The Buddha made it simple to understand, like those yellow-colored, thick paperbacks stacked on the bottom shelf, in all the sections of bookstores, Suffering for Dummies. My copy’s pages are dog-eared, yellow-highlighted and coffee stained.
The first chapter starts something like this: All our pain arises from the three afflictions; the first being our attachment/clinging/wanting/desire, a general habit, the specific variety interchangeable but driven by our thinking, which is driven by our feeling really, that something, someone, some condition OUT THERE, will bring us happiness IN HERE. An automatic, instinctual and 100% reliable outcome, the salesman ends with “guaranteed”. But we know the game really, what we do to chase it or what happens when we do finally get the thing, and how it usually turns out.
The second cause is aversion/judgment/hatred/anger. Again, pick your poison. All of these habits of mind, a consequence of getting something you didn’t want, weren’t expecting. Or NOT getting the thing you really wanted. And it never feels good, you would never wish for that outcome in a million years, who would? And why didn’t I get what I ordered, what I deserved?
And finally, the third poison, just indifference. A condition of sleepwalking through life, just trying to put one foot in front of the other, to get the shiny things, to steer clear of broken glass, and not give a shit about everyone else on their own slow slog. A not-bothering to figure it out, for yourself, let alone anyone else.
To trace the origin of pain, a painful thing to do, but requiring that we set aside the harsh tone, the critic’s voice, the guilt and shame. A path, I see now, that requires only kindness towards myself, having arrived battered and bruised and bitter. Isn’t this what a Buddha would do for you? I know she wouldn’t kick me when I’m down. Kindness, all around, for everyone involved. The only way to get through the day. And you can’t say it enough, that this is how we do it and it’s the signpost of our final destination as well.
Because, in truth, who doesn’t appreciate a kindness given freely? Ask the nearest five-year old. How does it feel when we are recognized or acknowledged, considered, cared for and loved. A gaze, a smile, a tear welling up, a touch of the hand. Oh yes, this is it. This is what is needed and then, this is who I will be. Keep it simple, stupid. I’m talking to myself here.
If I’m honest, indifference doesn’t seem to be an issue with me. A combination of being hardwired to fucking analyze every problem, to get to some root cause, to try to figure things out. Which gets to the other part of my karma- that over the course of my life, I have suffered indignities that would make a Buddha cry. So say we all. So yes, I get the pain thing, I have felt its sting deeply and would never wish it upon my own worst enemy.
I would hardly be accused of not caring, rather, caring too much and going about it all wrong. And that brings me to the first two poisons remaining- attachment and aversion. From whose cups I have drank, bottomless. Desperate to control or stop the pain, and to get what happiness I think I deserved. “Bartender”, I say, “I’ll have another.” A drinking habit I’ve acquired, I see, spinning my wheels, revving the engine, and not getting away from some misery or on the road to Pleasantville. So, yes, I’m learning a new Rules of the Road, Buddhist edition.
When I first saw her poem, Naomi is the poet’s first name, I knew it would take a woman to parse it out for us (or some man who was awake, or even one eye open whether because of years of therapy or AA or whatever shit show they’d been to). She titled the poem “Kindness”. The opening line-“Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things”. Causing me to want to read the rest, like a hungry and unloved child wishing for some explanation as to this state of affairs, and then wishing for something to hold onto.
I had xeroxed her poem, and then laminated it for good measure, to hang in various spots in my house. To catch me as I brushed my teeth or made my morning coffee or sitting at my desk. Each skillful line was a reckoning, a reasoning, and a result. She saw the connection so clearly, like a guru, tracing the path to kindness; that it requires the gauntlet of suffering. Mandatory really. To know what pain looks like, and how it feels; deeply, personally, exquisitely.
Like the Buddha said in his first teaching: the first Noble Truth is to “know suffering“. Not some masochistic practice, but rather to understand what we are up against, what we think has gotten in our way. And then come to find out, that suffering is essential. And if we poke our nose up for a hot minute, that it is universal.
Naomi continues, “Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing…You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth.” Poets and Buddhas, my new-found friends. Understanding the connection between pain and kindness, opposites you think, but one really requiring the other. And that there is a reason for the pain in this life, and it is a useful and wonderful thing really.
So when the Buddhist nun read from the Dharma book we were studying, a couple years back, she said “Buddhas are beyond sorrow”. My ears perked up; I knew it might mean that they were not indifferent to suffering, nor had edged their way around it, nor mistaken in the belief that pain was something to push away, or to only wish for pleasant things. Our incessant “I want what I want when I want it“ all the while trying to maneuver ourselves around the unwanted thing. No, we are meant to go through it, hip deep or up to our neck even, and then beyond it.
All of this being said, a kindness really, if you can squint your eyes hard enough. I see this is something I’ve not done so well; blaming others, blaming myself, not kind really, to all involved. Some random Buddha, on one of my highfallutin days, says to me “Get off your high horse, Kathy”, or “Quit your pity party, dear one”, and just “Stop shooting yourself in the foot”. On another day, those wise words are softer, because he knows, and the Buddha just whispers in my ear “Cut yourself some slack, Kathy“, or “You know there’s a reason for all of this“, and sometimes, simply “Just be nicer to yourself”.
The poet, in her own words, cutting to the chase: “It is only kindness that ties your shoes”. Kindness, she says, is what you have been looking for, “and then goes with you everywhere, like a shadow or a friend.” And I will raise my glass to that, with tears in my eyes and a smile upon on my face as we head out the door. Happy trails really.