Future suffering should be avoided
This advice is almost so obvious that it hardly needs saying. Anyone who sees suffering coming will try to avoid it. Anyone who has experienced a possible cause of suffering will try to avoid it in future. Anyone who is already suffering will try not to make the suffering worse, and take steps to reduce the pain.
At its simplest, the advice we are given is to be permanently vigilant, and so future suffering can perhaps be avoided, minimised or reduced. BUT…
What do you do when you see trouble on its way, and you know there is absolutely nothing you can do? For example, I used to suffer from migraine attacks that were so severe I just wanted to die. There was no obvious cause that I could avoid, and all I could do when I felt one coming was live through it in the knowledge that it would only last a day. Vigilance was no use, because whatever I did to try and avoid or limit these attacks made absolutely no difference.
I think also of a Scottish poem by the poet Stephen Mulrine, “The Coming of the Wee Malkies” (HTTP://WWW.GLESGA.UKPALS.COM/GLESCAPOEM.HTM, or you can listen to it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFJFsPJn7q0). The Wee Malkies was a street gang that arrived with a crash and left chaos behind it. Each verse of the poem begins and ends with the question “Whit’ll ye dae?” (“What will you do?”) There is no answer. So what do YOU do when future suffering simply cannot be avoided? Stick your head in the sand? Or tough it out?
Comments
Heyam duhkamanagatam
This is one of my favourite sutras - for a number of reasons. 1) It is short enough for me to remember, 2) it is utterly and beautifully simple (although simple and easy are not the same) and 3) it seems very relevant when I reflect on some of the events I've experienced which are painful.
Time reflecting on this sutra (usually at 3am or thereabouts and which is your mind telling you that you have an "unresolved issue"!) and with the benefit of hindsight, allows you to consider the "was this partly of my own doing?" question.
And where the event involved some sort of relationship (boss, friend, partner, family etc, etc), somewhere deep, deep down inside, I know the answer is yes. A relationship is always about 2 people and one of you cannot always be right and the other cannot always be at fault. (Sometimes, at a rather less deep level, I think they might be, but anyway I just can't get them to admit it.)
As far as avoiding future suffering is concerned, its an on-going process involving all that Yoga has to offer in terms of implementing "skill in action".
It's impossible to be 100% skillful and we all make mistakes so progress is repeating painful events less often in the future than I did in the past.
heyam dukham anagatam
my friend sent me a quote which I think links quite nicely to this sutra,
"If grief or anger arises, let there be grief or anger.
This is the Buddha in all forms, Sun Buddha, Moon Buddha, Happy Buddha, Sad Buddha,
It is the Universe offering all things to awaken and open our hearts"
Sutra for September
Just to say that although this sutra was posted early in August, few people knew of it till two days ago, so I will let this one run till end of September. All contributions, however short, are very welcome.
I might choose a parinama sutra for next time, as I think that might follow on nicely!
Margo
On Suffering
How are we defining suffering?”
For the sake of argument I am going to suggest that suffering is the consequence of parinama (change), mentioned in the previous sutra 2:15. If we take this a step further we may propose that it is our response to change that is the driver of dukha, it is not change itself that is the problem, any more than money is actually the root of all evil.
I recognize a pattern in myself (of course, you may be completely different) where I get to the point where I realise that "I" am the common denominator in "my" suffering. I then jump straight to the answers section in the back of the book. Ah yes, let me see, the cure for suffering is “enlightenment” aka “freedom," see page ...... Hmm! Not actually terribly helpful. Have I missed a step or two here? This is analogous to the hungry man who desiring a tasty meal looks at the pictures in the cookery book but remains hungry. After all these years my first instinct still seems to be to look for the short-cut.
If I may push the cookery metaphor a little further... The tools of astanga yoga may allow us to cook, but for most of us haute-cuisine, and Kaivalya, are probably outside of our immediate skill set.
But on a less frivolous note... I agree with Becky, ksana – a moment to moment awareness, is very helpful. I would also look to “vairagya”, mentioned in 1:12, this offers a very practical way to begin. For my money vairagya is the beginning and end of any spiritual practice. I find these practices to have much in common, and I think they are helpful because so much of our “suffering” is due to the “drama” we play out in our own head. I speak as a self-confessed drama queen of the first rank. For this reason I like the definition of yoga as "relationship.” It often seems to me that in life the essential situation in which we find ourselves cannot be changed, and suffering on some level is unavoidable – like Margo’s migraine. However, we do have a choice about our relationship with it. When we can be with “what-is” rather than, as is so often the case, engaged in states of : “what-might-be”, “how-much-worse”, “what-if”, “if-only”, and my personal favourite “what-will-become-of-me” – then we most often find that the situation is no longer beyond us, and resources that we had thought long since exhausted are suddenly renewed. That is to say that the situation is both exactly the same as before, and yet transformed.
heyam dukhamanagatam
Hi Margo and Rich.
As you say, we certainly wish to avoid suffering, or to reduce its effects, and need to attend to our actions to ensure this.
I feel the teaching on Ksana (III-52) aids this. We can only act in the moment. If we focus the mind on wishing to avoid suffering, then perhaps we may inadvertently focus on suffering! Being in the moment (ksana) means that we can attend to discomfort now, even if that means taking a painkiller and relaxing. Also, it is our present actions which create our future.
So this then links to the very first sutra, and focus on "atha" or "now".
Hi Becky, Yes I think that's
Hi Becky,
Yes I think that's right - the very trying to avoid suffering can itself be a cause of suffering.
Perhaps it comes down to making the right choices in the moment - right action averts suffering, wrong incurs it.
Which then leaves us with identifying what is in fact right action in any given moment.
Seems to me...
Given that our inherent avidya means that we will inevitably suffer, we can stick our heads in the sand, but will again come to suffering, or we can tough it out, but will still again come to suffering.
It seems to me that we have two choices; continue to suffer, or, get to the root of it and overcome avidya.
So the Big Question that then begs... how to overcome avidya?
The answer to which, I suppose Patanjali offers, is ... Yoga.
Personally, I find that regular practice helps to reduce day-to-day suffering, eg stress, aches and pains, feeling blue etc., and in the longer term I find an overall reduction of these. In the very long term (how many lives this may involve I can't imagine) I hope and believe that we will find out what it is to live without suffering.
Whaddaya reckon?
reply to "Seems to me"
Hi Rich!
As I get older (having just celebrated my 69th birthday) I am convinced that in the end there is no escape from suffering in some form. Avidya is always going to be lurking somewhere. But I agree with you that regular practice is a great help.
Hi Margo, It certainly seems
Hi Margo,
It certainly seems that suffering, due to our ignorance, is part of the human condition, at least thus far in our evolution.
I personally hope that at some point we will learn to live lives entirely free from ignorance and suffering. I can't imagine what that might be like in reality but it sounds wonderful - isn't that what freedom is?
In the meantime, as you say, we are indeed stuck with suffering, and thank goodness for Yoga.
Thanks for your thoughts.