Love and Suffering: The Heart of a Buddha

February 10, 2002

The first is Thursday, Feb. 14 -- Valentine's Day. All around us people and especially advertisers are talking about love and romance. Buddhism has a lot to say about love (as I'm sure you gleaned from the Metta meditation we did earlier). The Buddha taught the value of cultivating feelings of loving-kindness, good will, mercy, friendliness, and compassion for all our fellow beings, human and non-human. Metta is what they call a Brahmavihara, a Divine Abode, a beautiful and happy state of mind. And it's very encouraging to hear that such a mind-state or attitude can be strengthened through deliberate practice. It's not that you can just decide to be happy and automatically have it happen. But slowly and gradually through steady and persevering practice, we can cultivate the happiness of loving feelings in our heart.

Most of us would consider this good news. But stay tuned - there's much more to it. Although you hear a lot about love and compassion in Buddhism, you never hear about romance.

Why not? There is, of course, a strong undercurrent of the erotic in romance, but that's not the problem. The problem is that romance is based in large part on illusion, on idealizing the beloved, piling up accolades on this poor little finite being. Yes, your beloved has many wonderful and fetching qualities, but let's not get too carried away. Once you start to actually live with this beloved person you may find they have different ideas about what counts as a "messy" house; they may have different ideas about raising children or spending money or discussing feelings or about politics and on and on and on. The possibilities for difference, the possibilities for conflict are endless - all of which romance tries to totally ignore.

Now for all the talk of loving-kindness in Buddhism, there is something even more fundamental and that is wisdom. Wisdom means seeing things clearly for what they are, seeing the whole picture regardless of how pleasant or unpleasant it is. There is about Buddhism a kind of relentless realism that looks life straight in the face without blinking. All the Buddhist meditations that are called "mindfulness" practices are designed to deepen a simple, steady, unswerving attention to what's actually happening.

And what do Buddhists see when they look at life without illusion? They see suffering, unhappiness, dissatisfaction, disappointment and distress - that's the norm.

Let's return to our romantic Valentine's couple and see if we can look through some of the illusions-

There are times of taking delight in each other - that's true.

There are times of conflict - that's also true.

But go deeper, a Buddhist would say, and don't be afraid to see the whole picture and recognize the harsh truth that this beloved person, for all their good qualities, is going to die. It's a universal law - all things that have parts will fall apart; all things that are composed will decompose; that is their nature. It's a startling statistic - today will see the deaths of approximately 250,000 people; each and every day about ¼ million people die, and one day it will be your beloved's turn; and, of course, one day it will be your turn/my turn.

This is not good news; this is tremendously sad, but isn't it the unvarnished truth? I mentioned at the beginning that there are two dates coming up this week worth noting. The second is Feb. 13 which this year is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent as observed by Christians. In the Catholic liturgy the priest will imprint ashes on your forehead while repeating the verse from Genesis: "Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you shall return." (Gn 3:19). The truth about death and suffering is not just a Buddhist truth; it's just the way things are.

But again, stay tuned because this isn't the whole story either. The rest of the story will be both challenging and hopeful as well as realistic.

And the best way to present it would be to go back 2500 years to the life story of the Buddha himself.

Born the son of a king, he had every material advantage possible - lavish food and drink, wealth, power status, and 1000 dancing girls to play with. It's clear that he had experienced about all the romance a body can stand.

But then he left the artificial environment of the palace to look at life's realities with his own eyes. And what he found profoundly shocked him. He found sickness all around him, he found the pains of old age in those who had lived long enough, and he found death.

When he returned to the palace, the dancing girls no longer seemed alluring. It's tough to sustain romance in the face of sickness, old age, and death. So now in the deepest way he wanted to discover the meaning of life where sickness, old age, and death are inevitable. And so he began one of the most famous spiritual quests in history. And what he discovered, after years of searching, turned out to be very good news indeed.

What he discovered was, first of all what he took to be the cause of all this suffering. It's attachment, self-centered desire, craving, narcissism, the yearning to impose your will on events, the yearning to have things go your own way. When you are attached to things being a certain way, you inevitably suffer, he said, because things are always changing, shifting, and dying away. The world is through and through impermanent, a scene of constant change. If you take it into your mind that you can be happy only if things are this particular way and if somehow that particular way actually occurs, then enjoy - but don't be surprised when the world keeps on turning and the situation changes, because it always does.

But notice carefully where the suffering comes from in the Buddha's view - the problem is not the change and impermanence; the problem is in our attitude toward change and impermanence. It's in our attachment to things. If we could learn to not be attached, if we could learn to be in harmony with the changes as they unfold, then there would be no suffering. Happiness comes from non-attachment.

This is absolutely central now and not so easy to express.

Attachment is a problem - it expresses greed and craving for things to be a certain way.
But then the other extreme, detachment, is also a problem - it expresses aversion or fear or aloofness from the world.

Non-attachment aims to be with the world exactly as it is without becoming enslaved to it, to be in the world but not of it, to neither cling to the world nor push it away, to enjoy and savor the things of life and yet be able to let them go when things change. It's a middle path between attachment and detachment.

Let's go back to the three shocking truths the Buddha found himself faced with and see how this can work out. He's going to make some radical claims.

1) Sickness - sickness is suffering only if we are attached to health. If we think we're supposed to be in perfect health every minute of our lives, then getting sick will be very disappointing - we'll be upset and angry and wonder "why me?"

But it's possible to allow sickness when it comes and not let your mind spin out in futile resistance. As they say in Zen, when you're sick, just be sick. Yes, there is physical pain and discomfort and that's not to be minimized. But the experience of many Buddhists is that you can relax into the pain and come to accept it; and to the extent you can relax into the pain, it's not a problem, it's not suffering. Perhaps you've heard of the work of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn at the U Mass Medical Center Pain and Stress Clinic where he has used meditation to treat many thousands of patients with intractable physical pain and has had very good success.

So sickness is suffering only if we are attached to health. Let go of unrealistic expectations about health, and sickness need not be a mental problem. Notice, by the way, that non-attachment to health doesn't mean detachment from health -you still take all the sensible precautions about diet and exercise and safety that you should, you just learn not to freak out when these precautions break down, which they always do.

2), and more simply, old age is suffering only because we are attached to youth. If you think you're supposed to have the body of a 20 year old until you're 90, then you're in for some unpleasant surprises. But if you're wise and realistic, it's possible to age quite gracefully, peacefully accepting inevitable change without bitterness or anger.

3) and most profoundly, death is suffering only if you're attached to life. If you think you're supposed to live forever in the body you presently have, then again you're in for a major disappointment. But if you really accept the truth of mortality, not just acknowledging it intellectually but really understanding and accepting it, death need not be suffering - it can be accepted in great peace.

The most wonderful thing in my life is that I am married to an extraordinary woman who is a hospice chaplain and Nancy tells me story after story of people finishing their unfinished business and dying in great peace and acceptance. She never tells me their names or violates confidentiality, by the way, but the upshot of her stories is very moving - death need not be suffering - it all depends on your attitude. And this is not a theory; she's seen it time and time again.

This, then, is the good news of the Buddha: happiness depends on having a spirit of non-attachment. But can people really do this? The challenging and hopeful answer is "yes" - there is a path of discipline, there is a path of training which will succeed. It's difficult, but there's a 2500-year-old tradition that says it works. The path that works is the Noble Eightfold Path and there's no time to do more than just mention these dimensions:

Each one of these dimensions presents us with a whole world of exploration, refinement, and growth. And when all of these are completely perfected, there arises the most profound non-attachment, and for this Buddhists reserve the famous term, nirvana.

The Eightfold Path is very difficult - it calls upon the deepest reserves of courage, love, and intelligence. The reminder our own culture gives us in Ash Wednesday and Lent is, I think, very appropriate to this. Are you/ am I strong enough to do what it takes to find freedom and happiness? A time for deliberately stretching ourselves sounds like a good idea.

And what about Valentine's Day? Well, in the spirit of non-attachment Valentine's Day too is a time to use and play with and enjoy. Have a great time, but don't forget what the Buddha found: there are fulfillments far more satisfying than even these pleasantries.

Valentines and Ash Wednesday, love and suffering - have the heart of a Buddha, have a heart that's big enough to embrace them both.