Greg Scharf on “Letting Go of Struggle”

A reflection on practice by Greg Scharf

The heart of the Buddha’s teachings revolve around a wise understanding of what is called Dukkha in the Pali language. Dukkha is often translated as suffering, but this word is far too limited to capture the depth & breadth of this crucial term. On one level, Dukkha does point to suffering: to pain & painful feelings associated with bodily life, and the difficult mental & emotional states that arise for all of us at times. But suffering on this level represents only one aspect of Dukkha. On a more subtle level, Dukkha points to qualities of unsatisfactoriness & unreliability that are intrinsic to all conditioned experience whether pleasant or unpleasant.

There’s a basic fragility pervading all of life that is a direct reflection of the fact that everything is in a state of constant flux – a flow of changing conditions that are largely outside of our direct control. This leads to feelings of vulnerability & a subtle but pervasive inner anxiety. Pleasant experiences don’t last & unpleasant ones are unavoidable. Conditions are never fully amenable to our will, and we will never be able to get things to be way we want & then stay that way. Life is not, and never will be, controllable in this way, and the Buddha’s teachings do not offer us the key to this kind of agency.

Not that we are completely helpless in this regard. Opening to Dukkha need not lead us to a state of resignation & defeat. We do our best to live well – with grace, integrity, and care – and this does matter. At the same time, we will all experience the full range of joys & sorrows that characterize a life. Dukkha is deeply embedded in the very fabric of existence, and informs our lives constantly & profoundly. The Buddha’s liberation is not about escaping from life’s ups & downs. Life goes on with its joys & sorrows, but suffering in relation to this flow of change is another matter entirely.

Our usual strategy is to fight against or deny the truth of Dukkha but, of course, this never really works & leads to an exhausting & ultimately fruitless struggle. Luckily, the Buddha offers us a radically different strategy, one that enables us to start relating to the truth of Dukkha in a wise way, where we meet the changing conditions we encounter from a place of ease & balance of mind. We stop fighting against the way things are, and move towards harmony & alignment with reality. Through this shift of view & change in strategy, we let go of struggle & touch the possibility of a freedom of mind & heart that is to a profound extent independent of life’s changing conditions. This is true freedom.