What happens at Pasadena Zen Sangha? This Los Angeles-based group is growing by adhering to two principles. One, keep it cool, laidback, liberal lowkey, everyday normal but, two, make it exotic. How is that achieved?
American Zen Buddhist Priest Seigaku Amato
It is led by a Japan-trained, fully ordained American Soto Zen Buddhist priest, who follows all of the customs and ritual procedures of a formal (zazen) group sitting practice -- including Rinzai traditions that rely on koans ("cases," paradoxical riddles) and other less common activities of most U.S. Zen centers.
We walk in to practice mindful awareness of the present moment and everything going on in the here and now. This present moment may not always be pleasant, but it is always tolerable when viewed from the dispassionate perspective of, "Then there's this."
This point-of-view allows us to be the WATCHER rather than the usual, overly-involved "doer," "resister," or person taking it all very personally in accordance with the Three Poisons of passion, aversion, and delusion (greed, hatred/fear, ignorance).
WHAT HAPPENS?
Practitioners gather in the more than century-old Historic Quaker Meeting House. They take to zafus and zabutons, cushions, for seating themselves facing the wall or into the center of the hall. Laminated cards are handed out for chanting in English, Sanskrit, or a Japanese transliteration of Sanskrit, with singing bowl accompaniment. There's bowing and clacking sticks. Then the group settles in for the first sitting session of shikantaza or "just sitting." There's nothing to do but observe, no need to stop thinking or make anything other than how it is. A bell rings and walking meditation or kinhin begins, first very slowly then at normal speed, all the while remaining mindful. The bell announces the second sitting session. That ends with a bell, bowing, arranging the cushions in a circle, and the discussion begins. Sensei read a ponderous piece he had written about the impersonal aspiring for self-awakening. The group opened up for a Q&A. Then Sensei brought up a new documentary on psychedelics and Zen. This started a storm of comments, many laughs, and a lot of insight into American Buddhism. It resumes next week.
Edgar Cayce (A.R.E. or Association for Research and Enlightenment) conducted trance-channel readings that revealed a great deal more than he the man could have known. The council or collective that came through brought forth much understanding.
Our suffering is not necessarily accidental. While bad, offensive, and sometimes insufferable, there is something that could be learned if we would view it that way.
The Aggregates that experience are dukkha.
What is "suffering"? The Buddha often spoke of it long before Cayce, so it might be good to ask him, as this is a very misunderstood term. The ancient term is dukkha, "disappointment," "unsatisfactoriness," the range of the unpleasant between annoyance and agony. The Buddha defined suffering this way:
"Rebirth is suffering, aging is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are suffering; contact with what is disliked is suffering; separation from what is liked is suffering; not getting what one wants is suffering. In short, the Five Aggregates clung to as self are suffering [unsatisfactory, disappointing, unable to fulfill, associated with pain]" (SN 56.11).
Hey, why talk about it? Why doesn't the B shut up already? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we suffer. Got it. That's clear enough. We're doing everything we can to AVOID it. So the less we talk about it, the better we'll feel. Duh! Become a hedonist. And shut yer yapper, O Great One.
Sadly, this view has been prevalent since before the time of the Buddha, so when the Buddha, the Awakened One, bothered to mention this ugly word, dukkha ("suffering"), were people or devas happy to hear it? No way. That's the last thing they wanted to hear about.
Pain is inevitable, but suffering's optional.
This is where the misunderstanding begins, and it could end here if hearers would just put away their aversion and LISTEN. A doctor comes in with the results of your scan and examination. Want to hear what's wrong? No way, just get right to the cure! Let's only talk about perfect health. What's it going to take? It's going to take all that? Forget it. I'll keep my illness. Why, I never... It's only when we see how bad and big the problem is that we adopt the right view about it and are open to the cure.
The Buddha would have had a much nicer time to only speak positively and in an "airy fairy" sort of way, doling out magic, bliss, sprinkles, blessings, smiles, good cheer, good news, and the energy of a modern motivational speaker. He could have just told everyone who came to him in pain, confused, or ignorant, "That's right, you're doing great, attaboy, right on, keep it up!" They would have been so happy to hear it. But because he understood and was willing to show us the awful truth, he came to be called the Master Physician. He never met a kind of pain he couldn't cure. The first step? Recognition. Second step? Cause or diagnosis. Third step? Assessment or prognosis. Fourth step? (This is the best one!) The cure, solution, course of treatment, the way to fix what's broken as described in the first step.
"Suffering"?
I can take it because I'm a bodhisattva. Ouch!!!
No single English word captures the range, depth, and subtlety of the ancient Pali and Sanskrit term dukkha. Many translations try ("disappointment," "suffering," "unsatisfactoriness," "stress," etc.) Each captures part of the meaning in a given context. There is value in realizing more than one term is needed because the thrust of Buddhist practice is broadening and deepening the understanding of a term so important to the Buddha that he often claimed to only teach two things -- what is dukkha and what is the elimination of dukkha. Until its roots are finally exposed and eradicated, we will not understand why he focused almost as much on the problem as its solution. When landing on the single best English translation, think again. No matter how we translate dukkha, it's always subtler, deeper, and less satisfactory than that.
(Buddha's Wisdom)
April 30, 2025: 🔍 THE BUDDHA'S SHOCKING ANSWER TO LIFE'S BIGGEST QUESTION: Why do anything at all if life is filled with pain, loss, separation, and disappointment (dukkha)?
The Buddha said, “Life is suffering [disappointing, unsatisfactory],” — but he didn’t stop there. That was just laying out the problem we face. Living (existing) includes unbearable pain and horrifying misery.
Why was the Buddha always smiling?
["Life is what happens when you're making plans."]
Ikigai (生き甲斐, literally "a reason for being") is a Japanese concept that refers to what an individual defines to be the meaning of his or her life. More
Beneath that harsh (and potentially enlightening) truth lies one of the most liberating insights in all of human history.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 LIFE'S MOST DISTURBING QUESTION
01:25 THE HAPPINESS TRAP
04:03 THE IMPOSSIBLE GAME
06:43 THE BUDDHA'S SECRET WEAPON
09:34 THE MEANING MISTAKE
12:32 LIVING WITHOUT A POINT
15:02 THE ULTIMATE PLOT TWIST
This video unpacks a forgotten teaching that turns suffering into meaning as it reveals the radical Buddhist answer to life’s most haunting question.
DISCOVER:
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (Shunryu Suzuki)
The happiness trap that keeps most people stuck in a cycle of dissatisfaction
How the Buddha's First Noble (Ennobling = Enlightening) Truth is profoundly misunderstood in Western culture
The revolutionary approach to meaning that flips conventional wisdom upside down
Why the very search for purpose might be preventing us from finding it
Three practical Buddhist practices we can start today to transform our experience
[There are FOUR enlightening truths, not one: There's suffering; there's a reason for it; there and END to suffering; and there's a reason why it ends! Ah, so there's hope and happiness!]
If this perspective resonates, hit subscribe to continue exploring the Buddha's wisdom with Buddha's Wisdom. New videos every week diving deeply into ancient insights that can transform modern life.
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Tan Geoff tells this story about the first noble truth: "He showed me the brightness of the world."
That's how my teacher, Ajahn Fuang, once characterized his gratitude to his teacher, Ajahn Lee [Dhammadaro, student of Ajahn Mun]. His words took me by surprise.
I had only recently come to study with him, still fresh from a school where I had learned that serious Buddhists took a negative, pessimistic view of the world.
Yet, here was a monk who had given his life over to the practice of the Buddha's Teachings speaking of the world's brightness.
Of course, by "brightness" he wasn't referring to the joys of the food, arts, travel, sports, family life, or any of the other sections of the Sunday paper.
The happiest couple in the world...and the most miserable. I want a divorce! - Oh yeah? 💩
.
He was talking about a better and deeper happiness that comes from within us. As I came to know him, I gained a sense of how deeply happy he was.
He may have been skeptical about human pretenses, but I'd never describe him as pessimistic or negative. "Realistic" would be closer to the truth.
Yet, for a long time I couldn't shake the sense of paradox I felt. How could the pessimism of translated Buddhist texts find embodiment in such a solidly happy person?
Only when I began to look directly at the early sutras did I realize that what I thought was paradox was actually irony.
Ironically, Buddhism, which gives such a positive view of a human being's potential for finding true happiness, could be branded in the West as "negative and pessimistic."
Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
There's a rumor that, "'Life is suffering' is Buddhism's first principle," the first noble truth, according to the Buddha. It's a rumor with good credentials. It is spread by well-intentioned and well-respected academics and Dharma teachers alike. But it is a rumor, nonetheless.
The truth about the Four Noble Truths is far more interesting.
The Buddha taught four ennobling (enlightening) truths — not one — about life:
There is suffering (disappointment, pain, stress)
There is a cause of suffering
There is an end of suffering
There is a path of practice that puts an end to suffering.
These truths, taken as a whole, are very optimistic. They're practical. It's a problem-solving approach — the way a doctor approaches an illness (pain), a mechanic a faltering engine. Identify the problem and look for its cause. Then put an end to the problem by eliminating its cause.
What's special about the Buddha's approach is that the problem he approaches is the whole of human (and deva) suffering. The solution he offers is something humans (and devas) can do for themselves.
Just as a physician with a surefire cure for measles is no longer afraid of measles, the Buddha isn't afraid of any aspect of suffering. Having experienced pleasure and happiness free of all conditions, he's intrepid.
He's not afraid to point out suffering and disappointment inherent in places where most of us would rather not see them — the conditioned pleasures we cling to.
He teaches beings not to deny suffering and disappointment, not to run away, but to stand still and face them, to examine them carefully. That way — by understanding them — we can discern a cause and put an end to it, a total end. How confident can one get? More
Ajahn Geoff (aka Geoffrey DeGraff, Thanissaro Bhikkhu), "Life Isn't Just Suffering," accesstoinsight.org; edited by Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
LYRICS: What shall we use to fill the empty spaces where waves of hunger roar? Shall we set out across this sea of faces in search of more and more applause?
Shall we buy a new guitar? Shall we drive a more powerful car? Shall we work straight through the night? Shall we get into fights? Leave the lights on? Drop bombs? Do tours of the East? Contract diseases? Bury bones?
Break up homes? Send flowers by phone? Take to drink? Go to shrinks? Give up meat? Rarely sleep? Keep people as pets? Train dogs? Race rats? Fill the attic with cash? Bury treasure? Store up leisure? But never relax at all with our backs to the wall?
Maybe sex and/or violence is the answer?
Now listen up, Crew. We are going to explain Buddhism so Westerners can get it.
Get undressed. I have a surprise for you.
As Westerners speaking English, we hear that "all existence is suffering" and say, "It isn't." It isn't. But that's not what it means and is not what the Buddha was saying. What he is saying is much less obvious and much more profound.
Of course there's pleasure! Why else would anyone hang around in samsara if it were all miserable all the time? We'd renounce pleasure-seeking and find a way out. But as it is, we aren't even looking for a way out because we do not see the true nature of existence.
"All existence is beset by disappointment, unsatisfactoriness, and will never be able to fulfill us." That's what the first ennobling truth means. We may not like it, we may not believe it, we may not want it to be true, but seeing how and why it's true leads in the direction of enlightenment.
As Westerners speaking English, we hear the second truth: "The cause of suffering is desire" and say, "It isn't." It isn't. The ultimate cause of suffering is ignorance, which is in part expressed as desire (craving, yearning, attachment, clinging to things) and aversion to things (fear, hate, anger, resentment, aversion) that bring about our disappointment. Not understanding, we react, and that makes it suffering.
This is NOT what I thought you'd suggest.
We're sad. We don't see that the things we're chasing are (by nature fundamentally) incapable of fulfilling us, incapable of satisfying the craving they engender, incapable of curing the disease of endless wanting.
Why, then, did the Buddha single out desire (tanha, "craving") as the cause of suffering/disappointment?
It is not because he was against desire. It was because in the dozen causal links of Dependent Origination that answer "Why do we suffer?" he saw that desire is the weak link.
It is where we can exercise some influence to break free of the cycle and bring about the end of all suffering, all disappointment, and discover the ultimate bliss of nirvana.
That's the article in brief. Feel free to stop reading now.
The problem with Buddhism in the West is a largely one of translation. The historical Buddha's Dharma (Doctrine or Teachings) may be boiled down to the Four Ennobling Truths.
They are ennobling because "noble" is a translation of Aryan or "enlightened." Penetrating these four statements, which are an ancient medical approach to any ailment for which a physician might be summoned to diagnose and render a prognosis, leads to awakening(bodhi).
If ignorance (avijja, delusion, moha, illusion, maya, wrong view, ditthi) is the ultimate problem, the ultimate source of all suffering and unhappiness, the solution is awakening.
But how does a human or deva, like me or that one over there, awaken from this illusory experience of the world (maya)?
The renunciate Siddhartha Gautama (formerly a Scythian/Shakyian prince living west of proto-India in Gandhara/Kapilavatthu a.k.a. Bamiyan) posed this question to himself, "Why do we suffer?"
"Suffering" is a poor translation of the term dukkha, which in Pali and Sanskrit has a range of meanings not captured by our English "suffering." It means disappointment, unfulfillment, wonky, uncertain, wobbly, unsatisfactory, ill, woe, lamentation (crying), and all the negative side of emotions, pain (dukkhata).
There's a flipside. It's called sukha (happiness, joy, pleasure, the range of pleasant sensations and emotions).
The renunciate Siddhartha knew all about sensual pleasure because, as a rich, healthy, beautiful prince for 29 years, he had lived a sheltered life of extreme indulgence, hedonism, and sensuality with troupes of dancing girls and musicians, a harem, palaces, family, friends, and a beautiful wife he married when both were 16.
Moreover, he had music, sports, arts, diversions, the best education money could buy (tutored by Brahmins), wealth, a white pony of his own (named Kanthaka), soma (haoma), and anything he desired was given to him by his father and loving stepmother.
This gummy solves all my problems. Sort of.
It all FAILED to satisfy him, satiate him, fulfill him. If it could have, it would have. He realized it never would because it never could. So he left it all behind. He left it to find something that might be able to. He followed the example of a Scythian wandering ascetic he had seen, shaved and dressed in simple saffron robes (stitched from cast off rags). Why leave it all behind?
There's something beyond the five senses: something supersensual, the blissful, a pleasure not dependent on sensuality but on our sixth sense, the mind.
That's it! I'll make my dad proud of me!
For example, if we win an award, acclaim, or hear that our children or students have succeeded, we experience pleasure and satisfaction beyond the senses. We are happy, thrilled, elated, but it's not through any of the five senses being stimulated so much as the sixth, the mind, the thought of what it means.
We will endure much hardship for such pleasure. For years, Prince Siddhartha experienced sensual pleasure, being raised to rule the extended clan (the janapada), worrying that he might not become a good leader, learning all the arts and sciences of his day.
He's back, Son! That's holy man's your father.
When he discovered -- on a fateful journey outside of the palace walls -- was the reality for average humans, non-royals, commoners: a life of toil, aging, sickness, and death. He was shocked into a sober assessment how he should live the remainder of his life. He was 29. By 35, he was awakened, and for 45 years he traveled far and wide to make known the path to the end of all suffering he found. He came right back to his people -- the Scythians (of Saka, Kapilavatthu) -- his parents, his former wife, his child, his tribe -- and gave them a gift better than any to be found in all the world of gods (devas) and humans: The Path.
Poorly translating his life story, most of us have been left with the idea that he selfishly left wife and child and went East to "find himself." He went to find a cure for suffering for his family and people. He found it, he came back, and he gave it to them. His wife became enlightened, his father became enlightened, his stepmother became the world's first Buddhist nun, his son became the world's youngest Buddhist wandering ascetic at age 7, his many cousins and relatives and fellow Scythians became monks and nuns, awakening in no long time.
That's life -- birth, aging, and death (followed by rebirth, re-aging, and re-death again and again)? His own life had been much better than most yet didn't satisfy him. How must their lives be without such indulgences, pleasures, pastimes, and the power to influence others?
However it is, exalted or impoverished, it all comes to an end in death and loss of all that is beloved? No one escapes this fate (except the awakened).
Worse yet, we are reborn countless times experiencing the results of our deeds (karma), skillful and unskillful, producing agony and pleasure, all in a ceaseless round of ignorance and redeath.
That's life, not just for us as humans but the gods (devas of all kinds and levels) and those on the "downward path" (animals, hungry ghosts, demons, and hellions -- nirayas), stuck in miserable planes of existence for unimaginably long periods of time.
Boasting of our youth, beauty, influence, wealth, possessions, and radiance when happy, lamenting our age, ugliness, insignificance, poverty, and dimness when miserable, going from state to state ever in search of pleasure here, pleasure there, never able to find fulfillment or peace anywhere.
In talking about the four truths that lead to awakening, the Awakened One, the Buddha, the former wandering ascetic Siddhartha, realized these four were the truths to pursue, think about, realize, and penetrate:
All states are disappointing (dukkha).
All disappointment has a cause (desire).
There is a cessation of all dukkha (nirvana).
There is a path that leads to this.
Why? Why not think about and pursue our four new Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal truths:
Some state is fulfilling.
That state has a reason.
It is possible to achieve it.
This is the way to achieve it.
We're only saying the same thing, of course, but with a positive spin that makes much more sense in English. If we had an ancient medical tradition of laying out four statements about one's condition, we'd follow that. But we don't. We just have positive spin.
Nirvana, not being a state, is fulfilling.
Reaching it is the cause of being there.
Such a thing is possible.
What is the way to it? The Ennobling Eightfold Path, just like the Buddha said.
People (Westerners) get so caught up on pondering and arguing, debating and mistranslating these Four Truths that we fail to set off on REALIZING them.
They are not doctrines to believe or disbelieve. They are very real enlightenment-factors to realize. In realizing them, we awaken. We know and see directly for ourselves with no need of a teacher, guru, or anyone to rely on. We realize they have always been true. Only we were ignorant. When we awaken, there's no problem.
Problem Number 1 from an ignorant point of view -- the way most English translation blame "desire" (tanha, "craving," lit. "thirst") as the cause of all suffering. We don't even believe everything is disappointing and unfulfilling. We haven't lived enough, been rich enough, been hedonistic enough to know that for ourselves. It looks inviting.
Problem Number 2, okay, let's say it is all "suffering," which is nonsense because even sukha is disappointing. Isn't it? All sensual pleasure disappoints, leaves us unfulfilled and wanting more, fails to satisfy, fails to satiate, fails to cure the disease of desiring. That's clear enough, and people who have experienced a great deal of pleasure KNOW it. It's certain. It's just that there's nothing else. We don't have another option to pursue.
Prince Siddhartha didn't either, until he saw one in what that wandering ascetic (shramana) was doing, going about in ascetic rags, happy. What did he know? He at least knew the first escape, which was the bliss of meditative absorption. It took Siddhartha to find a real "escape to reality," because -- remember -- all of this is unreal, an illusion (maya). We are seeking Truth, Liberation, Total Freedom, Nirvana.
The way to that is twofold (calm and insight), fourfold (these four truths), eightfold (this Noble Eightfold Path that leads to realization of the Truth).
Back to Pink Floyd
There's a dark side of the moon. Just ask Pink.
How does this relate Roger Waters' band Pink Floyd? Waters was the second genius behind the band (the first being Syd). Waters wrote the lyrics and came up with most of the songs after the departure of Syd.
He had the help of four very talented British hippies, collectively called "The Pink Floyd Sound," shortened to Pink Floyd: Syd Barret, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright.
In the band's movie, The Wall, which Waters conceived of and wrote, there's a collective rockstar named "Pink." He's got it all. He doesn't have anything. Why? Because freedom is everything.
Pink is neither free of desire nor craving (clinging), ignorance, ego, malice, attachment, hatred, and so on. He's full of defilements, just like us, except in his case he's rich and powerful enough to act on getting it ALL.
What, in sensuous terms, is the "ALL"? (The Buddha mentioned it in The Fire Sermon). It is everything he wants whenever he wants it. Even that won't satisfy. Imagine that! That's MY dream, that's our dream, that's everyone's dream!
We think we have many problems. We only have ONE problem. And that is that things are not as we would wish them to be. If we could just get over that one problem, then we'd be happy. But even then, because things are inherently incapable of satisfying, we wouldn't be happy for long. Therefore, if we could make an end of ignorance, craving, and aversion, we actually would be happy. Other words for these three things are greed, hatred, and delusion, the poisons of the mind/heart. The end of those is the beginning of nirvana.
Thanks for coming back, Dad. Call me Buddha, Rahul
If we only could have anything we wanted whenever we wanted it THEN we'd be happy. We wouldn't. Rockstars are miserable. They become drug addicts to feel pleasure, to be creative, to keep going with their insane schedules, to have egos big enough to endure the adoration, fame, love, and riches. It doesn't work. That doesn't stop us from wanting it.
After I hit the billion dollar lottery jackpot, know what I'm going to do? Become famous and adored. Then I'll be like Elon Musk with a guitar, on stage to the thunderous roar of applause, texting Taylor Swift after the show and asking her if she wants to come over to watch Netflix and chill. Wink, wink.
"It won't happen," you say. I say, "It doesn't matter. It wouldn't work anyway!" That's not the way to the end of disappointment, the end of ill. That saffron-robed Buddha is on to it. He knows the Way because he was that rockstar prince living in luxury all his youth. He renounced it when he saw -- directly by his own life experience -- that it would never work to fulfill and satisfy, to end the pain and bring stillness and peace. It would only get worse, as the common lot of humanity was experiencing, to say nothing of the animals, ghosts, and hellions, the demons, the jealous gods (asura or fallen devas), the brahmas living temporarily in glory and power.
Maybe sex is the solution? Not likely. Violence? Nope. Haven't had either? When you do, you'll see. It's not the way. Desire is not the way. Craving is not the way. Greed (lust) is not the way. Frustration is not the way. Anger is not the way. Delusion is not the way. Wrong view is not way. Ignorance is not the way. WHAT IS THE WAY?
Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Bu Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly; Danny Elfman (lyrics)
At the hub of the Wheel of Rebirth are greed, hatred, and delusion on which its turning hinges.
According to the Buddha, there are Three Poisons, mental defilements that degrade the mind/heart, and serve as the root-motivations for all unskillful karma (unwholesome actions).
What are they? Roughly speaking -- because these are ancient Pali/Sanskrit terms only approximately translatable into English -- they are:
Greed (attraction, passion, craving, desire, liking, or lobha)
Hatred (aversion, fear, revulsion, disliking, or dosa), and
Delusion (wrong view, distortion, perversion, ignorance, or moha).
The common English translation of "greed, hatred, and delusion" of technical Buddhist terms is misleading because it makes it seem as if only the extremes of these motives are unskillful karma.
In fact, at any intensity they lead to disappointment (dukkha, a term that extends from agitation to agony) as soon as they arise. For each term, the meaning spans the entire range of the word
from liking, bias, preference, and passion to greed,
from disliking, annoyance, fearing, and revulsion to hatred,
from not knowing, wrong view, misunderstanding, and distortion to delusion.
The motives (causes and conditions) for all skillful deeds, wholesome or meritorious karma, are the opposites:
Nongreed (letting go, sharing, giving, generosity, detaching, non-clinging, or alobha).
Nonhatred (friendliness, loving-kindness, compassion, joy in others' joy, or adosa).
Nondelusion (wisdom, knowing-and-seeing, right view, undistorted understanding, or amoha).
They make more sense in positive terms, but each word is a category encompassing the entire range of degrees.
Reflect and examine it. When we do something unskillful, unwholesome, or wrong, what is at the root of it? We are making demeritorious karma (that will bear fruit and ripen in unpleasant, unwelcome, unwished for, disappointing, and painful results).
Entering one of the subterranean hells below Los Angeles: 6th Dimension*
They are called "bad" not because a God doesn't like them but because we will not like their karmic results (vipaka and phala) when they finally ripen, which might not be for a long time. (Some deeds are avyākata, indeterminate or neutral).
Is fear hate? Both are manifestations of aversion (dosa), so fear may be distinguished from hate, but it's only a matter of our reaction to stimuli. In fear, we want to run away, whereas in hate we want to send the repulsive object away).
Ven. Nyanatiloka (L) and Ven. Nyanaponika
What motivates an action and produces karma? One or a combination of these seven motivating our action. The kind of karma produced is based on the motive or intention (cetana) behind the deed.
Karma is like a seed that comes to fruition later. The famous Judeo-Christian expression of this karmic principle is that "We shall reap what we sow." In other words, we will later harvest what we previously planted.
The Three Poisons of the mind/heart are easy to recognize in ourselves if we reflect, except for hate. Of course we like things. This is a carnal world within the Sensual Sphere (Kama-Loka). Pleasure-seeking is the main defilement that got us here and that gets us into trouble while we're here by motivating more greedy, selfish, lustful acts. However, all craving is rooted in ignorance.
Ignorance is the fundamental root of all problems and all suffering. Ignorance gives rise to desire, to craving and clinging to things we imagine are persisting, pleasurable, and real.
The Buddha's teaching on the Three Marks of Existence tells us that they are not any of these three things. All conditioned phenomena (all "things" composed of other things that depend for their existence on constituent elements or factors) are:
hurtling toward destruction,
disappointing and incapable of fulfilling us,
impersonal/empty/without essence.
They are not compacts but compounds, not unconditioned (like nirvana, the sole "unconditioned element"*) but conditioned (like everything else, every element, every fabrication, every formation).
*Asankhata: the "unformed, unoriginated, unconditioned" is a name for nirvana, the "further shore," that is beyond the beyond of all becoming (rebirth) and all conditions. See Bhikkhu Bodhi's As It Is for a textual definition of nirvana (called nibbana in Pali), which too often gets confused with "nothingness" or "annihilation" or "eternal life," when it is none of these things.
In the West we are not raised to recognize or admit our hatred. We are reluctant to show anger, instead suppressing and repressing it. This root (dosa) more often finds expression in the socially acceptable form of FEAR. It's still aversion. It's still unskillful karma that leads to unwise actions that yield painful results.
*Danny Elfman's best music was from his first movie, Forbidden Zone
Danny Elfman sings about fear
Elfman still makes music, performs
The genius ginger Danny Elfman, along with brother Dick and The Mystic Knight of the Oingo Boingo (Gong Show winners), recognized how out of control this unwholesome root could get -- odd neuroses, panic attacks, specific phobias, and general anxiety. Peace of mind will always be hard to find when it is defiled.
LYRICS: "I'm Afraid"
@volatilevulture8102 corrected by Wisdom Quarterly
Afraid of the dark/ Afraid of the light/ Don't walk in the park/ Afraid of the night/ Afraid to get stabbed/ Or hit by a car/ Afraid of the streets/ Afraid to go far/ Afraid of the sky/ Don't like to be high/ I don't want to fall/ Afraid I might die/ Afraid of my friends/ Don't like to be seen/ Afraid to be nice/ Afraid to be mean/ Afraid that the wind/ Will knock over trees/ Afraid of my dog, oh/ Afraid of his fleas!
CHORUS: Peace of mind/ Peace of mind/ Peace of mind/ Peace of mind/ Hard to keep/ Hard to keep/ Hard to find/ Hard to find/ Look ahead/ Look ahead/ Look behind/ Look behind/ Looking for/ Looking for/ Peace of mind/ Peace of mind/ Can't relax/ Can't relax/ Can't unwind/ Can't unwind/ Deep inside/ Deep inside/ Secret mind/ Secret mind/ Oh, no!
Afraid to be caught/ Afraid to be free/ Afraid to make love/ Afraid of VD/ Afraid that the rain/ Will make me get wet/ Afraid to take drugs/ That make me forget/ Afraid that the air/ Will make me get sick/ Afraid that the girls/ Will cut off my/ OH!
Someone tell me how it happened/ Why my head is so confused/ Can it be my circuits finally blew a fuse?/ Blew a fuse/ Can a human being really change into a humanoid?/ Or is it my imagination/ Paranoid!/ Paranoid/ All I need is peace and quiet/ Maybe just a little time/ Turn the channel, turn the channel!/ Peace of mind/
Peace of mind/ Peace of mind/ Peace of mind/ Peace of mind/ Hard to keep/ Hard to keep/ Hard to find/ Hard to find/ Look ahead/ Look ahead/ Look behind/ Look behind/ Looking for/ Looking for/ Peace of mind/ Peace of mind/ All creation/ All creation/ All mankind/ All mankind/ Looking for/ Looking for/ Peace of mind/ Peace of mind
Afraid of success/ Afraid to grow old/ Afraid that my brain/ Is covered with mold/ Afraid that I might/ Be put on a shelf/ But last but not least, oh!/ Afraid of myself!
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