The Elimination of Suffering

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]All right. Hello there, thrillsekers. Is the goal of Buddhist practice the elimination of suffering?

[00:00:06]>> Suffering.

[00:00:07]>> A lot of people think it is. Let's talk about whether that's true or not. After 18 short seconds of The Magnificent Seven, All right, that was a little bit of the baseline from the Magnificent 7 by the Clash from their Sandinista album, and it was played on the Brad No Sweat signature Fender Precision Bass. Not really, but I'm calling it that. It's just this uh weird Fender Precision Bass that I got a long time ago, and it's all messed up and cool looking. So, I like it a lot and I used it on one of the zero defects records and uh I it wasn't working for a while so I didn't use it and now I got it back to working. So, that's the story of that base. Okay. So, I got an email from somebody the other day and I want to read you a little bit of it. I've taken out a lot of what he said because some of it was pretty personal. So, I I don't want to embarrass the person who sent this or anything. So, I hope I don't person who sent this email. He says, "I have always assumed that suffering eventually disappeared." And and earlier in this email, he mentions that he believes the goal of Buddhist practice is to eliminate suffering. So he says, "I always assumed that suffering eventually disappeared. Not pain, but suffering.

[00:01:36]The desire for my imaginary world rather than reality right here and now. Where are you in relation to suffering?"

[00:01:43]>> Sufferers bucket attack. I want desperately to overcome my suffering so I can be of some help to others.

[00:01:52]That's a nice thing to to say, although I think my question is going about things in a slightly wrong fashion. So, let's maybe start at the beginning.

[00:02:01]Anybody who's ever taken a comparative religions course or anything about religions knows that Buddha's first big statement that he made in his capacity as the Buddha after he became enlightened while sitting under the bodhic tree for 40 days and 40 nights or I don't know how long he sat 40 days and 40 anyway he sat for a while and he gathered a group around him and he declared all life is suffering and the cause of suffering is desire and the way to eliminate suffering is to eliminate desire. And the way to eliminate desire is to follow the noble eight-fold path, which is a path of ethical action. And I I won't go into the eight-fold, the path because that'll go way too long, but you can look them up just about anywhere these days. Not when I was a kid. When I was a kid, it was hard to find that information. That's actually true. When I first started, finding out basic facts about Buddhism wasn't that easy. But now you can just find them at your fingertips. So, okay. So, a lot of people have heard it phrased this way.

[00:03:06]And I I think a lot of those people who who ask me because I get this question all the time about suffering and how Buddhism is supposed to be the elimination of suffering probably haven't studied or practiced Buddhism all that much because when you get deeper into it, that that stuff kind of fades off. Uh there isn't that much about suffering, for example, in shoenzo. And I'm going to get to some quotes about shoenzo in a bit. Uh quotes about suffering. Did I say that? I don't remember. Anyway, whatever. Uh I went through the PDF files I have and did like a word search for suffering and it doesn't come up that much, but it does come up a couple of times that I want to talk about. But Dogen isn't isn't a guy who talks about how Buddhism the goal of Buddhist practice is the elimination elimination of suffering. In fact, he doesn't use he doesn't refer to suffering all that much. Now, in my own case, because this is what the guy asked, I've been doing this Buddhist practice for over 40 years. I started when I was about 19 years old, and now I'm 62 years old. People don't believe that, but I really am. And uh so I've been doing it, you know, what is that? 43 years, I guess, if I'm getting the math right.

[00:04:17]Something like that. I've been doing it for a long time, and I haven't given up yet. But as some of you who are regular viewers of this channel must know by now, I've been undergoing a lot of suffering for the past year or so. Uh when I got a diagnosis of rectal cancer uh in June of 2025, I think it was. And ever since then, I've been going through chemotherapy and radiation treatments. And those treatments have been rough. And when I first got diagnosed, I had no symptoms.

[00:04:49]This was I I went in to the hospital for a kidney stone which I had symptoms for that and those hurt like hell. But while I was in the hospital they discovered this thing and then they started saying you got to get this addressed and blah blah blah. So ever since then ba basically from the beginning of treatment I've been undergoing undergone a lot of suffering. Now this person makes a distinction which a lot of people do. He says uh not pain but suffering. uh and he defines suffering as the desire for my imaginary world rather than reality right here and now.

[00:05:21]So if I'm going to be honest about my own situation, I have had in the past year plenty of desire for an imaginary world rather than the world that I'm living through right here and now.

[00:05:34]Especially when I've been going through tremendous awful pain, which I I which Okay, I don't want to scare I notice some people who are watching these these videos who are undergoing or about to undergo some radiation treatments.

[00:05:49]Apparently, the amount of pain I've been having from my radiation treatments is not unprecedented, but unusual. So you, dear viewer, probably won't have it as bad as I did. But I must be extra sensitive cuz it hurt like hell. And it still hurts right now. I'm doing this video right now. And I I had the last radiation treatment on was it February?

[00:06:11]No, no, March 12th. It was March 12th.

[00:06:14]And now it is May 11th. Wow. Almost exactly two months to the day. And I'm still having some pain. Not as bad as I was before, but it it right now I'm sitting on some pain if you know what I mean. And I'm not going to be even even more graphic than that. You can figure it out for yourselves. And yeah, show so I've had plenty of of experiences where I wished I wasn't going through this, where I wanted it to be over. Um, yeah. where I wish it had never happened. You know, all this stuff and second-guessing myself about things I did in the past and what I could have done different and blah blah blah blah blah and it goes on and on and on. But the Buddhists are right.

[00:06:58]One of the big causes for suffering as opposed to pain, as my person who wrote this email made the distinction, uh is wishing things were different.

[00:07:12]And I have put that to the test over the past, you know, almost a year of uh dealing with this stuff. And I've seen that yes, it's true. Things get better if you stop wishing they were different.

[00:07:27]So, one of the things, one of the earliest videos I put out during this, not not one of the earliest videos I put out overall because I've been doing these videos since god, who knows, was it 2007 or something stupid like that or 17? Anyway, been putting out these videos for years, but one of the first videos I put out after I got my diagnosis was about how I had discovered I had to be I had to have radical acceptance. I really kind of hate that radical as a thing, but I don't know any better way to say it, but I had to just totally accept what was going on because it just made things worse to not accept it. Not accepting it doesn't help at all. you know, just sort of fighting against it or whatever. But there's a difference between not accepting and there's a difference between accepting something as it is and sort of just giving in or giving up. So what I've done is not giving up. Obviously, I'm going through these treatments and obviously these treatments are difficult and I'm having to kind of go to do this.

[00:08:31]Going to get through this and so so I haven't given up, but I have to accept what's going on and accept the reality of it and that makes it a little better. But I have to say there's still a certain amount of suffering. So people who imagine that they're going to do a Buddhist practice for years and years and be very intense and very serious about it, which I think I I have been. I know there are people I have met who are more intense about it. I don't know if there's anybody who's more serious about it. That's a that's a harder thing to judge. But I know there's people who've like my friend shows on Jack Hner spent what what you'd have to ask him for the exact thing, but I think he said 12 years up at Mount Baldi Zen Center, which is sort of behind me as I talk.

[00:09:18]Mount Baldi is kind of as I'm hiking my thumb back there. That's about where Mount Baldi is. Uh so it's it's a very tough, very difficult sort of practice they do up there. and he did that for I guess 12 years or something like that.

[00:09:36]I've never done that kind of monastic practice, but I was very very serious about Zen practice from early on because as I've also talked about a lot, my mother uh when I was in my mid teens or so, I think I'm not sure of the dates, but at some point in there when I was in high school, she started showing symptoms of Huntington's disease, which is a disease that runs in my family, which is a terrible, terrible disease, much worse than the disease I am suffering from right now, I would say. And two of my aunts died from it. My grandmother on my mother's side died from it not long after I was born. So, I never really got to know her. Uh, and then my mom eventually died from it. And I, as a teenager, realized this is a hereditary disease. It doesn't strike everybody uh when it's running in the family, but it it gives you if you are the child of somebody who has this disease, you have a they say a 50% chance of developing it at some point in your life. Now, as I said, I'm 62 years old and I haven't shown a single symptom yet. So, it probably means I don't even have the gene for it. But when I was 19 years old, I didn't know that. So, I got very very serious about Zen practice because I thought I need to figure out what this life is and I need to do it rather quickly. You know, I I don't want to get to the point where I'm totally incapacitated the way my mother eventually became and then start to try to figure it out because I'm not going to be able to work on it then. So, I I got to work in my late teens and I worked on it and I've done zazin practice pretty much every day ever since I was 19 years old. I did it this morning. I'll do it again tonight. So, uh you know, I have skipped a few days here and there, but not too many. So, I'm pretty serious about this practice.

[00:11:26]I got ordained. I got named a a dharma heir of Gudo Wafau Nishuima. So, I'm pretty serious about this stuff. So, if anybody would have eliminated suffering by now, you'd think it'd be me.

[00:11:40]Uh, but it hasn't been. But I had a little conversation via the emails with my friend who I keep mentioning, shows on Jack Habner, whose most recent video was really brilliant. I'll see if I can leave a link below to that uh in case you want to take a look. He's shows on Jack Habner and he runs a a YouTube channel called Zen Confidential. So go look him up. He's really good. But I had a little email exchange with him about this and he said he doesn't think that the goal of Buddhist practice is the elimination or the overcoming of desire.

[00:12:14]It is actually uh learning to work sorry desire I meant suffering. It's not the elimination of suffering. It is about finding a way to work with suffering.

[00:12:25]finding a way to deal with suffering that's more effective than what most people usually do. And if that's what you're after, I think my Zen practice has led to something like that. But it doesn't mean everything is all hunky dory with me. And I I think this is what people uh kind of imagine will happen, that they'll get to this state where everything will be cool and and then they'll be able to be of service to others. like my uh my email correspondent asked.

[00:12:56]Now what I answered him is this. Uh you cannot be of any use to anyone else if you yourself have not suffered and do not suffer because if you are free from all suffering, you can no longer relate to the suffering of anyone else. Now I said I would talk to you about what Dogen said about suffering. And here is the best quote I was able to find. And like I said, if you go through the PDF file uh like I did of all four volumes of Shoozo and look for suffering and suffer uh you don't find much. You do find it is mentioned in every book at some point, but it's usually kind of a passing reference to uh the Buddhist four noble truths or something like that or the the the lake where there is no suffering from cold or some some such thing like that just these sort of mythical things. But he doesn't really address the uh the the I don't know the the crucial crux of the matter of suffering very often. But here's one where he does which I like and it's in hutsu bodai which means uh establishing the will to bod bodhi which is enlightenment.

[00:14:06]Establishing the will to enlightenment.

[00:14:08]Let's just call it that and let's leave it at that. But here's what he says.

[00:14:12]Whether in suffering or in happiness, we should quickly establish the will to deliver others before we attain deliverance ourself. And that is a reference to the bodhicattva vow which a lot of people have probably heard of. If you've watching a channel like that, you've probably heard of it. It's this idea that I will forego entry into nirvana, whatever that means, deliverance, saving, until I can save everyone else. It's an impossible vow.

[00:14:43]And people imagine that you're going to be like Superman. When I was a kid, I had this anthology of Superman comics, which I wish I could find another copy of because it was pretty good. It was really thick, you know, like telephone book size anthology of Superman comics.

[00:14:57]And there was one that was sort of a comedy episode of Superman where Superman is wearing himself out trying to save everyone in the world.

[00:15:07]like he rushes to he drills a hole through the center of the earth to go to China and help somebody in China and he's you know he's going all over the world and then at the end of the day he's like oh my god he's trying to save everybody and I guess that's what a lot of people imagine when they hear I vow to save others before I save myself now my friend Rob who I mention a lot on this channel came up with what I thought was the most brilliant uh interpretation of that that I've ever heard which is I vow to save everyone else from myself So that I think is a way to look at that and and my questioner asked me what is meant by deliverance and this saving deliverance salvation these words come up and they're they're never very well defined but this I there's this idea that there is some kind of nirvana out there but nirvana and samsara are said to be exactly the same thing and samsara is this world of suffering like I'm suffering from the pain in my butt right now as I talk to you. So they are considered to be one and the same. So there's no nirvana you're trying to get to to get away from suffering. You're trying to find nirvana here and now.

[00:16:20]Whether there is an end of suffering after you die or in some exalted incarnation in the far future, I don't know. But I kind of doubt it. I kind of think it's it's more a change of attitude towards it. Now, here's another thing that Dogen has to say about suffering. And this is from Sanju Shichibon Bodai Bumpo, which is the 37 elements of Bodhi. And here it is. And he's talking about reflecting on these 37 elements of Bodhi, which is enlightenment. And I'm not going to go into what all 37 of them are, but one of them is suffering. And here's what he says about that. The reflection that feeling is suffering. Feeling is one of the uh form, feeling, perception, impulses, consciousness. This is the five things that a human being is made up of in Buddhism in in Buddhist philosophy. So we don't have a soul. We are a combination of form, feeling, perceptions, impulses, consciousness. So feeling the reflection that feeling is suffering. And then he says about that suffering is feeling. So all feeling is suffering.

[00:17:32]One of the things you should keep in mind which I meant to say at the beginning of this is that the word that's usually translated into English as suffering is dooka. And dooka means something much broader than suffering which means unsatisfactory experience.

[00:17:47]But interestingly enough the Chinese character that the Chinese and Japanese use for suffering when they translated dooka is is is just as bad as what we have. It's coup it means kudosi it's it's suffering so they they have the same kind of problem we do when they go through this so they also have to go back to the Indian sources anyway he says dogen says it is neither one's own nor from outside suffering it is not tangible neither is it intangible well I feel like my suffering is kind of tangible but I I think I get what he means my suffering is tangible right down in my posterior here it is the feeling of the living body, the suffering of the living body. It means sweet ripe melons being replaced by bitter gourds which is bitter to the skin, flesh, bones and marrow and bitter to the conscious mind, the unconscious mind and so on. This reflection is mystical power and practice and experience. practice and experience is is a formula he uses often which is to say that you don't do your Buddhist practice your zaza and your meditation in order to have an experience of enlightenment. The practice is the experience and he says which are one step ascended which are above uh the things most people um deal with in life.

[00:19:08]So he's saying that that Buddhist practice and experience is one step ascended. It is a mystical power that springs out from the entire stem and springs out from the whole root. Thus it has been said that living beings suffer.

[00:19:21]At the same time there are suffering living beings. Living beings that's you and me are beyond self and beyond others. At the same time there are suffering living beings. In the end it is impossible to deceive others. Now that is a reference to one of my favorite cons in the world which I've talked about a lot which is where um oh god what's his name? uh the the Buddhist monk whose name escapes me at the moment uh hits his is is leaving the monastery because he's just like I'm not getting this. I got to get out of here. He stubs his toe on a rock. Uh that gives him a great enlightenment experience because he thinks I've heard that this body is not real substance. So where does this pain come from? Which is something I've been working with a lot and I've talked about it but let's go on. And then he says to his master that he has understood that it is impossible to deceive others. Or he you could also because the grammar of that sentence is so weird. You could also read it as is it is impossible for me to be deceived by anyone. Uh though sweet melons are totally sweet right through to their stems and bitter gourds are totally bitter right through to the whole of their roots. Suffering is not easily grasped. Suffering is not easily grasped. We should ask ourselves what is suffering. And in typical Dogen fashion, he does not give an answer. But he does say earlier in there that feeling is suffering. So all feeling is a kind of suffering. There's no satisfactory experience anywhere. This is what he was trying to say. And a lot of us chase after the the experience of total satisfaction. and probably this guy who wrote me the email and for sure me have chased after the goal of the end of suffering as being total satisfaction, the experience of total satisfaction. So even that you are supposed to throw away and just live in the suffering that you have at this moment and see it for what it truly is. And as Dogen says, what is it? that has been kind of useful to me too in practical terms during this uh year of experiencing tremendous pain and difficulty has been to look at it and say what is this really and the more I can stay the longer I can stay with that the longer I I feel some kind of maybe transcendence of suffering I'm not sure you feel the sensation of incredible pain as if it's just a sensation and the fe if you're chasing, you know, pure perfect pleasure, you know, like Hugh Hefner or somebody like that, you're never going to find even that. So that's what the Buddhist practice is about. I don't know if I have answered this question. I feel like I've just talked a lot, but I think maybe there's something in there that might have been useful. I hope there was. If you want to send me some money to help me keep trying to say useful things, you can go to the URL that you are seeing on the screen below or that you're about to hear if you're listening to the audio version, which is hardcorezen.info/donate.

[00:22:33]That is hardcorezen.info/donate.

[00:22:37]That is where you will find links to my PayPal and Patreon accounts, and those are my only way of making a living. So, I appreciate your support, but as always, you don't got to support me if you don't want to support me. All right, we will see you next time. Have a good time all the time. Bye.

[00:22:50]>> How you doing, Ziggy? What's up?

[00:22:53]What's up? Do you think there's somebody outside? Yeah. You want me to go check with you? I'll go check, but I don't think anybody's outside.

[00:23:00]All right. I hope you're not suffering from wanting to see somebody come here.

[00:23:06]Talk to you later, Zigg.