Orange County Buddhist Church
Orange County Buddhist Church
A Way Of Seeing (A Buddhist?)
Can you accept that all emotions bring pain and suffering and that there is no emotion that is purely pleasurable?
This was the second of four questions that Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse would have us answer in the positive, if we are to think of ourselves as being Buddhist. Just as a reminder, the first asked, “Can you accept that all things are impermanent and that there is no essential substance or concept that is permanent?”
If we had the time and the inclination, we might ask what the meanings of all these words are, but we do not; at least, I do not. Most, if not all, of the words are clear enough. If all things are impermanent, then even things called “essential substance or concept” are impermanent. If we accept the first half of the sentence, we must accept the second half as well.
What does it mean to say that “all emotions bring pain and suffering and that there is no emotion that is purely pleasurable?” There are many things that can be considered to be emotions: joy, love, hate, sadness, greed, and so on. However, the author points out that there are many cultures in which what they might consider emotions cannot be, and have not been, translatable into Western languages. There is at least one culture that has no concept or word for romantic love. Even sticking to our language and culture (is there a single American culture?), some emotions bring a certain amount and kind of pleasure to some people that bring pain and revulsion to others.
If you contemplate what is being said in this second question, you will see that it does not matter what emotions are being referred to, since all emotions are said to bring pain and suffering. We need to recall that the most general Buddhist definition of suffering is “to get what we do not want, and not to get what we do want.” It is very simple; maybe even too simple, since so many people, including those who consider themselves to be Buddhists, either forget it or apparently want to reserve the word for only the most tragic situations. In all situations in which emotion, or, for that matter, anything, is involved, we need to keep in mind how short a moment it is. Joy and suffering, just to consider the extremes, might last for several hundred frames, or even several thousand frames, of a movie film, but sooner or later the causes and conditions that brought forth those emotions will change enough that the emotions will change. The loss of joy will become suffering, getting what we do not want (the loss of joy) and not getting what we do want (more joy). It is as simple as that. Of course, the depth of the emotion will have much to do with the depth of the ensuing pain and suffering.
As to “no emotion that is purely pleasurable,” if we know that the pleasure will be followed sooner or later by the loss of that pleasure, that knowledge will rob the purity of that joy. When we are really enjoying ourselves, we have no true sense of the passing time. However, in the first moment we think, “I wish this wouldn’t end,” because we know it will end, the purity of the joy is gone.
However, we should not take the beginning statement as the be-all and end-all of how we should look at emotions. There is no way that we can free ourselves from our emotions, whether they be pleasurable or not, especially in our Jodo Shinshu way of seeing life. Indeed, in our Jodo Shinshu way of seeing, the emotions can be a gateway to seeing ourselves as we really and truly are, which is to say that seeing ourselves as we really and truly are is the first step to hearing the Buddha Dharma as we should hear it, as a mirror held by Amida so that we might see ourselves clearly. I know that seems to be mixing metaphors, but I trust that it will not confuse the issue.
The issue is whether we see ourselves as targets of Amida’s wisdom and compassion.
In Gassho,
Donkonjaan,
Rev. John Doami
June 2008
