Suffering Should be Welcome

　　by Ajahn Sumedho

　　From a Dhamma Talk given by Luang Por Sumedho during the Vassa at Amaravati, 2001; Intended for inclusion in a proposed book of his teaching, Intuitive Awareness.

　　One of the epithets for the Buddha we chant is lokavidu, knower of the world. We can see this is a quality of the Buddha. But it is also a way of reflecting on the world, the situation that we are experiencing now; that is to reflect on life as it is experienced rather than describing how life should be. If we”re just rationalists then we have theories about how things should be. But in reflective awareness we”re noticing how things are.

　　With breathing, we”re not saying you should breathe a certain way, that there”s some standard of breathing that is ideal, but rather that breathing is like this. We can begin to notice the fact that the human body - this body that we”re in with its eyes, ears, nose, tongue, the body itself - is sensitive and ”sensitivity is like this.” Then we look inward. What is it like just being sensitive

　　 We”re now noticing what it is to feel, to see, to hear, to smell, to taste or touch, to think, to remember. We can have ideas about being sensitive, or we can try and make ourselves insensitive because we see it as a sign of weakness, but right now we”re not placing any judgement on sensitivity rather noticing ”it”s like this”.

　　This is very important to recognise and to know - that the world is the world. Having a human body is a continuous experience of being irritated. Consciousness is in a human body which is made up of the four elements, earth, water, fire and air, from birth to death. From the time you are born, the moment you”re out of your mother”s womb, you start screaming. And impingements keep coming to this sensitive form until it dies. I encourage you to contemplate this rather than to judge it according to whatever ideals you might have. This is then called the state of awakened awareness. To wake up means to know the world as it is; it”s not a judging of the world. When we are coming from ideals, usually quite high standards of ”if everything were perfect...” then we have ideas of how countries should be, governments should be, our parents, partners or whatever should be. But this realm”s perfection doesn”t lie in taking conditioned experience to some kind of ideal.

　　Notice how irritating it is just to be able to see, hear, taste, smell and touch. There”s always something that isn”t quite right. It”s too cold or too hot, we have a headache or backache, unwanted noises, odours and things like this impinge or come in contact with this form, and then we experience its beauty, its ugliness, pleasure and pain. But even pleasure is irritating when you think about it. We like pleasure, but just having a lot of pleasure is also very exhausting and irritating. This is not a criticism; it”s just noticing that, ”having a human body is like this,” ”breathing is like this,” ”consciousness is like this.”

　　How sensitive we are just to words and thoughts. We can say things and upset everybody just through a certain tone of voice, or the use of certain words can be very distressing. We can remember things of the past that are pleasant or unpleasant. We can obsess our minds about things we shouldn”t have done in the past; we can feel a lot of guilt and remorse or self-aversion because of mistakes, failures or unskilful acts in the past that we remember. We can get really neurotic, because in the present moment we can be totally obsessed with the thing we shouldn”t have done twenty years ago. We can drop ourselves into real states of depression and despair.

　　Some people think it”s good kamma to just have an easy ride, to be born with wealthy parents and high status, a beautiful appearance, intelli…

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