subject: I Don't Want To Suffer [print this page] Over hundreds of years Buddhism has grown into a number of collections of (typically!) inter-related thoughts, but what's it all actually for? Well the Buddha himself was pretty clear regarding what he was doing.
"I preach one thing, and just one thing", he said, "suffering, and the way out of suffering."
Now, perhaps maths may not have been his powerful point, and expressing the purpose of his philosophy in negative terms ("far away-from motivation") might well have elicited critical noises from the present day self-development aficionados. Yet what he preached 2500 years ago and what life coaches offer in the 21st Century undeniably point in the exact same direction.
When questioned what it means to be a Buddhist, one teacher held "It means that we are aware that we have work to do". I admire the simplicity of this answer. Of course there are many promising tools to do the work with; Buddhism is one, coaching provides others.
But what number of us see value in doing the work? Surprisingly, and sadly, most people do not. There are a lot of people in the world whose actions shout that they're "pleased" with second (or 192nd) best; regrettably their words and their emotional life make it obvious that contentment isn't what they're experiencing 100% of the time :(
Why is it so tempting to accept several uninteresting or unhappy days, weeks, years? The Buddha said (with refreshing pragmatism) "I choose to teach because there are some people whose eyes are not entirely covered with dust".
His vision was that most people are so clogged up with the rubbish in their heads that they just will not be able to understand that they are caught in a dreadfully inferior life, or that there are options. This is perhaps why you don't find many Buddhists knocking on your door offering to guide you see the light - they're aware that most people simply aren't in the space to see that there are way more satisfying and rewarding choices.
One more reason is the nature of "suffering". It's in fact a rotten translation of an Indian word meaning "sub-optimal mindsets", which could be anything from the mildest sense of this moment being rather dull to the deepest depression. Majority of the people spend a lot of time on this spectrum! The question is, where is your threshold? Definitely, it is great to be in a position to tolerate being a bit down without spinning out fully (and unfortunately several Buddhists in the West make a hobby of accepting misery in an inefficient - and needless - way). But there are means to be a lot happier majority of the time!
"Do you want to be happy?" I sometimes ask. The reply I usually get back is "Oh well, yes and no, I mean, things are OK."
