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The World Through Zen Eyes Podcast
What we do?
Once a week we take a look at the going-ons of the world and say something about ‘em.
The goal?
None, really. Just trying to make heads and tails of the great world roar of Ooommmmmm.
Why?
To try ‘n keep a modicum of personal sanity. And stay off both the meds and the cool aid.
The point?
Points are sharp and therefore violent. We just go around, and round….and round.
Disclaimer:
The views, perspectives, and humor of the speakers and guests of this podcast do not necessarily represent the those of any associated organizations, businesses, or groups, social, religious,cultural or otherwise. The entirety of the podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Topics discussed and views expressed do not constitute medical advice. As the saying goes “Opinions are like bellybuttons, everybody’s got one”.
The World Through Zen Eyes Podcast
Ep. 22 - Buddhism's Bad Rap: Debunking the "Suffering Only" Myth
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"All Buddhism does is talk about suffering. What a drag." This common misconception reveals a profound misunderstanding of the Buddha's teachings and prevents many from discovering the transformative wisdom at the heart of Buddhist practice.
The Buddha wasn't a pessimist fixated on suffering—he was more like a physician diagnosing an illness to provide a cure. Just as doctors don't focus on disease because they're negative people but because understanding the ailment is essential for healing, the Buddha's examination of suffering was the first step toward transcending it. Stopping your exploration of Buddhism after learning about suffering is like walking out of a movie halfway through or quitting a sports match when your team is behind.
What critics miss is the complete framework of the Four Noble Truths. Yes, the first truth acknowledges suffering exists, but the Buddha immediately follows with an explanation of its causes (primarily our attachments and misunderstandings), declares confidently that liberation is possible, and outlines a practical path to freedom. Far from promoting gloom, Buddhism offers tools for profound peace and happiness through clear seeing and balanced living.
Through meditation practice, we train ourselves to develop cognitive flexibility—the ability to navigate life's challenges without becoming trapped in extreme reactions. We learn to set aside both discomfort and pleasure when they become obstacles to clear perception. The goal isn't emotional numbness but the freedom to respond wisely rather than react blindly to life's ever-changing conditions. As the hosts explain through their ocean metaphor, we can't avoid being wet when immersed in water, but we can learn to swim.
Have questions about Zen practice, meditation, or Buddhist teachings? Send them our way—your questions help create a modern-day sutra through the living tradition of question and answer that has always been at the heart of Zen.
Dr. Ruben Lambert can be found at wisdomspring.com
Ven. MyongAhn Sunim can be found at soshimsa.org
welcome back to another episode of the world peace trainer piece podcast. That this is not. Yes, I think that thing keeps them coming up. You know we did at some great amount of years ago. Our first endeavor was called the world peace trainer peace, and obviously it somehow makes a reappearance from my unconscious mind. Welcome to another episode of the World Through Zen Eyes podcast. I am Myung-An Sunim, I'm Dr Ruben Lambert and we are back in apparently one foot in one universe and another foot in another universe, because World Through Zen Eyes. Today's topic comes via fan mail and it says Talking to someone the other day, I mentioned that I practice Buddhism. Their response was Wow, all Buddhism does is talk about suffering. What a drag. Of course. I tried to explain that the Buddha teaches how to transcend suffering. Maybe we could talk about that. Thank you, it's true.
Speaker 1:Next question Finished Just like that Right finished just like that, right, so, to kind of contextualize it, I think that belief comes on a on the premise of consider if you picked up a or if you googledled Buddhism or the Buddhist teachings, how little do you get into reading the article where you come to that conclusion, right, right, so, because what we have is what is commonly proposed as the very first teaching of the Buddha is the Four Noble Truths. So perhaps your article says, oh, buddhism is such and such and such, and the Gautama Buddha reaches enlightenment, after which he then teaches the Four Noble Truths. First Noble Truth Life is filled with suffering from the time of birth to the time of death, and death is not an escape, for we are reborn over and over again. And if you stopped reading you could certainly be like, wow, buddhism, all it does is talk about suffering Seriously.
Speaker 3:I just keep thinking about the person who you know watches the first half of a movie. Anything right, not a half or the first half of a movie, anything right, or the first, the first quarter of a sports match and your favorite team is losing and you get upset and angry and walk away you have no clue. You can literally come back and check the next game.
Speaker 3:It's happened down to the wire where it's there's a few minutes left in a game and people walk out just to beat the traffic. And then you look or you turn on the radio back in the day and then you hear, wow, your team won. And you're shocked, right you? Yeah, it's so how. Walking away without this is how deeply seeing her.
Speaker 1:This is how deeply it's a pinky toe into the water kind of thinking.
Speaker 3:You know the full, depth, right the full scale of, because what the ocean you know.
Speaker 1:What I'm reminded of is that story that we talked about of the monk that joins a monastery that has a vow of silence and he's only allowed to say two words once a year when he has the interview with the abbot. And then year one, he's food bad or cold bad hard, robe rough, and then the abbot's like all right, get out. All you do is complain Six words over the course of three years, and so this is, I think, what we get. We get there is the considering that what we on the reality of life is as it is for a child On the life of adults.
Speaker 3:Right the fantasies you conjure up on.
Speaker 1:Well, what I'm getting at is that we as a child who is caught up in their little world, and then we get to some age and you realize the reality of adulthood, you know, and adulting, and bills and this and that and the other you know.
Speaker 1:So there's an evolution in understanding, an evolution in perspective, without inspection of life as it is. A drunkard doesn't say they have a drinking problem, and so that is to say the warning and the discussion of the topic of suffering within our day-to-day life, as is presented within the Zen tradition, is a realistic, sober look at existence. If you recall, when we were faced with the board of directors of a certain town going for the approval of the Zen Center and the definition at the time we were going in sort of meditation route. So the definition of showers and or locker rooms, that the facility must have showers and or locker rooms, and remember that they went round, around and round because the end or seemed to be elusive to some of the members who sat on the board right, because they insisted and they worded their opposition to it on the account of and that it's showers and locker rooms.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Whereas, you know, I'm an immigrant into this country right, and English at that time was my third language right, and so I'm pretty sure and or gives you an option, right.
Speaker 3:No, we were getting failed.
Speaker 1:Right Because of the rudimentary misunderstanding of language.
Speaker 3:There is no showers, there are no showers. Therefore, you don't fit the description. Theial understanding of language. There is no showers, there are no showers.
Speaker 1:Therefore you don't fit the description, the or got skipped over. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And this, I feel, is similar within this context that all that the Buddha talked about was suffering and so, and or kind of thing. That's all he talked about, apparently. It is true that the Buddha speaks of suffering frequently, as a physician would speak of ailment frequently, and the way to alleviate ailment, the way to not fall ill to begin with, the things to watch out for, the things to be careful with, etc. Etc. It is the wisdom of those before us. Why we, you know, in Taekwondo, we have the respect your elders, respect your teachers. We have the mental education. Respect your elders. Why and it's the supposed kind of perspective is that respect your elders? Oh, because they're wiser. That's not always the case. That's not always the case.
Speaker 1:Just being old doesn't render one wise, it just renders one aged, been around. But in that being around, they have seen the cyclical nature of life. How many moons have they seen, how many summers, how many winters, how many things and living a life. They have seen a thing and, and it behooves a newcom, take note when the elder says when the winter comes, and just to deny the existence of winter, on account of what winter? What are you talking about? Look at it, it's 104 degrees.
Speaker 1:The Buddha pierces during enlightenment, that facade, the balloon, the veil, the cataract. It peels back the blindness that we all are experiencing. Consider, if you will, the fact that, on a logical level perhaps, we have to acknowledge that we're all, at one point in time, going to have to pass from this world, to acknowledge that we're all, at one point in time, going to have to pass from this world and yet and this isn't to say that we have to walk in the shadow of the gloom and doom of death but it is to say that it's a thing that we don't think about as this ailment.
Speaker 1:We don't think about it until we see it and it's on your heels. We don't think about it until we see it and it's on your heels. We don't think about it until it befalls us. Suffering unseen will befall us when we're not ready, when we don't train of how to. I say this so frequently in meditation classes outside of enlightenment right, we sit in meditation, we sit on a meditation cushion, not for the time on the meditation cushion, but for the time when the world and us are in communion, when we interact with the world around us.
Speaker 1:When you get rammed with a shopping cart I mentioned that a few classes ago and a new gentleman first time in class said you know, what you say is very literal. I was riding his bike and somebody ran him. They hit him with his car and seemingly purposefully, you know, and then cursed at him and whatever. And so what the Buddha does is warns us of the it's a bird's eye view of the layout of the land, of what life entails, of what sufferings are to come, what things to watch out for, so that we could have at least a month of suffering that we could have, so we could have a happy life and a pleasant life. And of course this doesn't suggest that people are living in a constant state of misery. No.
Speaker 1:And we're not even getting into next life thing in the whole karma circle.
Speaker 3:No, no, let's make it very practical. Imagine you're going to take a trip to the Sahara Desert, right? So if coming into this life is like going on a trip to a new land, right Before you go, what is the first thing that you need to understand is what are the conditions of this land, what are the laws, what is the environment like, so you can be better prepared. And some of that might be filled with things that are negative, like in the desert it's going to be very, very hot. In the desert there might be X, y and Z animals and insects that pose this kind of threat and danger. In the desert there might be lacking these kinds of things and so therefore, that's all negative.
Speaker 3:You could say, right, but if you're going to enjoy that trip and find some kind of lesson or learning or some kind of relaxation or enjoyment, you better understand the layout of the land and then pack your bags properly right before you go on that trip, and then you can go there and not when you encounter those hardships which are going to be there, because no one has the power to will those things away or wish them away. That's the environment. You can now properly go into that environment and interact in a manner that will not create some kind of permanent damage or scathing of your skin because of the hot sun or end up in the hospital due to dehydration or ultimately die right, and then you can return from there with some nuggets of enjoyment, relaxation or lessons, whatever it is that you get out of that.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so we have to go deeper. Yes, it's true that the first noble truth, within the context of the four noble truths, presents life as a possibility and a frequency and a sort of it's. We have to dive deeper into just that first noble truth, because there are sufferings that are unavoidable and sufferings that we are going to absolutely suffer, and they're the ones that we can avoid. If we know, if we have the knowledge and the wisdom and the understanding, then you can prepare right, you could prepare and and find the best way to navigate it, to navigate despite said suffering. There's always a mindset that does in fact govern and helps in a midst of suffering. So we have the two arrows concept there. But that's first off for noble truths, if that's really the kind of starting point of this misunderstanding of what Zen is, because then it also tells us if in fact you are suffering the.
Speaker 1:what is the mechanism of your suffering? What is the causality of your suffering? What is the causality of this ailment, if you will? And then it says there's a way out. And then it spells out the way out, delineates the path. That's the do paljongdo. In our tradition we use more of the yukparamildo, so it's a snapshot of the commonly kind of grabbed-after principles, commonly kind of grabbed after principles.
Speaker 1:As I reflect on how we received the Zen tradition from unsanim as opposed to how we've received it from Google and from books and from the academic end of it. I don't know. Insanium never really kind of went with the. You know life, woe is life, life is suffering. You know it's a it's.
Speaker 1:He always spoke of things as knowledge and wisdom and understanding and control of the situations and if you have those, that's what we're after. Never highlighted this kind of oh, it's a suffering thing, it's suffering, suffering, suffering, suffering. It's how you present and how you look at the thing it's. Are you suffering? Yes, All right, Then understand why and how and what brought you to that suffering. And what we find is that the building blocks of the suffering so frequently could have been avoided if we only knew if we only heeded the warning. But to say, you know, to kind of dismiss a whole, such a broad philosophy, on account of just one thing it's unfortunate, because what the person does is they deprive themselves of the things that the Zen tradition has to offer. And of course, this having said so, people say things so frequently, and if you ask, why did you say that? I you know, just I just said it. It did the fact that there was some really thoughtful moment before it. Sometimes it's not even present. They just say a thing, just to say a thing.
Speaker 3:Oh, what a drag, Well this seems like a point that the person was making to kind of reject Buddhism. And most of the time when people try to make a point that is going to be negative or it's going to be a point of this is garbage or trash or junk, right, you have to always engage that wonderful psychological principle, the confirmation bias you only look at the part that doesn't match you or you don't like, or that speaks to, that speaks to your narrative inside of your head, and then you dismiss everything else, right? So here's a person that just wanted to make a point and the point was negative and they didn't really want to engage in any further exploration of the truth or of what else is there, because out of fear, out of ignorance, whatever it might be, lack of experience or maybe they obsessively hold on to their own views or perspectives and they didn't want to let go of that or challenge those things, and so they just spit it out All of which.
Speaker 3:Spit it out, just hey. It's negative and that's it.
Speaker 1:All of which, all of those things you've listed are what constitutes the Zen definition of suffering.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent, I was definitely going through that in my mind right, so brick by brick this person just laid the walls out, I have fixation, I have attachments, I have rigidness, so we got 집착 고정관념.
Speaker 3:According to psychology too, right, lack of cognitive flexibility.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Rigid narrow thinking. This is cognitive flexibility.
Speaker 3:The um um, we're all just saying the same thing.
Speaker 1:We all are just saying right we, we are in fact, we are in fact just reporting on things that are all of these traditions. In fact they, you know we have the the name escapes me but In terms of flexibility Within the biological sphere, anyway, it is that idea To retain flexibility is a good way of unbinding oneself from the self-perpetuated suffering class. I had gone through this idea of consider how frequently in meditation are we training ourselves to cast aside discomfort. You know whether it's your physical discomfort. You know your knee hurts, your ankle hurts, your lower back is stiff, the this, the that. You know your legs are hurting, etc. Etc. And then of course, all the internal discomforts, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1:And then we get to some point in our meditation practice where pleasurable experiences, experiences, now become an obstacle. And so now we are then casting aside pleasurable experiences in meditation, because, whether the negative suffering or the pleasurable satisfaction and joy in the context of meditation, they are both equally an obstacle. They obstruct an experience of what will be, what can be. The openness of what we stand before is obstructed and it's veiled over, because when we have a sensation, when we have an emotion, when we have a feeling, when we have a thought that we categorize as displeasure or suffering, it's not just that category. That's a suffering.
Speaker 1:With it comes a whole litany of definitions. And what does that mean? Et cetera, et cetera. And this is true on the other end of the spectrum as well. So in meditation practice, during your meditation, a pleasurable experience. When you categorize your experience as pleasurable, you acknowledge it for equality, you cast existence into that duality of good and bad. I like, I dislike, and so essentially what we do is we pop right back into the normal mode of operation and, um well, I think that's a good point, but I could also see that in many facets of life where both sides are an obstacle.
Speaker 3:Let's say, if you're going to get a degree in college, right, and you see your syllabus and all you see is writing and you hate writing, or you have to attend a three-hour boring lecture and you hold on to those negative thoughts, well, that becomes your hindrance and your obstacle, hindrance and your obstacle. And then if you go to college and then you find out that, my goodness, you know, hanging out at the frat houses and being at parties and drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, this is your hedonistic lifestyle. Now that just is all pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. And college is great. And guess what, when you chip chocker, you become stuck in that realm too right, just pleasure and avoidance of doing what you have to do. Become stuck in that realm too right, just pleasure and avoidance of doing what you have to do. Well, that becomes an obstacle too. So ultimately, yes, you have to thread the needle, find the middle path which lines up with zen, buddhism, and achieve your goals right so yes, there's that, there's that poem or the bit I and I don't recall the roots.
Speaker 1:But if paradise was my prison I shall still want to leap that crystal wall. That thing is stuck in my mind because it kind of presents it so beautifully. We can become trapped, fixated, and eventually then, via the entrapment, via the fixation, via the attachment, that rigor, rigor mortis it's a sort of death right.
Speaker 1:And so we in flexibility metabolic, that's the word I was looking for metabolic flexibility, it's also something that we want, the you know, we want to have that flexibility on a physiological level. And so that's the idea that if we have trained ourselves to be able to set aside a thing and this doesn't necessarily mean you cast it out and throw it out and kind of burn it with a vengeance and fury you just set it aside Because every experience in life informs Negative experiences inform, and positive experiences inform and to say that, oh, you have to cut that out and burn it and shred it, the lesson that's attached to it then gets shredded too. And then we come back full circle and history repeats itself and we do the same things. Why? Because we've forgotten the lessons.
Speaker 1:So they're informing, but our ability to set the thing aside when we need to, when we want to, as we need to and as we want to, is a path of freedom. And so the Zen teaching. Really, you know, as we say, it's a very singular thing that the 84,000 sutras teach. It's just the one thing that they're teaching, and they're teaching it in 84,000 different ways. It's a wishful thinking that it's only 84,000 ways.
Speaker 1:Why? Because person to person and person to person, experience and the various causes and conditions, etc. Etc. Vary, and so for each one we need some kind of a suggested path and suggested way to look at it and even, uh, the buddha gave freedom to people that do read the sutras, right?
Speaker 3:something that is a very famous quote of his and I'm paraphrasing is you know, take my teachings and apply them if. If the application of this teaching does not yield anything beneficial for your life, then that part of it it right. Nobody's saying you have to take each and every single word and apply it simultaneously in every moment of your life. First of all, that's not even practical. That's not even how we function. Right, if you're driving a car, you have gas and you have a brake, you don't use them at the same time. Right, there are seasons to life. There are moments where you need things. Right, you use scarves and gloves in the winter. You don't use them in the summer, unless you know there's some kind of condition that you have, and so, yeah, so the teachings aren't always applicable, and that's okay so, yeah, I'm the terms with it and that's the thing it's.
Speaker 1:Then why do we have doctors? Why do we have so much of the industry life?
Speaker 3:with a whole pharmacy of various medications.
Speaker 1:It's not just time, no right every, every, if you really think about it, without maybe going too deep into the mist, but if you think about it, every industry in existence exists because of suffering. We have doctors because we suffer. We have lawyers because we suffer.
Speaker 3:We have mechanics because cars suffer, breakdown, everything why there's construction companies and structures are repairing plumbers and eletri shins and every day to get older, yeah, or just yourself, you, you know so. Colleges, so forth and so forth. So to say that the Buddha is just walking around moping and groaning is not what the Buddha is doing, which is why and I'm pretty sure I've heard entrepreneurs oftentimes say things like if you want to develop the next app or the next website or the next business that will thrive, first find what area of society has an unserviced need. And by need is some area of society, that's suffering.
Speaker 3:Dissatisfaction, Dissatisfaction. Sure you can now bring some alleviation to that.
Speaker 1:And so consider that then, right, everything in life. Right, we are tending to some level of dissatisfaction In whatever way. We are unhappy with something, and so we get more of the thing, or a different thing, or a better thing, or a faster thing, or a sleeker thing, or a skinnier thing, or a fatter thing or something, some kind of a thing to ameliorate our dissatisfaction. So to say that the Buddha somehow is the only person walking around and moaning and complaining about it is not a clear-eyed view. The other thing to consider is, if that is the state of existence, one can moan, bemoan the existence, but that is not how the Buddha approaches it.
Speaker 1:Buddha always calls to moderation, always calls to tend to the thing with a proper view, with proper wisdom, with a clear vision. Right, because what we get and this is where human beings have a tendency to if your pendulum of displeasure and dissatisfaction and suffering, whatever, swings towards that negative end, what we do naturally is, with a great vengeance, we swing the pendulum in the opposite direction. We don't bring the pendulum to the middle, we swing the pendulum in the opposite direction and it strikes the other extreme of what, at one point in time, we thought was joy and satisfaction or whatever, and then so what we get is you're dissatisfied with one thing in order to correct it. We don't think of correct it, meaning bring it to some medial thing we overshoot we overcompensate, right.
Speaker 1:Well, like I say, with this kind of vengeance, and you swing the thing, fortunately, and when the thing passes the middle, passes the middle path and continues uncontrolled towards that which from the suffering side was viewed as pleasure, and you get to the extreme of that. That pleasure then becomes suffering.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you shoot all the way past the pleasure and you're right back in the place that you wanted to avoid in the start, because that's the thing, this is the nature and the mechanism of life.
Speaker 1:We cannot lie down on two sides of your body. You can lay down on your back or on your stomach, or on your left side or on your right side, and you can't do both. And if you imagine the most comfortable position that you can imagine, let's say I'm sitting the way I'm sitting and I find this very uncomfortable. I want to have a lie down. And I have a lie down.
Speaker 1:So there was displeasure, dissatisfaction, discomfort and suffering in my seated position. So I resolve it by lying down. We have tendencies to greed and so I have a lie down and then I declare it to be ah, and I declare it to be final and the greatest thing since sliced bread, and I keep lying down and you get ulcers sure you.
Speaker 1:You get right in the hospital. You got to rotisserie, the patient Right. So it's the. I was dissatisfied with my seated position. I had to lie down and I would lie down to the extreme. I'm just going to keep on laying down and keep on laying down. That's not. You will be uncomfortable. Yeah, they got body sores and things like that.
Speaker 1:So that thing that was discomfort, the seated position, let's not, you will be uncomfortable and they got body sores and things like that. So that thing that was discomfort, the seated position, let's say I tried to fix by lying down and if it's unwise way of doing it, then I will keep laying down and keep laying down, and keep laying down and I will become again out of that which 10 seconds ago was pleasurable will become displeasurable, and I wanna sit down, which is right back into the place of 10 minutes ago I called suffering. So it's just flip-flopping. We go from one extreme we call displeasure and suffering, we swing the pendulum towards that thing we call joy and pleasure, we gorge on it to ad nauseum and sickening levels, and then that then is displeasure. And so what do we want?
Speaker 1:The very place we came from back to. Because now that right, if you go to the beach and you're in, you know you enjoy your sun and, like you were saying, you know, oh, it's fantastic, okay, but if you stay there long enough, you'll cook burn and right, so well, we go in the ocean.
Speaker 1:or if you go in the water and you stay there long enough, you'll turn into a razor I mean a raisin and so then what do you do? You dip and you hang out in the waters. Come out, get a little bit of sun, go back in the water, get a little bit of water, go back in the water. So there's a pliability and movability and life in life.
Speaker 3:Those are the causes and conditions of life. The life. Those are the causes and conditions of life. The Buddha did not create those. He's just reporting on them, sure, and so, since these are the causes and conditions of life that you're describing there, here's my prescription, not me. Here's what the Buddha says. Here's my prescription.
Speaker 1:Jungdo, be wise about it, and Jihe.
Speaker 3:Follow the middle path and use wisdom. He didn't say these are the causes and conditions of life. There's nothing you can do about it. Lay down, surrender your will to it and die, and oftentimes one of the teachings that Ansanim has taught us is kohe.
Speaker 3:This is the ocean of suffering. Yes, so he gives this metaphor of an ocean, and you're plopped inside of the ocean and water is touching all sides of your body. Right, don't forget, it's raining and it's raining. What can you do? But you don't want to be wet and you don't want to be wet.
Speaker 1:What can you?
Speaker 3:do, but you don't want to be wet and you don't want to be, wet. What can you do? Right, right, where do you make? How do you find your peace? Or is this your hell? Yeah, what can you do? That's why two things I extract from that. Number one is accept it, that's it.
Speaker 3:Accept it. This is the doorway into heaven or peace. And the acceptance, I'm sorry, is just such a cliche. I'm not saying it on the surface. This is a profound move. This isn't like acceptance where you found the loophole, where, hey, I can tell people I'm happy with my words and I can make facial expressions, but inside it's like a thousand needles are piercing me. This is a movement where you have to dig from the inside, move your soul towards acceptance, and that trickles down to your mind, trickles down to your words, trickles down to your actions. It's all lined up together, truly. And then the other piece too, just to wrap it up, is also you have to learn to swim right, and to me that represents the training or chongjin, the perseverance that you need to endure and to withstand the suffering that is surrounding us right. So these are the tools that you can use to alleviate suffering, but what the Buddha teaches us to do is to not lie to ourselves and pretend that these things are not there in front of us, because all that's going to do is I almost see the Four Noble Truths as four realities.
Speaker 3:If life is a highway and you're driving right and there are signs that say, hey, you know, up ahead is the cliff and you're going to go off the edge and you can. You can ignore them. You know birth. You can say I don't remember when I was born, right. You could say sickness yeah, I've never gotten sick, right, or sicknesses don't really last that long. I have good genetics, right Old age, I have money, I get facials and I've watched all the latest research on anti-aging and things like that. But the last one, the cliff. We all have to go off of it, right. And then, and so you can, you can tell yourself as much as you want, uh, and deny these things, but you'll crash up against that reality. It's inevitable, so why not? It's. Sometimes we also say when you get right there, it's too late.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's worth highlighting that, yeah, the things the views you listed are all delusional that are facials somehow going to stop aging, right well again.
Speaker 3:But these are things that we say, that's right you know, that sign just said you know, imagine a family driving and a kid in the back. You know, the innocence of youth is like dad. That sign just said the road ends in one mile. Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about, son. You know it just keeps going and turns up the volume, not gonna listen to that guy, right? So that's almost like what a facial is, right. Just gonna turn up the volume and pretend that I don't see or hear.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know so yeah, it's not to knock that I mean there are some health solutions actually, sure, some health benefits that are associated with that, but it's not going to stop.
Speaker 1:I think it's worth. It's a little bit of a side trip, but that acceptance is synonymous, I would say, with understanding. To completely understand the thing is to accept it for what it is. And this is again where the Buddhist perspective, the Buddha's view, just the clarity, is amazing because the idea of seeing the thing as it is and understanding it, that that's how it is. There's no self-deception in there, no, there's no cuts through it. This is almost like genome.
Speaker 3:Because then if you hold on to whatever it is, whatever part birth, old age, sickness, death, let's say, for example. And then the mind says but you know, the great katana of wisdom comes, the great sword of wisdom comes, and there's no but. You're not seeing it for what it is, or maybe I, if after, in meditation, you're thinking well. I think well because this almost makes me feel like it's a point like mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers.
Speaker 3:You're seeing it truly at that moment for what it is Right, and you can't if you're wrestling with it. You haven't had that true understanding If you're trying to turn the box or the cube into a triangle. You haven't had that.
Speaker 1:And that declaration.
Speaker 3:You know, you're just, these are all bonne, these are all obstacles, this is all fog and smoke.
Speaker 1:That declaration of, like you said, mountains, mountains, rivers, rivers or water, is water right? I don't know if people realize how much effort and energy and how much training that takes To see a mountain as a mountain and to see water as water. And that's why, like I was saying just recently when I was telling our intermediate meditation students about this, casting aside your discomfort and displeasure and casting aside your comfort and pleasure, why? Because this is exactly it. It's a training and this doesn't leave us, because again, some people might say well, you say, then throw away our joy and suffering. What kind of life is that? That's not what's suggested. What's suggested is the ability, the strength, if you want to call it that, the muscle to be able to move the thing out of your front view as needed, your front view as needed. And this is what we get when you're fixated and you cannot remove the veil of suffering or the fixation that you have you're imprisoned by it 100%.
Speaker 3:Let me just give a quick example. If you work, let's say, in a school, and a kid throws up and I know you've had this experience working right.
Speaker 3:I want to help the kid, right, right. If you see the true humanity at that moment, you can move towards moving that kid and clean that kid. Maybe that's yaksa bosa functioning in your heart. But when you look and you see, ah, disgusting. And then you throw up, you're not seeing that moment for what it is and then you cannot move and use yeah, well, we'll keep the people nameless, but you're talking about specific teacher.
Speaker 1:You cannot move but this is because you're mentioning mountains.
Speaker 3:It's so hard to see because we're impeded by our judgments. Bunbyol, bunbyol, yeah, bunbyol, right, which is connected to our past experiences, which is connected to Alchan, like all these come into play in that moment and then you want to see and touch the true heart of understanding. You have to cut through all of that and that is not an easy task, but meditation is the training ground for you to be able to do that. And then genome keeps coming up into my mind. That is a true genome, but that is beyond this. Then that is a true genome.
Speaker 1:And this is exactly how the Buddha. This is exactly how the Buddha then presents this whole thing. These are so. Essentially, the point is life is filled with suffering. Yes, is it the only thing? No, but even more so, consider that the suffering is perpetuated by us. Why? Because we cannot see the reality as is. And so we cannot navigate it as is. And so this idea of their suffering. He's not saying that they're suffering innately, perhaps in existence. The suffering is our lack of wisdom and understanding. That's the suffering.
Speaker 3:Well, I'll quote one, hildesa, because we, at that moment, through our ignorance, make jewels out of the three poisons. So, fundamentally, it is our lack of wisdom or kwanmyung, why we suffer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so the idea of pessimism as the major characteristic of Buddhism is perhaps what's responsible. One half of the story not even Right, it's not even.
Speaker 3:I'll declare that to be a myth, A hundred percent a myth. Misunderstanding.
Speaker 1:Well, I blame. I blame pardon me, there's going to be tomatoes flying now but I blame the academic only understanding of the path, because you organize it. You know it's the way in which it's presented and if it's presented really how it ought to be which cannot, but how it ought to be, and how it's intended to be right which cannot but how ought to be and how it's intended to be right you understand the entirety of it first.
Speaker 1:Then you present it accordingly, to present it before understanding. This is what we get. We've seen, like you said, seen. You've seen half the movie and you you draw up a synopsis of the of the movie that's going to miss the second half of the movie. It's not going to include the resolution to the, you know, to the problem that the first half of the movie perhaps presents, and so it's going to have maybe skew towards pessimistic view. It's all pessimistic. It was the worst movie ever. It's just horrible.
Speaker 1:And in the last two minutes everything resolves and, and you know, there's a great climax yeah, somebody puts fantastic soundtrack behind it and you walk out floating on cloud nine. Yes, yeah yeah, and so this is a. This is that kind of case where does the Buddha end, though?
Speaker 3:that's also part, a part that's missing, right, because there's the way out of suffering, and then a part that isn't. It is addressed, but not clearly addressed in the Four Noble Truths is well, me go. We have, really fast Sambopin, three truths that are declared and unmovable Chabot, mua, jeheng, musangin, but my favorite, the last one, yolban Chokchongin. Yeah, what about that part? You just completely cut that out of the Buddhist teachings. It's about, you know, looking for Yolban, finding Yolban, finding Nirvana.
Speaker 1:I mean, the fourth one is the third one is like look, don't panic, we've talked in the first and the second one. The first one was like these things are going on. They're suffering. Why? Number two, why? Because you're just stubborn. You're stubborn, that's why we're suffering. You're attached and fixated, that's why you're suffering. You're not looking at the whole thing. That's why you're suffering. You're fixated in your perspective. That's why you're suffering. You know, meh, I don't wanna, that's why you're suffering, et cetera, et cetera. And then the third one's like okay, now we've got that established. Okay, now we've got that established. Third one's like all right, now take a breath, there is a way out. But the way out is built on the understanding of what is as it is, and that's how we get that way out. If your initial perspective is that of self-deception and delusion and unclear view, there is no way out out of confusion.
Speaker 1:No, because you're just confused and you're moving around confused. Do you recall? I think it was the first time we did, when we were still in Warren time, we did at the uh um. When we're still in warren, we did the trip to the um corn, uh, corn maze at night time. It was a, it was a field trip with the group, with the group to the corn mason, you know, and we were all given a map yeah, over the thing, right, but so synonyms everybody's following sunim. So I said, okay, everybody's got a map, yes, everybody's ready, okay. And then I ran in Ah, and they all ran in, ah, right, and ran in for like three minutes, right. And then we stopped and I was like, okay, what was that all about? Oh, no, okay, we're here, you have a map right, navigate.
Speaker 1:The map is rendered useless Completely Because you can't triangulate yourself to where you actually are in the maze. So it took us what is it like? An hour to navigate out, for everybody to make it out of the maze, to make it out of the maze. The second pass was all right. You notice that we've ran in head in no clarity of thinking no, nothing, even though you have a map, it is rendered useless by how you've entered into the situation. Now have a map. Look at your map. You see where we are starting. Yes, now, and everybody was out in like 20 minutes and this is and this is the, this is the same thing, right?
Speaker 1:so the buddha presents life as it is right. And then there's a map, and the proper use of the map is also gifted. So, like this is the thing, they're suffering. Yes, what's the cause of suffering? What's the building blocks of this thing? The map is also gifted. So, like this is the thing, there's suffering. Yes, what's the cause of suffering? What's the building blocks of this thing? Oh, these are the building blocks.
Speaker 1:All right, take it easy, now that we got that covered, don't worry, there's a way out. And if you pause, somebody who's thoughtful will say, well, what is the way out? And say, well, here we go, this is the way out. And say, well, here we go, this is the way out. And the way out is presented, and the way out for each person is going to be different, right, customized, and this is where the, the zen tradition, really is a living tradition.
Speaker 1:I had somebody recently with Tea with the Abbot and they brought a book. This was the first and last time they brought a book to our Tea with the Abbot, because they didn't know any better and then said, okay, last time I brought a book, I know better now, because you cannot ask a book a question, the book doesn't know better. Now, because you cannot ask a book a question, the book doesn't know your name. The book doesn't know where you work. The book doesn't know your afflictions and whatever that's like to say, and ironically so people do that. You reference an ailment and in psychology this is the self-diagnosing and quick, haphazard kind of diagnosis. There was a time in school, at least where I was, that at one point in time every teacher seemed to be a licensed psychologist.
Speaker 1:They look at a kid for three minutes and they say that one's got adhd right first of all, that's not how diagnosis works period they handed out diagnosis like like you know, people hand out lunch in the school cafeteria. It's just like here you go.
Speaker 3:Here's one for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what are the criteria right? How many? Do you have to satisfy some set amount of criteria, this, x and this? And this is kind of the idea, right, that we cannot. They would just people would reference a thing and say, oh, if you have such and such affliction, and then they give every possible symptom. And then people look at a list of 30 things, 15 of which, let's say, you have to satisfy to be classified with the said affliction. But they say, oh, so you either get people have five of those things, which is a normal life kind of condition, everyday life, right. Or people find and this is the confirmation bias, right, people, but I have all 30 uh symptoms, no one in history of humanity has had 30 symptoms.
Speaker 3:No one has them all.
Speaker 1:They kind of end or their options, but no one has 30 of all of the symptoms They'll make it fit.
Speaker 3:They'll make it work. They'll make it fit. They'll keep digging until they find it.
Speaker 1:Until they find it. And so it is the idea of Zen as a living tradition, offers a conversation in a sense Okay, well, this is my suffering, all right, you can't ask a book Because it could give you to say, well, it's not going to ask for, if we go back to that kind of medical thing, it's not going to ask you for your medical history. So it's going to say, for such infliction, try penicillin and then penicillin. If you're allergic to penicillin, that'll be unpleasant, let's call it. And so this living tradition moving and changing, and this is the beauty of it, it's a living tradition, not dead, so don't make it so. And this is the way out of suffering. Is that it's a living way out of suffering? Is that it's a living way out of suffering? This is where having what they would say the teacher with little dust in their eye comes in beneficial. Anyway, I think that's a kind of a yeah, rob-bop.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because the sutras, why they're individualistic, because why they unravel, just like the tea with the abbot, with a question and an answer, right so to our audience let's make a modern-day sutra, so ask questions. Let's make a modern day sutra, so ask questions. That's right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I pleaded, I think, last time with everyone to provide topics and things, because it really is. I mean, what are we to talk about next? And of course, there's a vast field.
Speaker 3:There's a billion things. The world is riding vast. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's you know, like even we have tea with the abbot and a person comes in, I either ask if there's no obvious let's not get into how obvious and what obvious means but if there's no obvious to me need for that person to have a specific kind of tea that they are in need of, then I will ask is there a preference of tea that you have?
Speaker 1:And then we have that tea why? Because I'm sitting across from a living human being with their specific conditions and situations and preferences and likes and dislikes, and all of that. So even tea with habit, folks, it's not always green tea, no. Right. I'm going to say it sort of as a means of disclaimer. Perhaps it might not even be the tea you like. How about them apples?
Speaker 3:But it might be the tea you need.
Speaker 1:I am Milgan Zerim. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.
Speaker 3:I'm Dr Ruben Lambert. If you like what you hear and I brought you benefits, pass it on to someone else.
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