Stop Suffering

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Stop Suffering

A Buddhist Guide to Happiness

ByStephen L. Klick

“Misfortune comes from one’s mouth and ruins one, but fortune comes from one’s heart and makes one worthy of respect.”

-New Years Gosho

I dedicate this book to my wife, Heidi.

My very special thanks to Bartholomew and the ‘gang’ at Swag Research for all the popcorn!

Other BIONA Books:

“Introduction To Buddhism”

“Day By Day”

“Inside The Lotus Sutra”

“The Loving Heart”

“A House On Fire”

“Walking On The Path”

Stephen Klick is the Director and co-founder of Buddhist Information Of North America (BIONA). BIONA offers free study material to Buddhist students all over North America and also provides information on the locations and phone numbers of Dharma Centers. BIONA is also becoming involved with teaching inmates in jails and prisons around the U.S. For more information please call: (913) 722-0900 in the Kansas City area and (800) 576-9212 for the rest of North America. Visit the BIONA web site at or e-mail Mr. Klick at

Introduction

Everybody wants to be happy. Nobody wants to live a life filled with problems and heartache. None of us start out with the intention of ending up miserable, yet so many of us grow to be that way that we have come to accept this condition as normal.

Living without pain and suffering is a skill, like any other you can think of. If you don’t put effort into your job, you will soon be unemployed. If you don’t work at your marriage or relationship, you will find yourself alone. The same is true of living well. If you don’t train your mind you will have ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’ depending on what happens around you. It’s possible to spend your entire life just reacting and responding to the things that happen to you. Many people float through life this way but very few of them achieve happiness. If you control your mind it does not matter what is occurring in the surrounding environment, you will be happy and content. If you have ‘good’ and ‘bad’ days your environment is in control and you will frequently experience unnecessary suffering.

Once you realize that it is possible to be happy under any circumstances it’s not difficult to train your mind. Any one can follow the simple directions found in this teaching and acquire mental peace if they make the effort. It doesn’t matter what circumstances you are in, some of my students are in prison or jail, and the others come from an incredibly wide assortment of occupations. What these people have in common is the desire to improve their lives. They have discovered that mind training greatly reduces and then completely eliminates suffering. This training consists of practice and study. It will take approximately one hour every day depending upon how you organize your schedule. The Buddhas gave these techniques to us. Anyone can become a Buddha just by learning to see the world as it really is. The term ‘Buddha’ means “someone who is awake to the true nature of reality.”

If you decide to develop your mind with Buddhist training begin by doubting everything. Don’t believe anything you are taught until you try it yourself and find out that it works for you. If something is real you can prove it. Faith, in Buddhist thinking, is never blind trust. After a year or two of testing and doubting you will come to realize that this practice really does eliminate suffering. When you are absolutely certain that you can rely on these teachings then you are beginning to develop Buddhist faith.

Before we examine this training let’s begin by learning a little of what is known about the first teacher, a man named Siddhartha Gotama. He later earned the title “Shakyamuni,” which means “wise man of the Shaka tribe” He was also known as the Buddha.

Chapter 1

The Life of the Buddha

More than 2,500 years ago Siddhartha Gotama was born as a prince of the Shakya tribe. The exact area has never been identified but was probably in the southern hill area of present day Nepal. Very little is known about his life before he became a religious teacher and leader. The Indians of his era lived in an oral culture; important teachings were memorized and thus passed on to the next generation. Paper was not in use at that time so nobody could keep written records. It might seem odd to us that a person of great importance would not have the details of his life recorded but Shakyamuni stressed that the teachings were what was important, not the teacher. Most of what is known about the early life of the Buddha was written hundreds of years later and cannot be considered factual.

We also have no idea what the first Buddha looked like because the racial group he belonged to is unknown. The first sculptures of Shakyamuni were created when the Indian culture encountered the Greeks, who produced some of the most beautiful statuary in the ancient world. Since the man had already been dead for hundreds of years, the statues you see of Shakyamuni Buddha are based on the ideals of the people commissioning the work.

Legend tells us that Siddhartha was protected from all unpleasantness because, before he was born, a wise man told his father, King Shuddhodana, that his son would either become a world conquering King or a fully enlightened Buddha. The Shaka tribe was a minor military power that was surrounded by larger groups who wanted to expand into their territory, so it was natural that King Shuddhodana hoped his son would lead his people to safety. It may even be true that someone predicted that Siddhartha would be a great man; after all, his father was a King. Can you imagine telling any father that his beloved first-born son isn’t special, especially when that father could have you killed if he didn’t like the sound of your prediction?

The folklore surrounding the Buddha is similar in nature to the fairy-tales told about every religious founder. Shakyamuni’s mother did not have sex to become impregnated. Instead, she had a dream about a white elephant and “knew” that she would deliver a male child. Her pregnancy was totally painless because the child never passed through the birth cannel. He sprang from his mother’s right side, immediately walked seven steps, and then announced, “I am the leader and guide to the entire world.”

People who wanted everyone to understand the greatness of the Buddhas teaching wrote this kind of nonsense. It is human nature to want the founder of the spiritual tradition you have found helpful to be well regarded by everybody. If Buddhism dealt with gods, or if Shakyamuni was supposed to be semi-divine this kind of fable would make sense; thinking such things would help you generate reverence, which would support your practice of morality. Siddhartha Gotama was, however, a human being just like you and I. He faced the same problems we all do, and he was frightened by the idea that he would have to die. He said, ‘what good is being a prince or a King if I still have to get sick, grow old and then die?’

Most of the ‘information’ we have about the Buddhas early life is legendary material that grew with the passing of time. We do know that he was born a prince in the minor kingdom of the Shakas, and that he lived the life of a spoiled aristocrat. We can also be sure that it was the problem of death that caused him to leave his palace and seek for truth. These few facts are based on autobiographical statements made by the Buddha while he was teaching.

Shakyamuni’s early life was devoted to the pursuit of pleasure but he was disturbed by the common human troubles of suffering, sickness, old age, and death. To him it seemed foolish to spend your life pretending that these things only happened to others. From a very early age it was clear that he would leave home searching for answers to the problems that continually upset his mind. It was common for people of this era to satisfy their religious hunger by leaving the cares of society and focusing on spiritual growth. Once they reached a level of understanding that satisfied them they would return to their society and teach others what they had learned. His royal father could see that Siddhartha was restless so he quickly arranged a marriage knowing that the additional responsibility would keep him home for a few more years. Prince Siddhartha married his cousin, Yashodhara, when he was sixteen years old. They had one child, a son named Rahula.

It was important for King Shuddhodana to have an heir, but once Rahula was born Siddhartha was free to renounce his royal status. At age nineteen the young man left home and began to practice with the religious teachers of his time. He studied with two famous meditation teachers, first Arada of the Kalama clan, then Rudraka Ramaputra. Although he mastered both of their systems and was asked by both men to become a teacher of their techniques, he was not satisfied because he had not yet attained enlightenment. He decided that teachers had no more to offer him so he left to practice by himself. He would not be content until the questions that plagued him were resolved.

For the next six years Siddhartha lived the life of a religious ascetic. It was commonly believed that a controlled form of starvation would purify the practitioner and allow him to attain a state of high realization or even enlightenment. After nearly starving to death Siddhartha understood that this path led only to suffering. A life devoted to pleasure also did not alleviate mental suffering so he began to think about the middle way between these two extremes.

He ate a healthy meal and then sat down under a pipal tree; determined to remain in that spot until he attained enlightenment. All through the night he sat in meditation and in the early morning hours Siddhartha became Shakyamuni, a fully enlightened Buddha. He spent the rest of his life teaching others the path that leads to the end of suffering.

What the Buddha Taught

The Buddha was a unique spiritual teacher. Every other religious instructor that I have encountered taught one method and expressed himself one way. If you understand the message and if the way it was expressed to you made sense then you would embrace that teaching and benefit from it. If it didn’t somehow appeal to you then you would gain nothing. Shakyamuni wanted to benefit all people and was not willing to leave anyone out. He taught so many methods that Buddhism came to be called the ten thousand teachings. Everything he taught leads to mental peace and happiness, and he was quite willing to start from wherever the student was in his or her mental development.

Introductory Buddhist teachings often seem to contradict each other. This led to some confusion after Shakyamuni’s death. The Buddhist world is today divided into schools that beginning students believe are actual divisions of Buddhist thought. If you meet a practitioner who tells you “I am a Zen Buddhist,” or “I am Tibetan Buddhist,” then you know this person has not advanced far enough to realize that such things are not real.

Early Monastic Teachings

For example, the Buddha taught his monastic followers the four noble truths and the eightfold path in various sutras that he preached. Sutra is a word that means ‘book’ or ‘organized writing’. The four noble truths are an analytical way of looking at reality: The first of these truths state that the world is filled with suffering. There is nothing in our world system that is not suffering. Anything you can think of can be analyzed as suffering. People new to this philosophy often assert that this is not so. “Eating isn’t suffering,” they argue, “and what about sex?”

Of course, you must eat to stay alive and sex has a certain fascination, especially when your body is bursting with hormones. I like both of these things, and I’m very fond of reading, but if you look closely you will see the suffering. If reading or sex were inherently pleasurable, then the more of these activities you engaged in, the better it would be. In other words, an hour of sex would be good, a week of sex would be great, and a month filled with unending sex would be bliss. It doesn’t work that way, does it? Spend some time thinking about the things you believe to be pleasure and you will find that they are just another form of suffering.

The second truth is to understand the origin of suffering, which is ignorance. This lack of knowledge is the cause of all human suffering because it leads us to view the world in a distorted manner. Ignorance is my enemy and it is yours as well. To remove this obstacle requires a bit of thought and introspection. It is not necessary for you to be Buddhist to understand that everything is based on cause and effect, modern western science teaches the same thing. When you make a cause you always get an effect and you never see an effect without a corresponding cause. A person sees good people in bad situations and bad people living in very good circumstances and then feels that life is unfair. They are failing to take into account the eternity of life. You are composed of energy, and energy can change forms in various ways but energy never ‘dies’. The bad person in good circumstances is still reaping the rewards of past good behavior, when that energy is used up you will clearly see them harvest the fruit of their bad actions.

This is a very practical teaching. If you recognize that everything occurs according to the law of cause and effect then you eliminate a lot of unnecessary suffering from your life. If you truly understand that everything happening to you is a direct result of causes you have made in the past then you will not become angry with other people when they do things that are unpleasant. If you had not made the cause, you could never get the effect. Realizing this truth is the first step to becoming a mature human being.

The third truth is the happy fact that there is a way that leads to the end of suffering. That ‘way’ is the fourth truth, the path leading to the end of suffering. This path to freedom is based on your behavior in the future. If you want to end suffering in your life begin by developing right intention. If you have the intention to become a good person, if you are resolved to stop the needless suffering in your life and to help others who want to do the same then you have made the first step along the path to freedom.

Determine in your mind that you will continue without faltering and you have an excellent start on right effort. To develop right speech means that you do not use your mouth to hurt other people, no matter what the provocation. Right action is concerned with how you live in the world. Make certain that none of your actions or activities harms anyone; that you live wherever you are with the intention of bringing assistance to all beings around you and that is right view. We also want to bring benefit to people with whatever occupation supports our lifestyle; do no harm during your workday and that is right livelihood.

It is very important to expand your mental abilities so that you can, eventually, wake up and see things the way they really are. Right mindfulness means that we keep these good concepts in our mind so that we can live by them, not just talk about them. It also means that we stay in the present moment, this will allow you to do your best when you’re working or playing, and it also stops needless suffering. So much of our mental suffering is based on things that happened in the past: “why did she say that to me,” or “why did he do that”? This kind of dredging up of past episodes from your life is futile; it is always needless suffering. Whatever happened in the past is over; you can’t change it so constantly dwelling on these episodes only results in bringing yourself needless pain.

The same is true of worrying about things that haven’t happened yet. If your child is an hour late coming home you could fill that hour with worry and fear: “He dead! I know he’s dead!” However, filling your mind with all the horrible things that could happen is not real. It’s mindless suffering. The parent who worries in this way has suffered some of the grief a parent feels when they loose a child even though nothing has happened. How pitiful to suffer so intensely when your child is merely a little thoughtless. Bring your mind back to the present moment and stop all of this mindless suffering. The goal of this type of practice is to eliminate avoidable suffering. Remember: if it happened in the past then there is nothing you can do about it. Learn from your mistakes and don’t make them again. If it might happen in the future, it hasn’t happened yet, so don’t worry about it! Plan wisely but do not obsessively worry about things that probably won’t happen at all.