Suffering

I came across the Buddhist saying of "Life is a suffering" when I was young. I think it was in primary school when I read the book "Siddharta", which now I feel really amazed that I actually chose that book to read at such a young age, which I definitely didn't understand! Hahaha. I remember my P4 form teacher telling me that the book was "too heavy" for me and that I should read other children books. But I ignored her and reading it "blindly" anyway.

So the phrase is etched in my mind ever since I'm small. That life is a suffering. When I was young I took that phrase in a negative way. So for example when I went through some difficult and annoying times I would tell myself "Oh well life is a suffering". When I was in secondary school, I took it in a more negative way by blaming life when things turn shitty, so I would really just blame life and myself by telling myself how much of a suffering life is.

When I was in polytechnic, I find out the three principles of existence of Buddhism and my definition of life being a suffering changed. I feel that life is a suffering because of our ego, because one of the principles is egolessness (Anattaa) which I like to call "there's no I in me". Because of our ego, our lives are made more difficult and yeah, life is a suffering.

I also feel that attachment is a cause to our sufferings. That we should not attach ourselves to anything because nothing is permanent here. If we overly attach ourselves to things, it becomes the root of our unhappiness. So the main thing is not to overly attach ourselves to things I suppose. Not that we shouldn't attach ourselves to anything haha.

But then I was reading The Tibetan Book of The Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche and my idea of life is a suffering is changed. So there's a term in Buddhism called Samsara, which means the cycle of death and rebirth. And from the book, I learned that one doesn't have to live and die, in a lifetime, to experience life and death. In fact, we can face death everyday. The fact that nothing is permanent can depict death too. So yeah we don't have to wait till we die to experience death. Death is in fact everywhere around us.

The goal of a Buddhist is to attain nirvana, and that is the freedom from Samsara. To break this cycle and be free, no longer being rebirth into another life, no longer dying. And like I said, well we don't have to live and die to experience death, so everything that happen in life can be depicted in the Samsara I suppose. How we can break this cycle in our daily lives.

Let me give an example. Lets take a classic and common example of anger. When we're angry about something, we feel really pissed, annoyed and our heart is literally a mess. And we actually have the choice, to let go of our anger, and to keep on holding on to it. So this can be a cycle. Being angry > holding on to our anger > be more angry > life becomes horrible.

Or, we can also break away from it. Being angry > letting go of our anger > life is awesome mwahaha. It's often difficult to let go of our anger, but it's not impossible.

Okay lets say someone made you pissed. You can always hold on to your anger, no one says you can't. But does that change everything? No. You can also let go of your anger. Sure it doesn't allow you to turn back time, for that someone to undo his/her doing to make you angry. But at least you have prevented something from damaging your body and mind. The Buddha says that holding on to anger is like throwing a hot coal to someone. Before you throw it, you already hurt your hands.

So yes the main goal is to break away from this cycle that makes your suffer. To break away from this Samsara we all create in our minds.

I really enjoy reading the book. I've learned a lot about life in so many ways. And well the book really made me understand life more. I am so glad that I found this book at this age, because the things that I learned in the book is really a precious gem that I will carry on throughout my life. Highly recommended to everyone if you're interested to read the book!

Anyway can't believe that we're two days away from the start of the fasting month of Ramadhan. It's like so fast! Feels like the previous Ramadhan was yesterday. Oh well, time is indeed flying. Wishing all Muslims a smooth-sailing Ramadhan ahead :) Okay gonna stop writing here. Talk to you soon.