The end of suffering?

 Often the Buddha is recorded as saying that he taught "this and this alone, suffering and the end of suffering." He was silent on virtually all the metaphysical questions - the so called "silence of the Buddha". We all want answers, but you don't really get them in the Dharma. We have to find our own answers - even sometimes our very own questions. As I see it, most will simply answer the questions set by their own conditioning and indoctrination, and "believe" some answers - and make their peace. Is this the peace that passes understanding that the Bible speaks of?

Way back I asked on Buddhist Forums:- "In what sense does suffering end"? I posted a small excerpt from a lapsed Buddhist (I think of the Tibetan variety) and he had spoken of the death of his mother, of how her death had left him with grief and a huge hole in his life. He said that he didn't want that hole filled with some "pseudo evolved transcendence of personal pain". He didn't even want the hole filled at all. At the time my own mum was sliding down into dementia and his words caught my heart.

Well, from what I remember there were lots of answers. 100 Buddhists, 100 answers. Which has some sort of message - but I'm not sure what.....

Well, that was long ago and I have walked the path for quite some time. More a stumble than a strut - I'm fairly vulnerable. But as I see it, or have come to see it, most "answers" simply postpone the whole question to some other life, betraying this world for some perceived "other" beyond the grave, where rewards and compensations are handed out to the "elect" while the suffering is actually said to continue perpetually for many - if not for most.

How does suffering end?

There is a zen koan:-

A clearly enlightened person falls into the well. How is this so?

Thomas Merton once wrote:-

We stumble and fall constantly, even when we are most enlightened.


As for Dogen:-

One big mistake! There really is wisdom there.

In the end we always come back to where we started, yet always know it for the first time. If it is not the first time then we are caught in the past, in suffering.

So what is the point?

We must find our own point. A zen guy Pai-chang wrote:-

The graduations of the language of the teachings—haughty, relaxed, rising, descending—are not the same. What are called desire and aversion when one is not yet enlightened or liberated are called enlightened wisdom after enlightenment. That is why it is said, “One is not different from who one used to be; only one’s course of action is different from before.”

Only one's course of action is different from before.

I think compassion for others can grow. In this the difference between samsara and nirvana can evaporate. It is the answer of the Buddha when he was asked why he continued to practice and meditate even though enlightened. He answered:-

Out of compassion for the world

"Love has no why" Meister Eckhart. No answers. No why.