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28 EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS

still influence the way you react or behave in the world, friend, at early sunrise they will torture you with a
and yes, through Dharma practice you will be able to hundred spears, again at midday and again at sunset.
see those things, but its ok if it is too difficult at this Now friend, being tortured like that day by day with
moment because you feel you are alone in the world three hundred spears, you will live on to be a hundred
or that there is nothing important or worthy of doing. years of age and at the end of your hundred years you
There are people that have trained themselves to use shall comprehend the Four Noble Truths as yet not
psychological tools that can help you. Use all there is comprehended.”
available to get better. Don’t neglect your meditation
practice and Dharma practice, don’t let the struggle Well, mendicants, a clansman who had any sense might
defeat you. Don’t let social prejudice determine who you well undertake the torture. Why? Because, mendicants,
are or what you want. Remember the famous summary unimaginable is the beginning of this wandering on.
of the Dharma: The earliest point of blows from spears, swords and
axes is not seen. Even if this were to happen to you,
Dhammapada Verse 183 mendicants, I would not declare the full comprehension
English: of the Four Noble Truths to be won with sorrow and
To not do evil, to cultivate the wholesome, woe, but with joy and gladness”. (sahāva, sukhena,
To purify one’s mind, this is the teaching of all sahāva somanassa)
Awakened Ones.
There is the wrong idea that the Buddha taught
Pāli: that “life is suffering”. But in the first discourse,
Sabba pāpassa akaraṇaṁ, kusalassa upasampadā Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, he summarizes the
Sacitta pariyodapanaṁ, etaṁ buddhāna sāsanaṁ. First Noble Truth as, the five aggregates of clinging, life
with clinging or clinging experience is unsatisfactory
So do good. Make the Right Effort to increase the and suffering (dukkha):
wholesome and decrease the unwholesome. To have
a crisis can be so tough that it can lead you to some “Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering:
very serious consequences, or at worse to suicide. birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering,
Remember the Dharma and reflect that even famous, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is
successful people that supposedly have everything suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering;
everyone wants have committed suicide. We see it not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five
quite often. Many successful people now go around the aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.”
world telling their stories to encourage people to help
themselves and to recognize when the subject matter is jātipi dukkhā, jarāpi dukkhā, byādhipi dukkho,
going out of their control. Listen to the people that care maraṇampi dukkhaṃ, appiyehi sampayogodukkho,
for you and check if there is truth in their worries and piyehi vippayogo dukkho, yampicchaṃ na labhati
ask for advice. There is nothing wrong, you are not a tampi dukkhaṃ—saṃkhittena pañcupādānakkhandhā
failure. The Buddha taught wholesome action to devote dukkhā.
your life to true happiness, not only to a hormone that
feels pleasant or a sensual pleasure that gives very Not paying attention to the discourses of the
short intense pleasant sensations, but to devote your enlightened one, we might misunderstand his message.
life to a deep profound peace that is beyond that. When We cannot leave out the word attachment or upādāna
we practice the Dharma correctly, joy will rise, as it is here. If life is unsatisfactory and suffering, then it would
recorded in the discourses of the Buddha: seem the logical way out of suffering would be to end
life, but it is not. Let’s not blame the tools here. The
“Suppose, mendicants, there was a man whose span of problem resides in our own minds . We cling to pleasure
life was to be a hundred years. They said to him: “Look and try to avoid pain, and we create expectations that are