mettavalokanaya_international_buddhist_magazine_september_2020

Suffering and
Dukkha….
Identify dukkha, understand dukkha!
You can then know and understand
dukkha, and finally lay down dukkha!
I was told that when we face dukkha,
we must bear it “Bear dukkha, and you
would not feel dukkha then”. What do
you think of this statement? Do not
fear dukkha, do not flee dukkha, do not
bear dukkha. Dukkha is not meant to
be borne, but for humans to recognize.
Dukkha is therefore like a learning tool
for humans. You get to know dukkha
first, then gradually lay it down. When a
person bears dukkha, and says that after
a while, he/she will get used to it, that’s
dangerous! If he/she keeps on bearing
that, and just gets used to dukkha!
Most humans lead their habitual way of
life, without consideration. Habituation
is not good. If you allow yourself to
be habituate to dukkha, you stand no
chance of knowing it. When you do
not know dukkha, how. can you ever
lay it down? These days, people bear
dukkha and get used to it. So, they do
not recognize dukkha, and cannot lay it
down.
Why then must one live with
dukkha? Why not consider dukkha, so
that dukkha is identified, and can be
laid down? Do not bear dukkha and
allow yourself to get used to it. Take
a married couple, for example. The
husband snored, the wife did not like it,
but she learnt to live with that. She had
bad sleep, listening to the snoring each
night, for twenty years. It was like hell
at first. But later, she got used to the
sound and became less stressful. She
did not think of relieving herself from
dukkha, just deceiving herself to believe
that it was normal. She did not dare to
face the truth. In fact, she suffered, but
kept telling herself that she was happy.
Most people in this world spend their
lives with things familiar to them. One
in fact suffers but covers that up. When
will they look down at themselves, and
face the fact that it is indeed dukkha?
Only after knowing dukkha well can one
lay it down!
In this case, if the wife did not
allow herself to get used to the snoring,
how could she solve her problem? The
wife must seek to solve her dukkha,
using her wisdom, knowing that her
husband’s snoring was the cause of
her suffering. She must not cover that
up, bearing the suffering herself, until
she gets used to it. She must seek a
way to solve the problem. There exist
various methods to cure snoring. There
must be one that was applicable to
her husband’s trouble. Having solved
the problem, the suffering ends and
she could be proud of herself to have
solved her suffering and to have laid
down her dukkha by herself. This is the
real solution to dukkha! She is no longer
entrapped in the cage of dukkha, and
thus free from dukkha!
How do we advise or explain
dhamma to salvage a person from
dukkha? The advice can be made
directly and indirectly. First, people
must believe in “The Law of Kamma”
or “The Law of the Universe”. It is
not strange why humans believe in
black magic, but not in sacred or holy
items, as they are both invisible. This
is because humans do not understand
and cannot access sacredness. Those
with little knowledge of Dhamma
fall prey to certain groups of devious
people. There are those in black magic
who deal with invoking ghosts, using
them for hideous purposes that easily
lure those obsessed with defilements.
Humans are victimized by witch doctors
performing black magic or witchcraft
making some people blindly believe in
black magic, as results can be claimed
to be shown, such as sending nails or
a piece of buffalo skin into an enemy’s
body, or enchanting over someone
else’s husband or one’s husband. These
can be displayed to physical eyes to
convince desperate people without
the use of wisdom. Those performing
superstition, black magic and invoking
ghosts in earning their living must
bear grave results of kammas! But
sacredness is hard to perceive as not
everyone can see sacredness, except
the faithful and pure minded because
sacred ones are perceived by the mind.
Humans therefore hardly understand
about sacredness, and mostly confuse
it with superstition, believing that
they are the same. In fact, they are on
the opposite sides, like the sky and an
abyss. You can study further and come
to understanding, and you will see more
sacred ones.
It must be admitted that humans
have kammas as their birthplace.
Human beings are born because of the
outcome of their kamma in the past.
They are in the cycle of birth and death
for perpetual lives. In each life, a lot of
kamma is committed, both good and
bad kammas. Those kammas result in
the birth in each life. Humans can reduce
their own bad kammas in the past.
They do not realize that in conducting
a life each day, there are both sukha
(happiness), and dukkha (suffering) as
results from past kammas, or possibly,
Thailand
Col. Pongsak
Tangkana M.D.
“The Law
of the
Universe”….
with the new kammas committed, or
as results from both. To “reduce” past
kammas, merits and donations must be
made in the right methods, with firm
intention and stated that the merits and
donations made are meant as a fund to
be used in the reduction and abolition
of your own kammas. You then ask
your own pure soul, citta viiiiiana, with
experiences from all lives and births
and full knowledge of your past stories,
as well as the sacred things in yourself
which protect you, jointly consider
to pay off debts of kamma that you
committed as deemed appropriate, as
you cannot consider what you cannot
see, so let the invisible things consider
for you, namely your own citta viniiana
and sacred items in yourself. Once paid,
that kamma disappears, with no results
on your life. You can then no longer
suffer from that kamma.
50 l Mettavalokanaya l September l 2020 2020 l September l Mettavalokanaya l 51