug produces, even though he or she knows that by taking the drug it reinforces the addiction. In the same way we are addicted to the condition of craving. As soon as a desire is satisfied, we generate another. The object is secondary; the fact is that we seek to maintain the state of craving continually, because this very craving produces in us a pleasurable sensation that we wish to prolong. Craving becomes a habit that we cannot break, an addiction. And just as an addict gradually develops tolerance toward the chosen drug and requires ever larger doses in order to achieve intoxication, our cravings steadily become stronger the more we seek to fulfill them. In this way we can never come to the end of craving. And so long as we crave, we can never be happy.

Another great attachment is to the “I,” the ego, the image we have of ourselves. For each of us, the “I” is the most important person in the world. We behave like a magnet surrounded by iron fillings: it will automatically arrange the filings in a pattern centered on itself, and with just as little reflection we all instinctively try to arrange the world according to our liking, seeking to attract the pleasant and to repel the unpleasant. But none of us is alone in the world; one “I” is bound to come into conflict with another. The pattern each seeks to create is disturbed by the magnetic fields of others, and we ourselves become subject to attraction or repulsion. The result can only be unhappiness, suffering.

Nor do we limit attachment to the “I”: we extend it to “mine,” whatever belongs to us. We each develop great attachment to what we posses, because it is associated with us, it supports the image of “I.” This attachment would cause no problem if what one called “mine” were eternal, and the “I” remained to enjoy it eternally. But the fact is that sooner or later the “I” is separated from the “mine.” The parting time is bound to come. When it arrives, the greater the clinging to “mine,” the greater the suffering will be.

And attachment extends still further—to our views and our beliefs. No matter what their actual content may be, no matter whether they are right or wrong, if we are attached to them they will certainly make us unhappy. We are each convinced that our own views and traditions are the best and become very upset whenever we hear them criticized. If we try to explain our views and others do not accept them, again we become upset. We fail to recognize that each person has his or her own beliefs. It is futile to argue about which view is correct; more beneficial would be to set aside any preconceived notions and to try to see reality. But our attachment to views prevents us from doing so, keeping us unhappy.

Finally, for most people there is attachment to religious forms and ceremonies. We tend to emphasize the external expressions of religion more than their underlying meaning and to feel that anyone who does not perform such ceremonies cannot be a truly religious person. We forget that without its essence, the formal aspect of religion is an empty shell. Piety in reciting prayers or performing ceremonies is valueless if the mind remains filled with anger, passion, and ill will. To be truly religious we must develop the religious attitude: purity of heart, love, and compassion for all. But our attachment to the external forms of religion leads us to give more importance to the letter of it than to the spirit of it. We miss the essence of religion and therefore remain miserable.
All our sufferings, whatever they may be, are connected to one or another of these attachments. Attachment and suffering are always found together.

Conditioned Arising: The Chain of Cause and Effect by Which Suffering Originates
What causes attachment? How does it arise? Analyzing our own nature will show us that it develops because of the momentary mental reactions liking and disliking. The brief, unconscious reactions of the mind are repeated and intensified moment after moment, growing into powerful attractions and repulsions, into all our attachments. Attachment is merely a developed form of the fleeting reaction. This is the immediate cause of suffering.

What causes reactions of liking and disliking? Looking deeper within ourselves we will see that they occur because of sensation. We feel a pleasant sensation and start liking it; we feel an unpleasant sensation and start disliking it.

Now why these sensations? What causes them? Examining still further within our selves we see that they arise because of contact: contact of the eye with a vision, contact of the ear with a sound, contact of the nose with an odor, contact of the tongue with a taste, contact of the body with something tangible, contact of the mind with any thought, emotion, idea, imagination, or memory. Through the five physical senses and the mind we experience the world. Whenever an object or phenomenon contacts any of these six bases of experience, a sensation is produced, pleasant or unpleasant.

These six sensory bases are essential aspects of the flow of mind and matter. These processes arise because of consciousness, the act of cognition which separates the world into the knower and the known, subject and object, “I” and “other.” From this separation results identity. Every moment consciousness arises and assumes a specific mental and physical form. In the next moment, again, consciousness takes a slightly different form. Throughout one’s existence, consciousness flows and changes.

Then what causes this flow of consciousness? Consciousness arises because of reaction. The mind is constantly reacting, and every reaction gives impetus to the flow of consciousness so that it continues to the next moment. The stronger a reaction, the greater the impetus that it gives. The slight reaction of one moment sustains the flow of consciousness only for a moment. But if that momentary reaction of liking and disliking intensifies into craving or aversion, it gains in strength and sustains the flow of consciousness for many moments, for minutes, for hours. And if the reaction of craving and aversion intensifies still further, it sustains the flow for days, for months, perhaps for years or a lifetime.

And what causes these reactions? Observing at the deepest level of reality, we begin to understand that reaction occurs because of ignorance. We are unaware of the fact that we react, and unaware of the real nature of what we react to. We are ignorant of the impermanent, impersonal nature of our existence and ignorant that attachment to it brings nothing but suffering. Not knowing our real nature, we react blindly. Not even knowing that we have reacted, we persist in our blind reactions and allow them to intensify. Thus we become imprisoned in the habit of reacting, because of ignorance.

By this chain of cause and effect—conditioned arising—we have been brought into our present state of existence and face a future of suffering.

The truth is clear: suffering begins with ignorance about the reality of our true nature, about the phenomenon labeled “I.” And the next cause of suffering is the mental habit of reaction. Blinded by ignorance, we generate reactions of craving and aversions, which develop into attachment, leading to all types of unhappiness. The habit of reacting is the karma, the shaper of our future. And the reaction arises only because of ignorance about our real nature. Ignorance, craving, and aversion are the three roots from which grows all our suffering in life.