025-Chan Buddhist Wisdoms - Buddhism in daily life

Chan Buddhist Wisdoms

A wise monk once proclaimed the following before his disciples:

Buddha encompasses all suffering, but all suffering is Buddha.

His disciples asked him, "Master, how is it that all suffering is Buddha?

The master replied, "He held the suffering of all living beings".

A discussion arose, a disciple asked, "Master, the Buddha's teaching is about overcoming suffering, then how can the great teacher hold all suffering"?

The monk replied, "Buddha was not born a Buddha, he was born an Indian prince. Growing up in his father's palace, he noticed the injustices of life; slowly an opinion solidified in him that later became the philosophy known today as Buddhism. On his long and rocky road to "enlightenment" he took on much suffering in order to better himself, to get closer to his goal."

"Exalted Master, when all suffering fell away from the Buddha, when he found "enlightenment", was not his sacrifice invaluable to humanity, to his followers?"

"Yes," spoke the monk, "the sufferings on his path Buddha also took upon himself for us, his followers on the middle path, he showed us by his example a way out of the everlasting cycle of suffering. Thus Buddha encompassed all suffering, but all suffering was gathered in Buddha."

"O venerable preceptor, the teacher of all teachers established philosophy when he found "enlightenment". When his successor Bodhidharma and Hui Neng founded Chan (Zen) Buddhism in Shaolin Temple, how did the evolution of suffering change?"

The monk answered, "Suffering is a very personal phenomenon, all living beings suffer, much like the historical Buddha also suffered. The successors and patriarchs also had their very individual experiences, different approaches; however, over the centuries, little or nothing has changed in the original philosophy. All life is suffering, the truth about suffering hovers over all people, but through the Buddha's worldview a way out of the eternal cycle of suffering" is offered.

For modern people of today (21st century), this means that we will also suffer as long as we have not implemented the Buddha's teaching, as long as we are attached to things, as long as we wish and want to realize our goals.

According to the Buddha's teaching, everything will come to us as it should, nothing we can do to change it.

One wisdom of Chan Buddhism is to sit better and wait for things to develop. In any case, it is better than actionism, wanting to have everything "immediately" and right away.

Suffering arises from desiring and wanting, because not fulfilling those desires brings us suffering.

Boredom: The desire for desires

- Leo Tolstoy - Russian writer - 1828 - 1910

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