Grass Cutting Story: The True Cause of Our Suffering

 

            Let’s begin our examination of the Buddha’s approach to understanding suffering by looking at a story from Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn.

In Korea, people use grass cuttings to make compost.  Cutting the grass with a sickle was a job for children.  When I was eight years old I liked the job, so one day my friends and I went out and I cut a lot of grass.  Then we gathered it all in a bag, and we all went to school together…very happy…  I had already walked half a mile [when]… one of my friends said to me, "You cut your leg!"  Then I looked at my leg and saw the blood.  I was bleeding very badly, and blood was making squishing sounds in my rubber shoe as I walked.  As soon as I saw this, I fell to the ground in great pain and couldn’t move.  The other students all came around to see what had happened, and they ran to get my mother and helped me to the hospital.    ---Only Don’t Know, The Teaching Letters of Zen Master Seung Sahn, 1982.    

            This is a good example of someone who is really suffering.  Let’s ask ourselves a question: “Why is eight-year old Seung Sahn suffering?”  We all know the answer:  he has cut his leg with a sickle, he is bleeding badly and is in a lot of pain, and he cannot move and must be helped to the hospital.

            But are we sure that this explanation of Seung Sahn’s suffering is really accurate?  Go back and read the story again, very carefully this time, and see if we aren’t missing something hugely important.  What is it?  Can we see how suffering is actually created?

            If we look closely, we will notice that even though he has a cut leg, he has managed to walk a half mile without any suffering at all—he is not in pain, he is able to walk normally, and he is enjoying the company of his friends.  It is only after being told he is cut and seeing the blood and noticing it squishing in his shoe, only then does he fall to the ground in great pain and unable to move.  

As Seung Sahn goes on to point out, the real source of his suffering is not what has actually happened to him, it is caused by his mental response to what has happened to him.  Once an injury such as this occurs, our minds are likely to instantly produce upsetting thoughts such as: “I’m very badly injured, this is horrible, I might not be able to play in my soccer game tomorrow, maybe they’ll have to amputate my foot, maybe I’ll bleed to death...”

            So when we look closely, we discover that there really are two things present:  the first one is Seung Sahn’s actual situation.  He is walking to school, his leg is cut and bleeding, and he is having a good time with his friends.  These are all facts.  It is also a fact that his cut leg needs medical attention.  But, as we have seen, all of this can be true without any suffering being present.  The second thing that is also present is a mental story that the mind is producing about how awful things are and what the future holds.  None of this is factual or real.  Nonetheless, it is this mind-created fictional story that is the real source of all his suffering.  

            The mind is constantly interpreting and adding on to events in our lives.  However, we typically do not see what is going on because we are not yet skilled in observing how the mind works.  Furthermore, we very regularly see the contents of the fictional mental story as facts. Let’s look at another example. 

Suppose my friend John, shortly after arriving at work, says to me “Is that everything you did this morning?”  I instantly become angry and lash out at John:  “Listen, I work harder around here than you ever have the whole time you have worked here!”  If someone were to ask me what the anger is all about, I quite likely would say “John made me angry when he accused me of being a shirker.”  And I would view what I just said as a statement of fact.

            This is pretty much how things seem to go most of the time when we become angry.  The simple event described above is a good example of getting angry in a conditioned and reactive way because there is no element of mindfulness.  Some event happens, anger arises, and then all of my attention goes out into the external world:  John did this, John did that, he made me angry, he is to blame for this.  The mind is focused entirely on the external triggering event for the anger:  John’s statement.  But what if I make the revolutionary choice to turn my attention inward to look at my own anger process as it unfolds?  What may I see when that happens?

            With more mindfulness, it is possible to slow down the process and take a closer look at the chain of events going on inside me that I normally just don’t see at all.  The sequence of events typically looks something like this.

            First, there is some actual event that takes place.  In this case John has said to me:  “Is that everything you did this morning?” This is the external triggering event. 

             Second, and happening very quickly, there is some sort of thought or perception or interpretation that arises such as:  “He thinks I don’t do enough,” “He is criticizing me,” “He is attacking me,” “I need to defend myself.”  With some training in meditation, it becomes possible to be consciously aware of this thought stream.

            Third, anger arises.  If I am mindful, I know that anger is present and I am in touch with it in the body:  heat in my face, pounding sensation in my chest, rapid breathing, and tense posture.  I am aware of the tone of my own voice as I verbally react to what John said.  Many times, however, there is no conscious awareness of the presence of anger and I do not really become aware of it until later when I look back on my behavior.

            Fourth, because I do not yet know how to skillfully recognize and experience anger, my anger takes me over and I lose my ability to choose how to respond:  I act unskillfully and lash out at John:  “You’re the one who is really lazy and trying to get me to do your work for you!”  I blame my anger on John.

             Fifth, at some point later on I may find myself judging my reaction harshly:  “I behaved terribly.”

            Sixth, I may then move on to globalize my behavior—that is, I make it into something larger than just this specific episode of angry behavior.  My thoughts become “I always get mad when someone says something that sounds like a criticism.”

             Seventh, things may go even further off the rails and I may make what has happened into a personal identity:  “I’m just an angry hostile person.  I’m such a jerk.”    I make my reaction (and harsh self judgement) into a definition of who I am.  Obviously, if I think this behavior is who I am as a person, this is going to make it much harder for me to change than it would be if I simply viewed it as how I behaved in this particular situation.

            The mind is almost always functioning in this way, but typically we do not see it.  Mindfulness allows us to see the whole process and recognize that it is our unskillful response to what is happening that is causing all the suffering.  Just in seeing what we are doing, the process of change has already begun.  When we see this process clearly enough times, at some point we simply don’t want to go there anymore—and we realize we don’t have to go there anymore.  Life can be much simpler and less painful.  The question “Is that everything you did this morning?”  can be answered with a simple “Yes.”     No problem—done!   How much easier that is!

            We can learn to simply feel the anger fully, notice the mental stories we are running that keep it going (“She did this and she did that, she always does…  It’s all her fault”) and allow the anger to simply be there and then wash through.  We begin to see that the mental stories are what set the whole process of suffering in motion and provide the fuel to keep it going.  We can also learn that there is no need to believe a story in our mind just because it is there.

            Each step in the evolution of becoming angry and lashing out provides a place to see what is happening and put a halt to the process.   

 

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