thoughts on a post by Jayarava

A quick brain-dump of some thoughts brought up by a post from Jayarava’s Raves, Rumination, the Stress Response, and Meditation:

Death is something we want to face with grace. It's the ultimate test of our test of our faith. We can feel good about ourselves if we face death with equanimity. Depression and other forms of psychological problem seem to be something we don't want to face at all. Since happiness is said to be the result of being a Buddhist, then a Buddhist suffering from distress is a kind of anathema. The reaction seems to be to pull away and isolate the person, perhaps with a sense of preventing the spread of the negativity contagion.

Responding to discomfort that we do not understand in others by turning away from it strikes me as at once understandably human and terribly misguided (especially for practitioners of Buddhism). When talking about the first noble truth (which I would paraphrase as “suffering/dukkha exists”), the Saṃyutta Nikāya says that “this noble truth of suffering is to be fully understood”. I can’t understand something by averting my gaze when it’s uncomfortable. If I regard suffering and malady as something that doesn’t happen to Buddhists, I think that I have confused human Buddhists with Bodhisattvas, and in so doing, I have limited my ability to perceive and address suffering. Indeed, if I already didn’t experience suffering, I wouldn’t really have much need for Buddhism, would I?

What’s more, if I see negativity as a contagion that I need to defend myself against, I think I display a lack of confidence in my own practice. While certainly I would be well-advised not to throw myself into strongly negative situations to test the strength of my practice as a Buddhist, avoiding them when they arise in my daily life feels like I’m treating my practice as fragile, needing protection from those around me. In so doing, it feels like I’m writing a big asterisk on “the cessation of suffering”, and writing a paragraph of fine print about the specific external situations that need to exist for this promise to not be void.

endnotes:

1. “I am not exempt from illness” is noted as one of the five themes for contemplation, which can be found on SuttaCentral or Wikipedia.
2. I initially wrote up these ideas in a comment on Jayarava’s blog, and then lost them because statefulness in Internet things is hard, especially when they involve a POST request to try and get a preview. Maybe this can serve as a useful lesson on impermanence.