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Stop Feeding Your Suffering
Master Khương Tăng Hội, the first meditation teacher of Vietnam, began his practice as an eleven-year-old boy eight hundred years after the first lotus flower bloomed on Gṛdhrakūṭa Mountain. Eighteen centuries later, his light continues to shine through the practice of mindful breathing and the six pāramitās. In seeking relief from suffering, there are two distinct paths:
- Minor relief, which provides enough balance to survive and continue life.
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Greatest relief, which is obtained through prajñāpāramitā and leads to total liberation from fear, craving, and worries.
This insight allows one to go deeper into the nature of being and ill-being, recognizing that suffering requires food to survive. We often feed our own despair and anxiety through our daily way of living, creating a dualistic struggle where we try to run from the very things we are inviting in.
To obtain the greatest relief, one must stop running and return to the kingdom of the five skandhas:
- Body
- Feelings
- Perceptions
- Mental formations
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Consciousness
Our consciousness can be intoxicated by various poisons that act as cancers within us, such as craving, anger, doubt, fear, and jealousy. The root of these toxins is avidyā, or ignorance, which leads to grasping at objects of love, hate, and fear. By practicing deep looking, we see that these elements have no self-nature (svabhāva-śūnyatā), much like the layers of a banana tree or an onion.
The Buddha acts as a physician and friend, encouraging us to identify our suffering by its true name and discover its roots. This requires the energy of mindfulness and concentration to embrace our internal pain rather than seeking quick, often toxic, external fixes. Through the study of the Heart Sutra and the practice of looking deeply into the five skandhas, emptiness becomes a practical medicine rather than a philosophical concept. By identifying the toxic nutrients we consume—whether through food, conversations, books, or films—we can stop feeding our suffering and achieve true transformation.