1 00:00:00,250 --> 00:00:03,876 There's this person who really annoys or even angers me sometimes. 2 00:00:04,437 --> 00:00:10,388 What bothers me about this is to know that it's not him, but I who is causing myself to suffer. 3 00:00:10,949 --> 00:00:12,031 But why can't I let it go? 4 00:00:12,051 --> 00:00:14,235 Why am I attached to suffering? 5 00:00:16,439 --> 00:00:17,601 That's the question, right? 6 00:00:19,859 --> 00:00:23,448 That's the curious truth. 7 00:00:24,891 --> 00:00:26,154 It's a profound question. 8 00:00:26,254 --> 00:00:30,084 It's not something that... Normally people ask, why do I suffer? 9 00:00:30,164 --> 00:00:31,968 And they say, well, you're making me suffer. 10 00:00:32,008 --> 00:00:34,354 And that's the problem. 11 00:00:35,236 --> 00:00:37,682 The curious thing about suffering is there are 12 00:00:39,417 --> 00:00:44,624 there are different levels to our understanding of it, which I've talked about before. 13 00:00:44,644 --> 00:00:45,506 I can go into it here. 14 00:00:46,146 --> 00:00:52,355 I think talking about suffering would probably give you some better background to answer this question. 15 00:00:55,099 --> 00:01:01,408 I think briefly I can say, before I explain the means, 16 00:01:01,726 --> 00:01:05,377 The simple answer to your question is because that's not the practice. 17 00:01:05,999 --> 00:01:09,850 The practice is not to let go of suffering. 18 00:01:10,773 --> 00:01:15,246 The practice is to observe reality. 19 00:01:16,778 --> 00:01:26,117 The result of observing reality closely, objectively, clearly is to understand reality for what it is. 20 00:01:26,999 --> 00:01:30,747 The result of understanding reality for what it is, is letting go. 21 00:01:31,388 --> 00:01:33,893 So it's a progress. 22 00:01:34,497 --> 00:01:39,905 So most people understand suffering to be a feeling that you get from time to time. 23 00:01:41,006 --> 00:01:44,872 And so they try to find a way to avoid the feeling. 24 00:01:45,553 --> 00:01:48,877 Their understanding of suffering is that it's specific. 25 00:01:49,738 --> 00:01:54,625 This or that experience causes suffering. 26 00:01:54,645 --> 00:02:00,133 And so their means of escaping suffering is to run away from the experience, to chase it away, 27 00:02:00,113 --> 00:02:12,942 to blame other people, blame external events and circumstances and entities outside of themselves or of course in their own bodies, even in their own minds. 28 00:02:14,926 --> 00:02:17,953 Blame those things and try their best to avoid them. 29 00:02:19,807 --> 00:02:21,969 This is how ordinary people deal with suffering. 30 00:02:22,049 --> 00:02:24,652 You have a back, you have a headache, take a pill. 31 00:02:24,672 --> 00:02:26,194 You have a backache, get a massage. 32 00:02:26,954 --> 00:02:31,219 You have a stomachache, take some antacid. 33 00:02:34,442 --> 00:02:47,215 Eventually, a spiritual person, a person with a little bit of wisdom at least, will see that this isn't effective, this isn't 34 00:02:48,325 --> 00:02:50,428 a viable solution to the problem. 35 00:02:51,610 --> 00:03:00,043 Eventually there are certain sufferings that you can't run away from, you can't avoid, you can't be free from simply by chasing away. 36 00:03:01,545 --> 00:03:16,307 Old age, sickness, death, even extreme trauma, the loss of a loved one, loss of wealth, loss of health, 37 00:03:17,992 --> 00:03:20,087 loss of 38 00:03:24,151 --> 00:03:52,977 loss or sadness or any kind of great suffering will make a person realize that this isn't a viable solution that these these states of suffering you can't avoid so there has to be a better way to be able to actually deal with the suffering this is what often leads people to the spiritual life and for us this is what leads us to come and meditate so the the third 39 00:03:53,952 --> 00:04:03,387 This leads to the third understanding of suffering as a quality inherent in reality. 40 00:04:04,989 --> 00:04:12,180 In the same way that fire is hot, experience is 41 00:04:15,822 --> 00:04:18,185 a cause for suffering. 42 00:04:18,945 --> 00:04:26,754 I can't think of a word for it, but it's like static electricity or potential energy. 43 00:04:27,355 --> 00:04:29,737 There's no energy in it, but it has the potential. 44 00:04:30,438 --> 00:04:43,112 So a rock that's up high doesn't seem to have any energy, it's not moving, but it has potential energy because if you push it, it exhibits extreme amounts of energy as it falls to the earth below. 45 00:04:44,695 --> 00:05:11,918 so reality has this kind of static electricity or this potential for causing suffering so if we say fire is hot but it's not burning you so when we say that that experience is suffering we don't mean that it hurts you and that it has the potential to hurt you and that which causes that suffering is craving so the cause of 46 00:05:13,957 --> 00:05:15,380 all of our suffering is craving. 47 00:05:16,623 --> 00:05:30,936 So the third is this realization, this observation that leads you to see that the reason that you suffer is not really because you experience this or that, but it's because 48 00:05:32,435 --> 00:05:36,279 Well, the third stage is it's because nothing can satisfy you. 49 00:05:37,219 --> 00:05:49,811 It's because, or it's the realization that all of reality is contributing to your suffering because you're partial to certain things and partial against certain things. 50 00:05:50,912 --> 00:05:58,539 It's the realization that that's not correct, that's due simply to ignorance. 51 00:05:58,559 --> 00:06:00,501 And it's the realization that all 52 00:06:00,481 --> 00:06:03,365 really all experience is the same. 53 00:06:03,465 --> 00:06:05,408 That pain is really the same as pleasure. 54 00:06:06,630 --> 00:06:08,372 Good memories are the same as bad memories. 55 00:06:08,433 --> 00:06:09,714 They're still just memories. 56 00:06:10,215 --> 00:06:25,257 It's really only our judgment and our incorrect judgment that points to certain things as being stable, as being pleasant, as being controllable and therefore leading to expectations and ultimately disappointment when we don't get what we want. 57 00:06:29,877 --> 00:06:37,265 That's the third, which leads ultimately to a realization of the truth of suffering. 58 00:06:39,067 --> 00:06:40,808 And that's what leads you to let go. 59 00:06:40,848 --> 00:06:43,691 So the third and the fourth are kind of like one and the same. 60 00:06:43,771 --> 00:06:46,354 It's the path and then the goal. 61 00:06:46,855 --> 00:06:54,923 When you finally get it, the fourth one is this moment, this sort of gestalt, I guess, or this epiphany that you have, 62 00:06:54,903 --> 00:07:12,203 when you realize that nothing is worth clinging to when you realize that everything is like this so the third is the practice of observing and investigating and seeing that the things that you thought were pleasant and the cause for 63 00:07:12,183 --> 00:07:20,934 happiness and contentment are actually making you more discontent, more unhappy, more unpleasant, more bitter and mean as a person. 64 00:07:22,736 --> 00:07:29,625 And the fourth one is this final realization that absolutely everything is not worth clinging to. 65 00:07:29,665 --> 00:07:38,376 And so that's the moment where the mind lets go and that's the realization of the freedom, the freedom from suffering, which we call Nirvana. 66 00:07:39,959 --> 00:07:47,817 So why you can't let go, I would say, if I was going to be kind of smarmy about it, I would say because you haven't done the work. 67 00:07:48,538 --> 00:07:50,823 You haven't done what is required to let go. 68 00:07:50,843 --> 00:07:52,447 Letting go is not something you do. 69 00:07:52,487 --> 00:07:59,723 In fact, the irony there is that you're talking about forcing yourself to let go. 70 00:07:59,703 --> 00:08:01,185 which are opposites. 71 00:08:01,685 --> 00:08:04,449 Letting go is, it means letting come actually. 72 00:08:04,969 --> 00:08:09,175 Letting go means really stopping to force things. 73 00:08:09,675 --> 00:08:12,879 Once you can do that, you'll be free from suffering. 74 00:08:13,720 --> 00:08:21,970 So the question is really a paradox or something like a paradox where you're asking, why can't I force myself to let go? 75 00:08:21,990 --> 00:08:24,293 When you say, right? 76 00:08:24,762 --> 00:08:26,023 Why can't I let go? 77 00:08:26,524 --> 00:08:27,345 You don't let go. 78 00:08:27,385 --> 00:08:29,927 The letting go occurs because you see things clearly. 79 00:08:29,967 --> 00:08:34,292 There's just no clinging because you would have no reason to cling. 80 00:08:34,332 --> 00:08:41,740 The question as to why we're attached to suffering is more interesting. 81 00:08:42,581 --> 00:08:43,682 And this is what's curious about this. 82 00:08:43,762 --> 00:08:48,307 Why the heck are we attached to that which is suffering? 83 00:08:48,327 --> 00:08:51,630 And this is the key to the essence of Buddhism is that it's ignorance. 84 00:08:52,572 --> 00:08:55,100 we aren't always attached to suffering. 85 00:08:55,803 --> 00:08:59,495 It's more like we are being tossed about in the ocean. 86 00:08:59,515 --> 00:09:03,106 And so sometimes we go this way, sometimes we go that way, sometimes we can be really good. 87 00:09:03,307 --> 00:09:05,113 Sometimes people are just naturally 88 00:09:05,768 --> 00:09:28,587 good they're going in that direction sometimes people are naturally horrible evil mean creatures we go up and down back and forth but randomly so um but it's all based on ignorance once you know then you be you still you become steered in a specific direction and that's towards peace happiness and freedom from suffering so knowledge is something that directs 89 00:09:28,567 --> 00:09:54,658 the mind just like the captain directs the ship without a captain without mindfulness the boat just is tossed to the waves tossed by the waves to the current um so so the the 90 00:09:55,972 --> 00:10:09,323 It's just, you could say kind of by chance, it's where you find yourself, or it's one of the currents is attachment to suffering, based on ignorance.