There is so much suffering in our world today…

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As I look at and read the news, I feel so over whelmed and impotent. I ask, “what can I do?” What comes to mind this morning is the Dharma taught by the ancient teacher, Shantideva. He said that we can send our loving thoughts, our aspirations offering help and safety, compassion and courage to all beings.

In The Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, he wrote:

May I be a guard for all those who are protector-less,
A guide for those who journey on the road,
For those who wish to cross the water,
May I be a boat, a raft, a bridge.

May I be an isle for those who yearn for landfall,
And a lamp for those who long for light;
For those who need a resting place, a bed;
For all who need a servant, may I be their slave.

For all those ailing in the world,
Until their every sickness has been healed,
May I myself become for them
The doctor, nurse, the medicine itself.

THE SECOND NOBLE TRUTH

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Stephen Batchelor wrote in ‘Buddhism Without Beliefs,’ “Anguish emerges from craving for life to be other than it is. In the face of a changing world, such craving seeks consolation in something permanent and reliable, in a self that is in control of things, in a God who is in charge of destiny. In yearning for anguish to be assuaged in such ways, we reinforce what creates anguish in the first place; the craving for life other than it is.”

Buddha identified craving as the cause of suffering. The Pali word for craving is tanha, which is a state of incessant, never-ending, unquenchable thirst. We continually look for something outside ourselves to make us happy, secure and content. We attach to people, places and things, ideas, concepts and opinions about ourselves and the world.

Change, impermanence, is one of the most difficult things for us to handle and accept… even though everything changes all the time.

ALL the time.

ALL the time. Faster than we can ever see it. It is the absolute constant of life. Life and we are always changing. Batchelor goes on to say, “Our attachment and our identification with what we want cause us to suffer deeply. The objects are not the problem – our attachment and identification are. The objects are not the problem – our attachment and identification are. When we expect to have and be the same or better forever we suffer.”

THE VIEW

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Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Our happiness and the happiness of those around us depend on our degree of Wise View. Touching deep reality, knowing what is going on inside and outside ourselves is the way to liberate ourselves from Dukkha which is caused by wrong perceptions. Right View is not an ideology, a system or even a path. It is the insight we have into the reality of life, a living insight which fills us with understanding, peace, and love.”

The Noble Eightfold Path is the Buddha’s treatment for the problem of suffering, and it works really well, if we choose to practice it. In the time he spent learning about the causes of suffering he also learned about its cure and in his great compassion for us, taught it for 45 years. Of course, it’s up to us. We are responsible for our practice. He said, “You yourselves must strive. The Buddhas are only teachers.”

He said that Wise View view means: first, to see and to understand things as they really are; second, to realize the Four Noble Truths; third, to see life through the Dharma—to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of life, to understand “not self and inter-being,” and, fourth: to understand nirvana. In its fullest sense, Wise View involves a “wise understanding” of the entire Dharma itself.

The Rohitassa Sutta

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Nati Garcia wrote on Cultural Survival, “On this day in the northern hemisphere, the shortest period of sunlight occurs. It is a moment to settle into the bedding of the Earth, tucked beneath the layers of the cold darkness, and to draw in the warmth of the breath to share stories. Storytelling is most prominent during this dark period as it sparks the imagination, generates laughter and truth, and warms the heart, mind, and spirit.”

For me, finding the practice was like coming home. And when I began to study the Dharma, it was like I already knew those truths. They were already in my body! I just had to be reminded of them. One of the things I love is all the great stories of the Buddha and Ananda and so many other great Bodhisattvas and other beings.

One of my favorite stories from the Pali Canon is Rohitassa Sutta. Rohitassa was this beloved deva–a spirit being. He said he had a special power… he was a fast walker. Wherever he wanted to go, all he had to do was think of it and he would be there. He said, “My speed was as fast as that of a strong archer, well trained, a practiced hand, a practiced sharp shooter shooting a light arrow across the land. My stride stretched as far as the east sea is from the West. And to me endowed with such speed, such a stride, there came the desire, “I will go traveling to the end of the world.” I spent 100 years traveling but without reaching the end of the world!

He got so frustrated! He kept running an running around the world and never got where he wanted to go! So, finally, he went to the Buddha, and said, “World Honored One, is it possible, through travelling, to reach the end of the world?”

And the Buddha replied, “I say Rohittasa, it is not possible, through travelling, to reach the end of the world, because, I also say Rohittasa, the world… the beginning of the world… the end of the world… the whole of the world… is in this fathom-long body, with its sensations, perceptions, and cognition. The whole world is in here.”

What a relief?! It’s all here in the body. The practice is here in the body! The freedom we’re looking for … is already here NOW in this body. The beginning of the path… the end of the path… enlightenment itself.