Zen Buddhism: suffering caused by ignorance and attachment

Buddhism wouldn’t be Buddhism, as life wouldn’t be life, without paradoxes. So, naturally, there is a paradox concerning desire: the desire for the cessation of suffering is necessary for suffering’s end. Without this desire, one is living in ignorance that one is even suffering or that there is a path that can free her from suffering, and so she therefore does not seek out its eradication.

But it seems safe to say that the Buddha taught an analysis of the origins of suffering roughly along the following lines: given the existence of a fully functioning assemblage of psychophysical elements (the parts that make up a sentient being), ignorance concerning the three characteristics of sentient existence—suffering, impermanence and non-self—will lead, in the course of normal interactions with the environment, to appropriation (the identification of certain elements as ‘I’ and ‘mine’). This leads in turn to the formation of attachments, in the form of desire and aversion, and the strengthening of ignorance concerning the true nature of sentient existence.

Key Insight: Zen encourages practitioners to fully engage with and observe their suffering without attachment or aversion. This non-dualistic approach reveals the impermanent nature of suffering.

Attachment arises from ignorance and both are causes of suffering. We might also say suffering is caused by our own minds, as ignorance and attachment occur in the mind. Our own minds are the problem!

But because our internal and external ... and ignorance. Is there a way to love people, dislike pain, and still practice non-attachment in Buddhism? Our attachment to phenomena sets in motion a chain of interconnected causes and effects, ultimately culminating in suffering. This chain is described in the foundational Buddhist teaching of the five ...

The First Noble Truth of Buddhism relates to the truth of suffering, or dukkha. The Second Noble Truth highlights the role of craving, greed and attachment in the arising of this suffering. Attachment is the the root of suffering. It is the cause of suffering. Along with Anger and Ignorance, Greed (lobha) is also defilement according to Buddhist wisdom.

Ignorance is one of the three poisons that the Buddha taught which create all suffering, and it’s also the root of all three. Our ignorance or lack of awareness and unconsciousness of our true nature creates a false sense of self.

Again, ignorance is 8 ways of unknowing: it is unknowing about suffering, about the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering and the way leading to cessation of suffering (four noble truths). It is also unknowing about the past (5 aggregates), unknowing about the future (5 aggregates) unknowing about the past and the future together, unknowing about relatedness (specific conditionality) of one thing to another or of states that have arisen. Ignorance thus keeps the truth from penetrating. In Zen Buddhism, delusion (which can be equated with deception or madness – mayoi) arises when the world of appearances as perceived by the six senses (among which is included the intellect or discursive thought) is taken for the whole of reality and as having objective existence.

The cause of suffering is our attachment or clinging. The many dissatisfactions of life are caused by our greedy nature of wanting something our own way, and when things don't turn out the way we expected them to, we get angry. This is due to our ignorance, which is the root of all afflictions ...