Live Session Summary, Sunday, September 8, 2024: It was good to be with you yesterday for our Live session. The focus of the session was ‘Untangling the tangles of our life…’
Here are some of the main themes, poems, and quotes from today’s Live session:
I began by sharing the sutta, or talk/discourse, from the Buddha that is known in the Pali language as the Jata Sutta, and in English as the discourse on ‘The Tangle.’ For the first five hundred years after the Buddha’s death (c 483 BCE), the Buddha’s teachings were passed down by being chanted by monks and nuns until they were first written down on palm leaves in the Pali language 2,000 years ago in what is today Sri Lanka. This discourse has the simplicity and directness to suggest that it is an original teaching of the Buddha, rather than having embellishments added after his death.
In the discourse a Brahmin visits the Buddha and asks one question about the entanglements of this human existence. He says, “A tangle within, a tangle without, people are tangled in a tangle. Master Gotama (the Buddha’s family name), I ask you this, who can untangle this tangle?”
The Buddha responded, implicitly affirming the underlying premise of the question—that getting ‘tangled’ is inherent in this human condition, until we find a way out. And he responded directly by saying that a person who lives ethically and compassionately, trains their mind, and cultivates insight and wisdom can untangle the tangle. Those who train their minds through practicing the Noble Eightfold Path (the fourth of the noble truths) can untangle the tangle and live free from suffering.
In the talk I emphasized that while the specific conditions of people living 2,000 plus years ago in India were very different from our own, nonetheless, our entanglements are not fundamentally different from those of this earlier time. The reason for this similarity and continuity lies in the fact that the Brahmin—and the Buddha—were addressing something –the truth of suffering—that is inherent in the human condition and that is elaborated in the Buddha’s four noble truths.
The state of being ‘entangled’ or caught in a tangle can be understood as a metaphor for suffering: We all experience suffering (the first noble truth)—in unpleasant experiences, loss, aging, sickness, death, etc., until we find a way out of suffering. Our suffering is caused by craving/clinging—essentially, wanting our experience to be different than it is (this is the second noble truth, that suffering is caused by clinging), for example, getting caught up in—or entangled in—anger, fear, greed, judgment, blame, resistance to the way things are.
When we bring awareness to our experience through wise effort, mindfulness, and concentration—elements of the fourth noble truth, the path to the end of suffering—we can let go of clinging and experience freedom from suffering, the third noble truth, the end of suffering.
I invited participants to reflect on where they experience suffering, or entanglement, in their own life—and how, by bringing awareness in the present moment to their direct experience, letting go of mental stories or narratives about how things ‘should’ be right now, they can experience greater freedom in life.
I shared a quote from the psychologist Carl Jung, “What is not brought to consciousness comes to us as fate.” In other words, if we don’t bring awareness to our experience, we will continue to act out unskillful and reactive habit patterns that keep us tied to suffering, to entanglement.
I also shared Tibetan Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron’s metaphor of being ‘hooked,’ a translation of the Tibetan word shenpa, which she frames as like having an itch and the urge to scratch the itch. She gives as examples the “urge to smoke that cigarette, the urge to overeat, to have one more drink, to say something cruel or to tell a lie.” (Chodron, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears)
I stressed that an event or situation, or the way someone acts towards us, or a loss is not in itself suffering—many people, including ourselves, have had ‘bad’ or ‘difficult’ things happen to them but without it leading to suffering. The event, situation, etc. is like a first arrow that is often not easy or pleasant, but only becomes ‘suffering’ in the Buddhist understanding when we add our resistance to this; this is like adding a ‘second arrow,’ for example, the arrow of anger, blame, judgment, etc.
This understanding that suffering lies in the resistance, or second arrow, is conveyed in the common Buddhist spiritual axiom, that ‘pain is inevitable [part of the territory of being human, or sentient]; suffering is optional’ [coming from our own resistance or lack of awareness].
As the Buddha says in the discourse on ‘The Tangle,’ through training the mind we can find our way out of suffering and live a life completely free of suffering. And, if we don’t realize or attain complete freedom, we can, in the words of Thai forest meditation teacher Ajahn Chah, “Let go a little and you’ll experience a little freedom; let go a lot and you’ll experience a lot of freedom; let go completely and you’ll experience complete freedom. Your struggle with the world will be at an end.” The training of the Buddhist path is to end suffering, to untangle the tangle.
I shared the poem ‘There was a time I would reject those…’ by Muhyiddin Ibn al ‘Arabi; and ‘I live my life in widening circles’ by Rainer Maria Rilke.
I hope this summary is helpful. Have a good week and see you on Sunday, October 22, at 9am eastern. Warmly, Hugh 🙏🏻 💜 🌻
