III. Suffering
Since everything is composite and subject to causes and conditions, everything is impermanent. And since everything is unstable and subject to change, we are powerless to maintain anything or control our own existence. Nothing can provide reliable security or refuge, therefore everything is unsatisfactory; in other words, suffering. This is the 'suffering of suffering' present in every moment of composite existence.
Even if the present moment appears to be happy, it doesn't last more than an instant. This is the 'suffering of change' inherent in the changing continuity of the aggregates.
And whatever the quality of the present moment may be, each moment gives rise to another moment, uninterruptedly. Therefore, each moment is the cause of future suffering, like eating poisoned food. This is the 'suffering of the composite'.
Because of these three aspects of suffering the text says that in the continuity of the five aggregates there is not even an atom nor an instant that are free from the stain of suffering. The aggregates - that is composite existence - are the basis of all sufferings.
Let's examine these three aspects in more detail.
The obvious sufferings
There are different ways of classifying these, but one that is very useful is the division into four unsatisfactory aspects of life:
i) Not getting what we want
We have a number of basic needs in life, and survival implies a certain type of difficulty. Obtaining whatever we need for living, or what we think we need in order to live happily, usually requires a lot of effort. If we do not achieve or get what we want, we feel frustrated and disappointed. On the other hand, even if we reach our goal, it usually does not fully satisfy us. We have to struggle all the time. Included here is the anxiety in the face of the possibility of not achieving what we hope for or what others expect from us.
ii) Maintaining what we have
This is the difficulty in maintaining whatever we have achieved or gained and the fear of losing it. Sometimes we get what we want, but we cannot enjoy it for the rest of our lives, or even for a short time. We start worrying about how to keep what we have, whether they are material possessions, personal relationships, experiences or mental states. The fear, anxiety and effort involved in protecting what we have are a very common form of suffering in our lives.
iii) Losing what we love
It is the suffering of being separated from what we are attached to, be it people, wealth, material possessions, mental states, a social position, fame, prestige, respect, love and affection from others, youth, strength, our faculties or life itself.
iv) Encountering what we don't like
Meeting things and circumstances we dislike is the fourth aspect of suffering. Although we do not look for unpleasant events and situations, they happen. We can't avoid encountering circumstances that cause us suffering: enemies, criticism, people who interfere in the course of our lives, difficulties and obstacles on our way, unforeseen problems, accidents, sicknesses, pain and so on. We are always subject to outer changes and conditions; we are vulnerable, so this type of suffering includes the fear that something bad may happen. There are also many things that we don't like but can't get rid of; we experience them like a burden that we have to carry during our lives, which prevent us from being free.
When these types of suffering are intense, we only think how we could get rid of them and imagine that if we could eliminate them we would be happy. Throughout history humankind has made enormous efforts to try to diminish these four aspects of suffering; we have tried to conquer nature and transform the environment in order to avoid these. But there is no way to succeed: suffering can take many different forms. We may eliminate one manifestation of suffering, but the same type of suffering reappears with a new face.
According to Buddhism, what is most important is to understand the causes of these sufferings. Which are they? The real cause of the first one is desire or expectation. The cause of the second and third is attachment. The causes of the fourth one are fear and aversion. If we analyse carefully these four aspects of suffering, we will see that we experience them because in our minds there is desire-attachment and fear-aversion. We will never be free from suffering unless we liberate our minds from these two basic impulses. Therefore, analyse again and again this type of suffering and, understanding its causes, keep your mind relaxed and uninvolved, without attachment to happy experiences or aversion to unpleasant ones.
The suffering of change
In a way, it is the same as the third aspect seen above: what we have achieved and we like can become a cause of suffering if we get accustomed and attached to it, due to the fact that everything is subject to impermanence. So that when it changes, or when we lose it or are separated from it, it can cause us sadness and frustration. The more we are attached to things, the more they can be a cause of suffering when we lose them.
On another hand, there is nothing in life than can produce permanent satisfaction. Even if we, sometimes, manage to solve the obvious sufferings and attain the degree of happiness we had wished for, after a while these pleasant experiences change and no longer satisfy us. They can even cause us suffering. In this case, what changes is our own perception or personal experience of them, our capacity to enjoy them. There is nothing, no matter how pleasant it may seem to be, that we don't get tired of sooner or later. Sooner or later, we feel unsatisfied again and start looking for something else; we desire again.
Human beings do everything they can to ensure themselves endless possibilities of satisfying their desires. Ours is the culture of super-abundance and endless variety of choices, based on the belief that when things don't satisfy us any more, the solution is to change them: get a new car, a new house, a new wife or husband. But substituting one thing for another can never be a definitive solution. Rather, it is a way to feed desire, and desire is suffering. If we reflect deeply, we realize that the real problem is desire. True and lasting happiness is not produced from external causes but can only come from within, and the only way to put an end to this second aspect of suffering is to cultivate contentment. As before, contemplate the suffering of change while remaining content and free from expectations.
C. The suffering that is inherent in composite existence
Even though we may not be experiencing any obvious suffering and may not be attached to anything, since we are made up of the five aggregates there is always a latent, pervading suffering. Basically it refers to the fact that conditioned existence in itself is suffering because we cannot control it; we are limited by it. We do not have any power to interfere at will in the course of events, because we are interdependent parts of a whole and we are conditioned by many factors that are beyond our reach; we are not free. And even though in the present moment of conditioned existence there may not be any obvious experience of suffering, it is the basis for subsequent suffering. This makes existence unsatisfactory.
That is why it is said that in the five aggregates there is not even the tip of a needle of real happiness and that they are pervaded by suffering. Usually we are not aware of this third aspect of suffering, but I think there is one way we can understand it. Occasionally, when we have temporarily solved our obvious sufferings and, at the same time, whatever pleasure or happiness we experienced has faded away, there is a gap: we experience a sort of emptiness and loneliness. Then, we quickly try to think of something else; we look for something to entertain our mind and to divert our attention from that 'black hole'. We look for distractions or invent something to desire. But in that gap there is an experience of the inherent suffering of existence, because there is no feeling, be it of happiness or pain, that really fills us, and for a while we are faced with our bare existence. And because in a deep level we don't know who we are, why we are there and where we will go, there is a deep, subtle fear: fear of the unknown and of being alone, fear of death and fear of life too.
The only way to get rid of this third aspect of suffering is to face it. We can never be free from it by ignoring it, because it is always there, latent. We need to have the courage to face it. In fact, this is the purpose of the Buddhist path and the purpose of the teaching on suffering: to reach a state of disillusion. Normally we consider disillusion as something bad. But in our context, disillusion means the end of illusion; that is, the end of a mistaken perception. The purpose of contemplating and examining suffering is to be disillusioned by the advertisements of samsara and to find the truth behind. Therefore, analyse this third type of suffering until you are convinced of the fact that conditioned existence is, by nature, rooted in suffering.
To recapitulate, the aggregates are naturally suffering due to being composite and impermanent and connected by attachment. Because of that, the natural tendency of beings to attach themselves to their permanence, to try to maintain the experiences of happiness and to try to achieve freedom and independence is inevitably destined to failure. For this reason the aggregates are said to be the basis and origin of all aspects of suffering, in the same way that the earth is the basis of all plants.
Suffering, always changing, takes a multitude of forms, but is the fundamental characteristic of existence. The aggregates are said to be like a prison, a great fire and so forth, because in them there is not a whit of authentic happiness and because they are the basis of karma and future suffering.
Analyse all types of suffering in any possible way until you gain some certainty that there is no hope of experiencing any permanent happiness in conditioned existence; that you cannot rely for good on anything that is composite. Rest your mind in that understanding, detached from everything. No longer attached to your body, to your possessions, to praises, fame or anything, understand that all these things are going to turn into sufferings sooner or later. Rest the mind in its intrinsic peace and clarity, realising it to be the true refuge, the only thing you can rely on, the only reality that is always there.
Confusion, the belief that we can maintain situations and our attachment to experiences of pleasure cause us to suffer. When we understand the entire process, we no longer expect much from anything and we are no longer affected by changes in our lives, whether situations turn to be good or bad. We know that it can happen, and we don't take it so seriously, we let things pass, aware that it is their very nature to change and be transient. On the other hand, we increasingly trust the essential nature of our mind, as we know that it is in that space 'beyond' that we can find true happiness and true inspiration: it is always reliable.
At the same time, meditating on suffering causes our compassion to grow. Becoming more aware of the fact that beings, no matter what kind of existence they have, are all subject to suffering, and that, ignoring the path of true happiness, they try every possible way to avoid suffering without success, we cannot help but feel the wish to relieve their sufferings. This is what we call compassion, and contemplation of suffering should help it grow in our hearts.
