Origins of Suffering: Klesha

The second noble truth, the origins of suffering, describe where suffering comes from and how it’s perpetuated.  This is klesha, or afflictive emotions, which exist in cycles with karma, or actions.  Klesha and karma reinforce each other, both personally and socially, and form a vicious cycle we call samsara.

Now, we’ll talk about klesha, and in the next classes, we’ll talk about karma.

How does klesha arise at all if really we’re buddha nature?

That’s why the “root” klesha is called ignorance.  Ignorance means not knowing the nature of reality—-ultimately, being disconnected from buddha nature, and relatively, not understanding what leads to suffering and what leads to happiness (the principles of karma, four truths, etc).    

At its most subtle level, ignorance is essentially solidification.  The free-flowing wisdom of our minds gets solidified into thoughts, concepts, self and other, and then all kinds of stories, patterns, and actions based on those, and off we are to the rat race of samsara. 

For example, we’re resting in meditation and experience a “gap”, or a glimpse of our buddha nature where all of a sudden everything stops and we’re wide open.  Then next thing we know, we start thinking about an argument we had a work and are totally “in it” and playing out all kinds of kleshic patterns.  Then we act those out in the work situation and further reinforce suffering.

As we do, we have the more relative level of ignorance, where we think getting in the last word might make us better off, but actually, it just provoked resentment in the other person, and poisoned our own minds too…

Ignorance is what causes us to feel “stuck” within our patterns, thoughts, narratives, as if they’re solid and real—-when actually, they’ve only ever been as solid as we’ve made them. Even the whole world around us is changing all the time, fleeting, passing, at best.

The analogy for ignorance is like going to sleep, when then our dreams feel real---but we can always wake up.  Life is like that too.

There are also more coarse forms of ignorance such as feeling lost, spaced out, confused, bewildered, or simply not knowing what to do.  Ignorance is frozen space, our minds getting stuck, and we lose access to the wisdom and inspiration of our buddha nature. 

Our wisdom has limitless capacity, but ignorance is how that gets blocked and we don’t understand how our environment, others, and society works.  Getting “siloed” in whatever our particular media feeds or views are and not being able to understand why others think the way they do, or what has led them to that, or how we help each other come to a better place, is also ignorance.   

It's not hard to see how this causes a lot of suffering…

Ignorance can also be as subtle and ordinary as when we don’t understand our co-worker, friend, partner, or loved one, or why they’re saying or doing what they are. 

Encountering ignorance can be an invitation to open our hearts further, and engage our curiosity to sincerely attempt to learn more about life. 

As we listen and inquire sincerely, we can reconnect with the buddha nature of others and ourselves, open our perspective, and hopefully, help others open theirs as well.  If that’s not possible, at the least, we can act from a more informed place ourselves and do what we can to shift dynamics that way.

Ignorance is also baked into all the other kleshas, as we’ll see, it’s solidification is really what makes them kleshas rather than free-flowing wisdom. 

Next, we’ll talk about craving, which is also sometimes translated as greed, desire, passion, or attachment.  However, when we talk about “attachment” in Buddhism, it doesn’t mean the same thing it does in Western psychology, which is more about secure and loving connection.  (We’d agree that’s a good thing). 

In Buddhism, craving means clinging onto our bodies, external objects, feelings, concepts, patterns, or even the solidity of our own minds and thoughts.  And especially, it means wanting more in a way that reinforces the cycles of suffering in samsara. 

Said simply, craving can be as subtle as chasing around our thoughts and narratives endlessly in our minds, or as coarse as trying to get the “right” thing, job, or person, or even as extreme as various forms of addiction. 

Craving is that insatiable force that keeps us spinning in samsara, trying to get the next fix which will make it all work out.  It’s mixed with ignorance, because we think that will make us happy, but really, it keeps us suffering…and ultimately, takes us farther from the joy and fulfillment already within ourselves. 

Craving is also mixed with ignorance in that we often don’t see what’s really there, but only what we want.  What we see becomes a projection of our own desires, as opposed to the multifactedness of what’s really in front of us. 

That’s what leads to soooo many problems in life…

For example, we’re looking for security so we’re attracted to a particular job or person that offers it, but don’t see or fully emotionally comprehend that there are all kinds of incompatible things about that job or person, and we end up feeling trapped.

The wisdom of discernment, buddha nature, on the other hand, can very intuitively and precisely understand exactly what will lead to what, and can bring out the very best in ourselves and each other, and help us find meaningfully beneficial direction in life. 

Aggression, or anger, means being unable to bear pain, and so having hostility towards it, whether it’s in the form of a painful situation, another person, or even just pain itself.  Aggression then serves as a support for doing negative things. 

There’s a profound point here, which is that at the root of anger, there’s actually simply pain.  If we can connect with pain authentically, being willing to feel it, quite quickly we’ll tend to experience compassion, and we can come to clarity about how to best actually resolve the painful situation. 

But with the klesha of anger, instead, we just try to lash out and destroy what we think is causing us pain.  In so doing, we create more pain and suffering, and the cycle continues. 

Within anger, there can be an essence of clarity.  For example, when we’re angry about a harmful situation happening, we’re often not wrong, but if we become locked up in anger we’ll likely lose access to our truest wisdom and skillful means about how to actually help, and will often inadvertently end up causing more harm. 

That said, Buddhism also describes forms of tough love or “wrathful compassion” which can be forcefully setting boundaries or stopping harmful things from happening, which is extremely important.  True wrathful compassion is not anger, and remains connected to everyone’s buddha nature, and is invoked in what we call “protector principle”. 

That’s an extremely important point, because allowing harm to happen is not compassionate, nor is a particularly pernicious form of gaslighting that can often happen in spiritual circles where a legitimate grievance being expressed with anger often gets invalidated and turned back on the person expressing it.

These can be challenging and subtle areas of practice, though I wanted to at least name them as we’re being introduced.     

Jealousy is a mix of craving and anger.  Due to our own craving for something, we’re unable to bear others doing well.  It causes us to suffer and act out in negative ways. 

Jealousy can also lead to speediness, and intense competition, always trying to win and fight for more.  There’s quite a lot of jealousy klesha in the ways today’s economy and politics work, and can reinforce those tendencies within ourselves. 

Jealousy inhibits meaningful progress when instead of being able to hold a big view and connect with the buddha nature of all involved, instead, we just pick a side and fight for our perspective to win at the expense of others.   

In so doing, we’re often blinded to ways in which we’re reinforcing the root causes of the conflict, or, are acting in ways that are creating wounds or imbalances in the situation which will cause other problems and keep the cycle of fighting going.   

When our jealousy can open up into a more spacious perspective, more connected with buddha nature, we can more deeply understand the dynamics of a given situation or conflict, and more skillfully actually accomplish what can bring genuine progress. 

Pride, or arrogance, means becoming inflated over ourselves and then not being able to respect other people. 

We experience this in all kinds of ways where basically we’re locked up in what we want or what will be good for us, and then unable to consider equally how that will impact other people.  Or, “our thing” takes up all the space, and we can’t listen. 

Pride blocks the wisdom of equanimity, where we can appreciate everyone’s wisdom, and remain connected to our equality. 

This was just a quick list of five kleshas, but really the variety of klesha we experience is limitless and very personal. 

Remember, klesha is what causes suffering, disturbs the peace and well-being of our mind and body, and leads to negative actions. 

In the way today’s world is karmically patterned, with so much intense speed, chaos, conflict, prejudice, unhealthy standards, and turmoil, many of us experience kleshas like constant anxiety, depression, self-hatred, loss of meaning or purpose, addiction, and so much more. 

In fact, a healthy contemplation along our paths can be “what afflictive emotions are taking up my mental energy and causing me to suffer?  Where are those in my body?” 

In the next article, I’ll offer a couple of practices for how we can begin to heal and release klesha.