Hu Truc's Dukkha Speech

I have this friend in Hanoi who is a buddhist monk. He has reclused himself. He really likes to write, and i pulled this excerpt out, because i think it's particularly great. He says a lot of great stuff, so try to bear with his english.

"(Suffering: "đau kho" in Vietnamese, dukkha in Pali language. I will use word "dukkha").

Many people see dukkha like a disease so usually oppose or avoid it, but dukkha can also be seen to similar a friend. Perhaps when we contact dukkha, we should think ourselves like spies. Spies are humans who act in the enemy’s lap, but they treat opponents like comrades and treat comrades like opponents. Dukkha is a friend, this friend help us to awake before the impermanent rule of the universe.

There is a story in Buddhism as follows: Once upon a time, there is a young mother whose child was died. She very suffered, all day to hug the body of dead child in her lap and lull it. She did not allow people to bury the dead child. She always think that the child still live on the earth. A month had elapsed, someone had compassion then pointed her to meet Buddha who was known as a person that could doctor all disease, so she could hope her child would revive. The young mother very rejoiced, she went to Buddha instantly. She talked her story with Buddha and implored Buddha for a kind of medicine which could revive her child. Buddha told her "You go to find a seed of mustard what is in any families its three generations haven't got any dead humans and bring it for me. I would revive your child". The woman acted on Buddha’s advice. She went from this family to other but there was not any families its three generations hadn’t got dead humans. At last the woman came back to meet Buddha and said: "I could not find a kind of mustard what is in the family its three generations haven’t got any dead humans, but I found a thing that is any humans must also die". Then the woman buried her dead child and asked permission of Buddha to become a Buddhist nun. Afterwards she reached the peak of the Way.

There is a thing to be pulled out from this story: The death of the woman’s child is just the thing that brought the woman to the Way and help her to leave the false port of call (Ben me) and to escape Samsara (Luan hoi). That death is called as a mean in Buddhism. In the general way, dukkha (suffering) or forms of dukkha are means of enlightenment. Several times I wonder why there are humans who have conditions about wealthy, status, knowledge than others but they couldn’t go on the Way as humans who have ever met deprivation and misery in life.

Sometimes, you feel like you are swept away by the flood waters; sometimes you feel like is an abyss opens its mouth and drags you into it; sometimes you feel like as a wounded animal and fall into a trap, etc. So in this journey, remember that you are an observer, not an activist. You shouldn’t participate in these scene and only observe them calmly, objectively. If you participate in them, you will have feels such as lust, hate, infatuated, sad, lonely, etc, or you want to demolish, forget, flee; thus, the journey would to have to stop and you would be stuck at somewhere in your past and your inside… What will happen if we really go to the underworld and suddenly be stuck in there?"



Amen, Hu.