Using the Buddhist Six Paramitas to Resolve the Eight Sufferings of Life
Buddhism summarizes the sufferings of life as eight: birth, old age, illness, death, parting from what one loves, meeting what one hates, not obtaining what one seeks, and the flourishing of the five skandhas. The Six Paramitas (liu du) are six methods of Buddhist practice; 'du' comes from the Sanskrit paramita, meaning 'going to the other shore'—the six ways of practicing and attaining: generosity (dana), precept-keeping (sila), forbearance (ksanti), diligence (virya), meditation (dhyana), and wisdom (prajna).
Of the eight sufferings, those of birth, old age, illness, and death are arranged by nature; the sufferings of parting from the beloved, meeting the hateful, failing to obtain what one seeks, and the flourishing of the five skandhas arise from our own minds. Parting from the beloved means being separated, in life or death, from those we love; meeting the hateful means living with those we hate; not obtaining what one seeks means the various desires of the heart go unsatisfied; the flourishing of the five skandhas means various negative emotions tangled together—anxiety, fear, resentment, indignation, and so on. To live within these eight sufferings is truly torment.
Living in the secular world, we are more or less bound to suffer them. Do you not see that in the bustling crowds, many faces are full of worry and unhappiness? Do you not see that in the workplace and the marketplace, how many gray-haired elites have grown old before their time? Do you not see how anxious and pained are the patients and families coming and going in the hospitals? No one can avoid some or all of these eight sufferings.
We live amid all this suffering, struggling, tossing, rising and falling, with no end. People rushing about in today's metropolises spend at least half of their day doing things they do not inwardly want to do; a considerable part of what they say is not what they inwardly wish to say; and of the friends they keep, how many are those they would wish to love with their whole heart? Most people spend most of their time forcing a smile, deep inside uneasy and adrift.
The reason for these sufferings is that love and desire are intertwined in the heart, hard to let go or sever. From love arises worry; from desire arises fear. We cannot live well in the present, constantly generating anxiety and dread because love and desire are hard to satisfy. For most people, life 'at this moment' is not actually enough to make them uneasy, yet they are full of worry about the future, so that they lose the joy of abiding in the present. Especially when outside turmoil never ceases, the mind is even more tossed about.
Life is made of countless present moments; to miss each present is to miss the chance to enjoy life. Buddhism advocates an attitude of always 'abiding'—being at ease with whatever circumstances arise, without distinguishing favorable from adverse conditions, undisturbed and unafraid, free of care and worry. To achieve this, one must constantly cultivate the six paramitas.
Use generosity to cultivate a heart that can give; use precept-keeping to cut the bondage of unwholesome connections with the outside world; use forbearance to resolve disputes with others; use diligence to continually strengthen the inner power; use meditation to cultivate one's powers of concentration; use prajna (wisdom) to sweep away all inner murkiness. To free ourselves from the eight sufferings of life, we need the wisdom to cut, give up, and detach. Cut off all attachments, renounce the temptations of wealth and rank, leave behind the right and wrong of the world, and pass this life with the ease of a stroll in a quiet courtyard, following conditions. The physical body needs food and nourishment, and one must indeed make a living, but one need not sink deeply into the sea of desire on that account, unable to escape.
Buddhism often stresses that many things we pursue are as illusory as flowers in a mirror or the moon in water. It therefore advocates having few desires and modest wants; anything beyond one's survival needs can be given away to help the endangered and the poor. Cut off the love of 'possession,' and the heart can become much clearer and kinder. Life is often tormented by loss precisely because we wish to possess too much. If a person lives without competing with the world, there will be no affliction to speak of.