Dearest Friends,

It was delightful to be in your gracious company in our most recent gathering!

In our last session, we continued our exploration of the breath as a support for generating liberating insight (vipassanā), focusing specifically on how the breath can offer us a direct and sustained experience of the truth of dukkha. The reason I’ve left the word untranslated is best explained by the excerpt below from the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies’ website, Access to Insight:

No single English word adequately captures the full depth, range, and subtlety of the crucial Pali term dukkha. Over the years, many translations of the word have been used (“stress,” “unsatisfactoriness,” “suffering,” etc.). Each has its own merits in a given context. There is value in not letting oneself get too comfortable with any one particular translation of the word, since the entire thrust of Buddhist practice is the broadening and deepening of one’s understanding of dukkha until its roots are finally exposed and eradicated once and for all. One helpful rule of thumb: as soon as you think you’ve found the single best translation for the word, think again: for no matter how you describe dukkha, it’s always deeper, subtler, and more unsatisfactory than that.

The paragraph above notwithstanding, the Soto Zen priest Domyo Sater Burk offers this beautifully accessible description of dukkha:

If we give up trying to translate dukkha into one word, it could be said that it is an existential sense that things are not as they should be, which manifests in human experience in varying degrees between despair (things are vastly different from the way things should be) and a vague uneasiness (things are not quite as they should be).

For me personally, this description strikes at the heart of the matter: dukkha captures the full range of our cognitive, affective and somatic reactions to the notion that things aren’t the way they ought to be—whether the “things” in question are ourselves, other people, the world, life itself…or all of the above. Our reflexive aversion towards undesirable or undesired states of affairs is a product of both biological and cultural conditioning—and liberating ourselves from it is the principal aim of the Buddhist path.

SUGGESTED PRACTICE:

Sit quietly with your gaze lowered or your eyes half-closed. After a few moments, direct your attention to your breath and allow your breath to serve as your “default” anchor to the present moment. The main instruction in this practice, however, is to notice the many expressions of dukkha that present themselves in a relatively short span of time. Notice the different varieties of physical, emotional and mental discomforts that arise as you simply sit and breathe. Notice the inevitability of dukkha even when you’re engaging in an activity as ostensibly benign as mindfulness meditation. Conclude the meditation on this note: This is the truth of dukkha. This condition is part of what it means to simply exist.

REFLECTION PROMPTS:

• What did you discover or rediscover from undertaking the meditation?
• What expressions of dukkha are most present to you during formal practice? What expressions are most present in your everyday life?
• How has coming to terms with the truth of dukkha alleviated your suffering? How has it expanded your sense of freedom, happiness and well-being?