Dukkha

In hot pursuit of the zen of relaxation, I failed.  But decided maybe I could get out of my skin a bit by taking our walk to the ocean, even though Carol is now back in NY, NY and not here to take it with me.  So I poneyed up and armed myself with my Ipod.  Strolling along the golf course listening to Jimi Hendrix singing, Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?

Some guy on a golf cart started waving and yelling my name.  I waved back but didn’t know who he he was.  A guy from the club, I think.  Suddenly, I am known on the golf course.

I bought the Ipod classic, 180 gigs of memory.  I haven’t used a half of a half of an ounce of that.  So far though I have manged to “synch” in a collection of Jimi, and some Beatles, and Bruce Springstein, and about 17 tunes from a collection of oldies.  So there I sat on the bluff listening to Blueberry hill in one ear and the ocean in the other.  Finally I decided the ocean was best—and stopped listening to Blueberry Hill.

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Brother Steve recommends meditation as a route to relaxation—well, not relaxation exactly, something more than that.  He recommended a website “Mindfulness in Plain English.”  There I found in the introduction to that document:

Suffering is big word in Buddhist thought. It is a key term and it should be thoroughly understood. The Pali word is ‘dukkha’, and it does not just mean the agony of the body. It means the deep, subtle sense of unsatisfactoriness which is a part of every mental treadmill. The essence of life is suffering, said the Buddha. At first glance this seems exceedingly morbid and pessimistic. It even seems untrue. After all, there are plenty of times when we are happy. Aren’t there? No, there are not. It just seems that way. Take any moment when you feel really fulfilled and examine it closely. Down under the joy, you will find that subtle, all-pervasive undercurrent of tension, that no matter how great the moment is, it is going to end. No matter how much you just gained, you are either going to lose some of it or spend the rest of your days guarding what you have got and scheming how to get more. And in the end, you are going to die. In the end, you lose everything. It is all transitory.

3 Replies to “Dukkha”

  1. I have had, some inner working of the buddhist thought, I came to this after the stroke, when I would just need some thing to suggest to me “everything is alright”
    I would take in my mind anything, a tree, the water glass, my foot and just be it….I know this does not sound very buddist but it relaxed me…..

  2. I have had, some inner working of the buddhist thought, I came to this after the stroke, when I would just need some thing to suggest to me “everything is alright”
    I would take in my mind anything, a tree, the water glass, my foot and just be it….I know this does not sound very buddist but it relaxed me…..

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