The Book of Joy

The first step is to accept the reality of suffering. The Buddha is
supposed to have said, “I have taught one thing and one thing only:
suffering and the cessation of suffering.” The first Noble Truth of
Buddhism is that life is filled with suffering. The Sanskrit word for
suffering is dukkha (not to be confused with the nutty and very tasty
Egyptian condiment dukka).
Dukkha can be translated as “stress,” “anxiety,” “suffering,” or
“dissatisfaction.” It is often described as the mental and physical
suffering that occurs in life, illness, and aging. It is also described as the
stress and anxiety that arise from the attempt to control what is
fundamentally impermanent and unable to be controlled. We try to
control the moment, which results in our feeling that what is happening
should not be happening. So much of what causes heartache is our
wanting things to be different than they are. “I think, in many cases,” the
Dalai Lama explained, “you develop some sort of unhappiness, some
discontent, which leads to frustration and anger.”
While stress and frustration may sound like superficial problems or
complaints, the Buddha identified them as the core of so much of our
unnecessary, or created, suffering. I was reminded of what the Dalai
Lama had said on our first day: We cannot end natural disasters or the
suffering they cause, but so much of the rest of our suffering we can.
Dukkha, or suffering, is the opposite of sukha, which means
happiness, ease, or comfort. Both words are said to have originated from
the ancient Aryans who brought the Sanskrit language to India. These
Aryans were a nomadic people who traveled by horse- or ox-drawn carts,
and the words literally mean “having a bad (or good) axle.” Was it a
bumpy ride (dukkha), or a smooth ride (sukha)? Not a bad metaphor for
life. What is suffering but a bumpy ride? Every life is rutted and no one
can avoid some inevitable bumps, but so much is determined by our own
perception of the ride. Our mind is the axle that often determines whether
we experience the ride as bumpy or smooth.
This point was brought home to me in a rather literal way when I went
to Dharamsala in January, several months before the dialogues, with
Peggy Callahan. Peggy was responsible for filming the week in