The three characteristics: unsatisfactoriness

The past few days, I have been experiencing a feeling that things are not quite right, of unquiet and unease. I could explain all this: it's winter, the days are short, there are clouds in the sky, my back has been sore for no particular reason, work is busy, I have a very full life right now and on and on and on. None of which serves to address the core question, which is: what is the true, underlying source of this feeling of unsatisfactoriness? If I take the time to look at each of these "reasons" for my disquiet, it is not difficult to see that they have one characteristic in common: a reflection of my unwillingness to accept things as they are in this moment and a tendency to give these things more power than they inherently contain.

I don't think it is helpful (at least not for me) to reflect that many of these things are good or that other beings have it much worse. These are common techniques for cheering ourselves but still contain the patina of judgment; things are bad but could be worse, they are better than I am viewing them. What the Buddha advocated was something far more radical, the idea that all of this suffering arises not from events but from our verdict about them. You may recall from earlier writings that the Buddha recognized from his own behavior before his enlightenment that we have three responses to all things: aversion, craving, and delusion or ignorance. We can also restate these as "I want less", "I want more" and "I don't care." This seems a pretty accurate picture to me. You can see how there is always an action involved here, either a pushing away or a drawing toward. There is no space in this paradigm for that which simply is, accepted for itself, without judgment.

"To flee from pain is not only to solidify the pain, but it is to reinforce the habit pattern of flight" and thereby also  "reinforcing the belief system of incapacity", which is to say, our core, false belief that we are incapable of just being with whatever arises."The habitual pattern of flight is a little bit like a vote of no confidence in ourselves, in our capacity to meet our life unconditionally and to make wise choices."--Christina Feldman

One of the most important effects of mindfulness is to "sever the link between unpleasant experience and the underlying tendency of fear and aversion. Every time we are able to do this, we are seeing for ourselves the truth that there is suffering and there is an end to suffering," Feldman says.

Which is not to say that I need to enjoy my back pain as much as I enjoy apple pie. In fact, what this radical philosophy declares is that I am the one who makes the back pain a source of suffering and, perhaps more significantly, that I can make the apple pie a source of suffering, too. How this works is through the kleshas of aversion, craving and delusion. This word klesha can apparently be translated many different ways, but is usually rendered as "poison". So these mind states poison an event with no inherent value of desirability or undesirability with our need to grab onto them in some way and give them meaning. It is only by doing so that we create the feeling of unsatisfactoriness.

Please note, too, that I have for the most part chosen to use the word "unsatisfactoriness" in place of "suffering", the more commonly used translation of dukkha. Though I cannot read Pali, it seems to me that the former is more descriptive than the latter. To my way of thinking, suffering is a much more static concept, while unsatisfactoriness implies, as it should, a sense that I have chosen to view something in a particular way, in the light of being unsatisfactory.

But let's get back to that apple pie. How, you might ask, can I make suffering out of a nice piece of apple pie. Or is it all that nice? I prefer the lattice-top crust, really. Are these canned apples? Oh, perhaps just a little less time in the oven and this crust might not be so overdone. I'll bet they used margarine; everyone knows the crust is not as flaky when you do. You know, I probably shouldn't be eating this anyway; that blog I've been reading says I should track my calories and there's bound to be a ton of them in this piece of pie. Sure would taste better with some good vanilla ice cream. No one makes vanilla ice cream with the taste I remember any more. The quality of everything is deteriorating now that I think of it. My car needs to go to the shop; don't they have to go in more often these days? Is this just a conspiracy to get my money? How can I know? If I were a better person I would just do without a car and walk or bike everywhere. This is pretty good pie. Are these apples organic? I hope so. They could be genetically modified for all I know. I could be eating the genes of a goat or something. Ick. I wonder if I can get another piece once this is gone? I will never, ever have another piece of apple pie this good.

What we have missed when we eat our apple pie this way, of course, is the pie itself! When did we take the time to just Eat The Pie? Pema Chödrön tells the parable of the young woman who is being chased by tigers. She reaches the edge of a cliff and sees a sturdy vine trailing over the edge. She climbs down the vine only to find that it ends a few feet down the cliff. She looks below her and, in addition to the precipitous drop, sees hungry lions. She then looks up and sees that a mouse is slowly but inexorably gnawing through the vine to which she clings. She looks before her and sees a perfect, ripe strawberry, which she picks and thoroughly enjoys. As Pema concludes, this is how our lives are, "tigers above, lions below". It is never not like this! It is not that we disregard the lions, the tigers, the mice, or our general predicament. Rather, we take the time and devote our attention to enjoying the strawberries in our way. Everything else is unsatisfactoriness, which is wholly manufactured by us.