Dukkha

dukkha cannot be clearly defined. But it is one of those things that you know when you see it.

They say the origin of dukkha is the axle of a cart wheel. Its opposite is sukkha, meaning a wheel which is well formed and runs smoothly. dukkha, one can then imagine, is the squeaky wheel which never gets its grease. But one need not imagine ancient chariots.

Imagine instead: you are a young man in the united states living on the streets of an medium sized and unremarkable city. you are tormented by evil voices in your mind which will not leave you a moments rest no matter how often or how loud you tell them to leave. echoes of a child lying frozen in bed, unable to cry because of you do they might hear you and come back — your voice is hoarse and ragged. you cannot even scream anymore. perhaps the demons can be quelled for a few hours if you can scrape together the money to purchase some street medicine. the medicine will destroy your body and mind and eventually kill you. but that’s ok because you pray for death every minute of every day anyways. this is what you tell the bus driver when you drag your one-wheeled cart in from the snow. i want to be reborn in heaven. i want to go to heaven. please let me die and go to heaven. there are millions of you. you miss your stop.

the driver is sympathetic, and wishes you a better day as you leave. as he drives away you tear your throat out with another frozen, unutterable howl.

the kind driver is just another demon taunting you. if he truly cared he would have taken your life right then and there beneath the wheels of his Great Vehicle.

Your goal today is to find a new wheel for your wire cart containing everything you own: ripped and damp sleeping bag, some candy bars and energy drinks, a bit of trash you thought might be useful. you set off again to find a wheel that fits. but you know you won’t find it. 

you are the driver, sobbing uncontrollably on the floor of your empty bus: with tears streaming down your cheeks and snot dripping from your nose you can only pray: may your demons be satisfied instead with my flesh and blood. may the law of this world, the law of mara, lie shattered and flaming in the wreckage of the empty revolution. may the powerful be brought down and the powerless rise up. may you be reborn in the highest of heavens. may flower grow in your every footstep and all the treasures of the earth and the heavens be given to you. may the voices be silenced. may you at least find a wheel that turns.

How feeble,

How utterly useless

all i can do is weep and pray —

may the revolution come swiftly

may the world be made anew

in and as the unbreakable body of the self-overcoming Liberator

the great friend, the compassionate One

may we meet in peace

may we be at last known to one another

together with all beings and the great earth

let’s get free

Now, imagine you are the reader

seeing this all through some crystal veil

holding both stories, knower

formed, known, by who and what you can’t say

what is to be done?

now, the truth

you are not the homeless man

you are not the driver

and you are most definitely not the reader

what you are is a pair of fangs, bloody

bared in faceless grin like sky

between your teeth: a blade named the middle way

its cutting edge continuously ground to incomprehensibility

on the the grind-wheel of pain

sparks of pure desire fly in your face

fill worldmind with fire —

clean burning — no smoke

so

rise and unsheathe this

wisdom beyond wisdom, stranger

do what must be done

break what must be broken

mend what should be mended

cut what should be cut

effortless, natural, without a trace

the perfect crime — accomplished

no alibi, no evidence, no witnesses

not you

not other

nor even the void

remains

the only way out is through