Loss and the Spiritual Path

The First Noble Truth is that Life is Suffering. I think a lot of us convert Buddhists come to the path because we suffer. It’s not that Buddhism can be reduced to a simple self help program, it’s just that sometimes people that are having a hard time are drawn to it. Of course, we all have a hard time in life sometimes.

But I think Buddhism has something special to offer\r\nin that regard.

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Zen Master Dogen was an orphan. He lost both of his\r\nparents as a kid and that inspired him to seek the Buddhist path as a monk. On\r\nher deathbed his mother encouraged him to seek Enlightenment and that’s what he\r\ndid. He practiced with the Buddhist teachers that he could find in Japan and\r\nfound them lacking, so he took the arduous journey to China to seek better\r\nteachers. When he returned he founded the Soto School of Zen, which has had a\r\nconsiderable impact on Buddhist history.

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Zen Master Ikkyu never knew his father. I wonder if\r\nhe carried that loss with him too. Orphans feel unwanted. Part of his story is\r\nthat he tried to kill himself after one of his teachers died.

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And that’s my story too. I lost both my parents when\r\nI was a teenager. I was cast adrift at the young age of 19. Old enough that we\r\nlegally call people adults, but I don’t think most people are done growing up\r\nat that age.

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That was the great suffering in my life. The\r\nsuffering of loss and pain. I learned the truth about suffering and that is\r\nwhat inspired me to seek the Buddhist path.

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Suffering and the way out of suffering. That’s what\r\nthe Buddhist path is all about. Helping ourselves out of suffering, helping\r\nothers out of suffering.

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It’s no surprise that Buddhism here in the west\r\nattracts people who are lost and people who are struggling. There are many\r\nreasons to enter the path and suffering is only one of them, but I think it’s\r\nan important thing to be aware of.

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Once in a while someone expects more from us because\r\nwe’re Buddhist, I think. Sometimes when I’m anxious or upset someone will say,\r\n“I thought you were Buddhist. Aren’t you above that?” Or “That’s not very\r\nBuddhist of you!” I think that’s nonsense. We’re all human.

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I started taking sleeping pills because I was so\r\nstressed out during my divorce that I couldn’t sleep. People are shocked when I\r\ntell them that. People sometimes seem to expect Buddhists to be perfect. We\r\naren’t perfect. We’re just trying our best, just like everyone else.

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Buddhism does sometimes attract people who are needy\r\nand sensitive, like me. It attracts the broken and the downtrodden.

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The lotus is an important symbol in Buddhism. It\r\nrepresents our Enlightenment. It comes out of water and mud to emerge clean and\r\nbeautiful. The mud is our delusion and suffering. The blooming of the flower is\r\nthe way we rise above and attain Enlightenment.

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Without that mud underneath the flower couldn’t\r\nbloom.

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We are, all of us, lotuses.

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Daniel\r\nScharpenburg – Patheos