The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

by Thich Nhat Hanh

The Buddha offered this example. A young couple and their two-year-old child were trying to cross the desert, and they ran out of food. After deep reflection, the parents realized that in order to survive they had to kill their son and eat his flesh. They calculated that if they ate such and such a proportion of their baby’s flesh each day and carried the rest on their shoulders to dry, it would last the rest of the journey. But with every morsel of their baby’s flesh they ate, the young couple cried and cried.

Fuck, Buddha, that's dark. What the hell is wrong with you?

When we smoke, drink, or consume toxins, we are eating our own lungs, liver, and heart. If we have children and do these things, we are eating our children’s flesh.

Are there just no good metaphors in Buddhism?

The Buddha offered this drastic image: “There is a cow with such a terrible skin disease that her skin is almost no longer there. When you bring her close to an ancient wall or old tree, all the living creatures in the bark of the tree come out, cling to the cow’s body, and suck. When we bring her into the water, the same thing happens. Even when she is just exposed to the air, tiny insects come and suck.

Buddha, buddy, lighten up. If this is what fills your mind when you meditate, you're doing it wrong.

We must come together as individuals, families, cities, and a nation to discuss strategies of self-protection and survival. To get out of the dangerous situation we are in, the practice of mindfulness has to be collective.

Oh, no you don't. I'm not prosteletizing your religion of eating children and freakish cows.

The Buddha presented another drastic image: “Two strong men are dragging a third man along in order to throw him into a fire pit. He cannot resist, and finally they throw him into the glowing embers.

Buddha, buddy, there might be something wrong with you. I don't mean in the "we all have 83 problems, so there's always something wrong" sort of way -- I mean, there might be something really scary wrong with you.

The Buddha offered another dramatic image to illustrate this: “A dangerous murderer was captured and brought before the king, and the king sentenced him to death by stabbing. ‘Take him to the courtyard and plunge three hundred sharp knives through him.’ At noon a guard reported, ‘Majesty, he is still alive,’ and the king declared, ‘Stab him three hundred more times!’ In the evening, the guard again told the king, ‘Majesty, he is not yet dead.’ So the king gave the third order: ‘Plunge the three hundred sharpest knives in the kingdom through him.

Buddha, buddy, I know that this is some kind of parable about always keeping your knives sharp, but, you worry me. Most people would go with the analogy of cutting a delicate vegetable, like a tomato, but here you are, wrapped up in your fantasies about being unable to stab a dangerous murderer to death. No matter how hard you try, you just cannot complete it. It's all impotence and rage with you sometimes.

During sitting meditation, if you see clearly a symptom of your suffering, write it down. Then ask yourself, “What kinds of nutriments have I been ingesting that have fed and sustained this suffering?” When you begin to realize the kinds of nutriments you have been ingesting, you may cry.

That's kind of creepy and dark, but at least you aren't eating your children, or torturing animals or something, so it's a step forward. Good job, I guess?

If you sit with a friend and speak openly, determined to discover the roots of your suffering, eventually you will see them clearly. But if you keep your suffering to yourself, it might grow bigger every day.

I would like to encourage my friends to keep the causes of their suffering to themselves. Once, I shared an office with a friend of mine. We worked for the same company, for the same managers, on the same projects. We discovered that we were annoyed by the same things, but that left to our own devices we noticed entirely different sets of things. Left to our own devices, we were blissfully unaware of many potential causes of suffering. We were individually unhappy, but not terribly so. Sharing the causes of our suffering, and working together, we were able to to identify so many more things to be suffering about that we were able to transcend individual unhappiness and achieve collective despondence. Listening to a friends problems is the compassionate thing to do. But, shutting up about your own is also the compassionate thing to do.

The Buddha also likened unwholesome thinking to wearing a dead snake around your neck.

Buddha, buddy, I thought we talked about this. A dead snake is less worse than your living, rotting cow beset by insects eating her flesh, but it's still a dead snake. Lighten up, buddy.

There are things that bring you joy but do not bring others joy.

Spite really is one of the purest emotions -- it transforms suffering (of others) into joy (for you).

Imagine two hens about to be slaughtered, but they do not know it. One hen says to the other, “The rice is much tastier than the corn. The corn is slightly off.” She is talking about relative joy. She does not realize that the real joy of this moment is the joy of not being slaughtered, the joy of being alive.

What is wrong with these Buddhists? I mean, holy fuck, do they have any allegories that aren't terrible?

The Buddha gave the example of a dog that was hit by a stone and got angry at the stone.

Buddha, buddy, what the fuck?

Sometimes, through non-action, we can help more than if we do a lot. Like a calm person on a small boat during a storm, just by being there, we can change the situation.

I do not understand this metaphor, but at least no one is eating their child.

In my country, we say that when a tiger leaves his mountain and goes to the lowlands, he will be caught by humans and killed.

Worst. Aphorism. Ever.

We are loved by trees.

See your body as an ocean filled with hidden waves and sea monsters.

Like this? 🐣 🐛 🐳 🐬 🐋 🐊 🦂 🦀 🐡? Do. Not. Want.

There is a helpful image in the Ratnakuta Sutra. A man throws a clod of earth at a dog. The dog looks at the clod and barks at it furiously. The dog does not realize that it is the man and not the clod of earth that is responsible.

What a terrible story. Again, Buddha and Buddhists reach to the most terrible examples. I'm betting the guy who threw the clod of earth at the dog was Buddha. What an asshole.

The Bodhisattva Never Despising could not dislike anyone, because he knew that each of us has the capacity to become a Buddha. He would bow to every child and adult and say, “I do not dare to underestimate you. You are a future Buddha.” Some people felt so joyful upon hearing this that faith arose in them. But others, thinking that he was making fun of them, shouted and hurled stones at him.

Dude, what the fuck? I'm not taking this out of context here, there is no further reference to the stone throwers at all.

Venerable Thich Quang Duc was able to sit peacefully even while fire was blazing all around him. He was burning, but he was still sitting on a lotus. That is the ultimate capacity to sit peacefully in any circumstance, knowing that nothing is lost.

This is the guy who set himself on fire in protest of the Vietnam War, right? And this was the best example he could think of? I aspire to many things, but sitting quietly and peacefully after setting myself on fire is not one of those things.

The Buddha offered this wonderful image. If you take a handful of salt and pour it into a small bowl of water, the water in the bowl will be too salty to drink. But if you pour the same amount of salt into a large river, people will still be able to drink the river’s water.

This many be the only hopeful, positive image in the entire book.

Never invite a guest who brings you sorrow and affliction.

As Lou Reed said, "they're happier when they're sad." So, the best you can do is rejoice for them, and keep them at arm's distance.

In the Kakacupama Sutta (Example of the Saw), the Buddha says, “Even if robbers cut your limbs off with a saw, if anger arises in you, you are not a follower of my teachings. To be a disciple of the Buddha, your heart must bear no hatred, you must utter no unkind words, you must remain compassionate, with no hostility or ill-will.”4 As a young monk, I memorized these words and even put them to music.

What ... The ... Fuck ... ? Did someone go the the example store and find that they were all out of examples of hardship that didn't involve having limbs cut off? Why stop there? Why not have the robbers rape the limbless victim? Did someone go to the reasonable example store and come home ... empty handed? ---- Update upon rereading: I really want to hear this song. I am expecting Buddha to be like King George in Hamilton.

Greater Discourse on the Example of the Elephant’s Footprint,

This title reminds me of "Ode To A Small Lump Of Putty I Found In My Armpit"

These Seven Factors are limbs of the same tree.

If we get an example of robbers coming and cutting off all the limbs of this tree, the previous example will be forgiven. But we don't.