Pain is Inevitable, Suffering is Not

How do you deal with the death of your spouse? How would you feel if you lost your mother tomorrow? Or your sister or your closest friend? Suppose you lost your job, your savings, and the use of your legs, on the same day; could you face the prospect of spending the rest of your life in a wheelchair? How.... will you deal with your own death, when that approaches? You may escape most of these misfortunes, but you won’t escape all of them.... You can suffer through things like that or you can face them openly—The choice is yours. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is not. Pain and suffering are two different animals. If any of these tragedies strike you in your present state of mind, you will suffer.... Buddhism does advise you to invest some of your time and energy in learning to deal with unpleasantness, because some pain is unavoidable. When you see a truck bearing down on you, by all means jump out of the way. But spend some time in meditation, too. Learning to deal with discomfort is the only way you'll be ready to handle the truck you didn't see.

~Ven. Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

From Suffering to Compassion

If, when we empathize with the suffering of others, we take in that suffering and feel overwhelmed by it, we may believe our feelings are those of compassion. But taking in the suffering of others will result in our feeling emotionally drained. Our efforts to help will prove ineffective and lead to our feeling disappointment and frustration.

What we don’t yet realize is that we have been reacting with negative energy, not compassion. Compassion is positive energy that results in joy. When we express our compassion, we are able to comfort others, able to help them end their suffering.

So if we are feel suffering at the pain of others, we need to understand that while this is a normal reaction, it is not the ideal reaction and it is not compassion. How can we help others who are in pain if we too become overwhelmed by that pain? They will appreciate we deeply empathize with them, but they will not receive any positive help. And without such help, they will not be any closer to ending their suffering.

Just as we train to not become immersed in our own suffering, we need to do the same with the suffering of other. When we do this, we can progress to feeling compassion. With compassion, we will feel positive energy and will be able to find ways to help others.

The Prodigal Who Returns Home

"In the Visualization Sutra we learn that in ancient India, King Ajatasatru killed his father, attempted to kill his mother, and caused dissension in the Sangha. He would stop at nothing. At the last moment of his life, with just one remaining breath, the king truly regretted and attained single-mindedness of Buddha Amitabha as he sought rebirth into the Pure Land. He was reborn into the second highest level of the Pure Land. Inconceivable!

From this, we know that there are two ways to be reborn into the Pure Land. One way is to cultivate and accumulate merits and virtues daily, and to follow the regular way of practice to seek rebirth into the Pure Land. The other way is for those who have committed egregious evil deeds to feel intense regret at the last moments of their life.

Therefore, do not look down on those who have committed wrongdoings. Perhaps at the last moment of their lives, their ability to feel deep remorse will be so strong that they may attain a higher level of rebirth than we can. This is very possible. It is said that a prodigal who returns home is more precious than gold. Ordinary people cannot be compared with them. Thus, we cannot look down on those who have committed wrongdoings."

~ Master Chin Kung

Pure Land Beginnings

Question: When did Pure Land Buddhism begin and come to China?

Response: In India, both Asvaghosa Bodhisattva and Nagarjuna Bodhisattva helped to form the basis for Pure Land through their commentaries on the sutras.

Buddhism came to China in 67 CE. The Shorter Sukhavati-vyuha Sutra (Amitabha Sutra) and the Longer Sukhavati-vyuha Sutra (Infinite Life Sutra) were first translated from Sanskrit into Chinese sometime between 147 and 180 CE. Two other translations were done around 250 CE.

Initially, Pure Land was practiced along with other methods. In the fourth century, the first Pure Land Patriarch, Great Master Huiyuan, founded the first monastery that focused solely on Pure Land practice. Pure Land is now considered to be the most widely practiced school in Asia.

Increasing Our Confidence

 
One builds faith through experiencing the teachings. We can experience causality in the everyday things we do. We get upset with someone and we feel badly. Either because we hurt the other person or simply because our outburst disrupts any peaceful thoughts we were feeling. When we help someone, the result is we feel better. When we chant, the result is that we feel calmer.

When we read the teachings they will make sense and explain things that were unexplained before. With more learning and experience from observing that they do work, we will develop our confidence. With practice we will experience the benefits. Gradually, when some number of the things that we can prove for ourselves are proved; we take the rest on faith. So we should not push ourselves to deepen our confidence; rather, we need to let it deepen as we see the truth and practicality in the teachings.