Prologue: The presence of Dukha (loosely translated as suffering or sorrow) is the first fundamental truth discovered by Sakya Muni Buddha. We all have Dukha to various intensities. However, the human mind is very good at amplifying the real Dukha. Let us talk about two incidents witnessed by the writer in the recent days.
Incident 1: You might remember Dr Samuel from the last two blogs. Early in August he got infected with flu (or Covid or Bronchitis) while providing healthcare in one of the rural shelters housing internally displaced people in Myanmar. Almost at the same time he joined a mobile team of healthcare providers whose mission was to travel and cover as much ground as possible to provide badly needed healthcare in the remote parts of the nation where hospitals have stopped working due to the ongoing freedom struggle. It can be mentioned here that even before this war healthcare in the remote parts of Myanmar (more than 70 percent of the nation) was extremely bare-bone.
Anyway, the result was that the doctor who himself is sick had to travel everyday to a new location to provide healthcare to people who are in much more acute need of healthcare. Everyday morning the cough and flu would ameliorate a bit and he would travel to the next destination. And by the evening, cough would get worse. He had no rest, no decent bed, no decent hut with proper walls. He had no choice to not travel. Because, if he stops working then they can not cover the ground.
The story does not end here. When he had very bad cough, he got the news that his sister who was suffering from cancer had died. And many more issues and challenges which I will not go into details here. Lets just say that he has been going through one of the worst phases of his life, challenges and issues which most of us can not even begin to comprehend. And, all these to be in the right side of history.
Incident 2: I met a young man in a birthday celebration. This young man did his masters in the Netherlands. Then, he was not able to get a job for some time and now he is back in India living with his parents. Of course, he is sad. I thought knowing about people worse off than him may make him count his blessings. Me and my cousin sister (whose daughter’s birthday it was) tried to tell him about Dr Samuel and the endless list of challenges he has been going through. It was surprising and shocking to see how little impression was made by Samuel's story on this gentleman. He thought his pain and sufferings are as bad or worse than those faced by Dr Samuel.
Insight: Human brain is an amazing organ. We take whatever sorrow or issues we have and keep amplifying it till it fills each and every corner of our brain. It’s like lighting a candle in a mirror room. Multiple reflections make the whole room filled with the tiny light. Oscar Wilde once told, “I have faced many tragedies in my life. Some of them were real!”.
I was fundamentally wrong in assuming that some sorrows or sufferings are less than others. Human mind makes sure that every sorrow and suffering fills in our whole mind.
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