Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World

by Stephen Batchelor

The suttas contain a number of passages that suggest this more pragmatic and nuanced approach. “I do not say that the breakthrough to the Four is accompanied by suffering,” declares the Buddha in the final chapter of the Saṃyutta Nikāya. “It is accompanied only by happiness and joy.”24 To fully embrace suffering does not increase suffering but paradoxically enhances your sense of astonishment at being alive. By saying “yes” to birth, sickness, aging, and death, you open your heart and mind to the sheer mystery of being here at all: that in this moment you breathe, you hear the wind rustling the leaves in the trees, you look up at the night sky and are lost in wonder.