The following talk is about the 4 noble truth of suffering and how to apply the teachings to everyday life. The talk begins after the instruction was given after the guided meditation to keep paying attention to the present moment to moment experience as the guests went on short break and came back to hear the teachings.
In the talk Rebecca explores many themes, and here is a brief summary:
What often feels like failure, disappointment, or frustration can instead become one of the most dependable conditions for practice. Because life does not reliably conform to our preferences, it continually invites us to look more closely at how suffering arises—and how it can be released.
As human beings, we inevitably encounter moments when our efforts do not lead to the outcomes we hope for. Career goals fall through, relationships do not unfold as imagined, and even our best intentions are sometimes met with resistance or loss. These experiences are not signs that something has gone wrong. “It is part of life, living as human beings, that we sometimes do not get what we set out to achieve.”
Suffering intensifies when this ordinary reality is forgotten and replaced by the belief that effort alone should guarantee results. In truth, every moment is shaped by countless causes and conditions, many of which lie beyond individual control. When this is overlooked, disappointment easily turns into frustration, blame, or self-reproach. Remembering that “everything that happens is coming together of many, many causes and conditions” restores perspective and softens the grip of expectation. When things do come together, gratitude arises naturally rather than being forced.
A common misunderstanding of practice emerges at this point—the idea that suffering can be avoided by wanting less, striving less, or disengaging altogether. Yet withdrawing from life does not free us from suffering; it only removes the situations where awareness can deepen. Avoiding disappointment also avoids growth. Fully engaging with life, while learning how not to add suffering when outcomes differ from hopes, is where practice becomes real.
At the heart of this teaching is a clear distinction between pain and suffering. Pain is unavoidable in a life lived in a body—illness, aging, loss, and emotional hurt are natural. Suffering arises when pain is resisted or fixed into a solid problem. There is the initial painful experience, and then the added layer of mental struggle: “There are two things that happen. One is the painful feeling, and then we create mental pain.” Fighting what hurts only tightens the body and mind, creating more suffering. Allowing experience to unfold moment by moment reveals its impermanent nature.
Suffering is also created through fixation, particularly in how people and situations are held in the mind. Difficult relationships often persist not because someone is always difficult, but because a narrow and painful image has been frozen in place. What is actually being related to is not the living person, but an idea of them—an edited collection of the most challenging moments. “What we have a relationship with is our idea of that person.” When this fixation loosens, space opens for genuine communication and unexpected connection.
Even when life is going well, suffering can quietly take root. Pleasant circumstances invite attachment and the belief that things should remain this way. Forgetting impermanence, enjoyment becomes tinged with anxiety about loss. When conditions inevitably change, suffering follows. Remembering that all experiences—pleasant and painful alike—are temporary allows joy to be fully lived without clinging.
Throughout the teaching, a simple thread runs through every example: remembering impermanence and causes and conditions reduces suffering and shapes how the next moment is created. With this remembrance comes care in speech and action, a natural inclination toward kindness, and the wish not to become a source of difficulty in someone else’s life. Each moment of awareness benefits not only oneself, but others as well.
Not getting what we want is unavoidable. Awakening, however, becomes possible precisely because of this. Each disappointment, each moment of pain or change, offers an opening to see clearly and respond differently. As the teaching emphasizes, “Every moment we remember to practice, we suffer less.” In this way, the ordinary frustrations of life are not obstacles to the path—they are the path itself.
About Dr. Rebecca Li, PhD
Rebecca began practicing in 1995, and attended her first seven-day intensive retreat with Chan Master Sheng Yen, founder of Dharma Drum Retreat Center (DDRC), in the following year. Since then she has attended numerous intensive Chan retreats. In 1999 after moving to New Jersey she began translating for Master Sheng Yen. In the same year, she began her training with the Master to become a Dharma and meditation instructor. Currently, she teaches meditation and Dharma classes and gives public lectures at the Chan Meditation Center (CMC) and leads 1- to 3-day retreats at CMC & DDRC. She has been training with Simon Child since 2008 to conduct retreat interviews and has been assisting in his intensive retreats since 2012. Along with her husband David Slaymaker, Rebecca leads Chan practice at Rutgers University and the New Jersey chapter of DDMBA and teaches on behalf of Dharma Drum in various community activities in the NJ-NY area. Rebecca is a board member of the Dharma Drum Retreat Center and professor of sociology at The College of New Jersey.
The Chan Meditation Center: http://www.chancenter.org/
The Dharma Drum Retreat Center: http://www.dharmadrumretreat.org/
See Rebecca’s talk about why we meditate here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZrcxVnufyw
Hear her recording from other visits /tag/rebecca-li/
