Another Kind of Birth -- ❖ -- ❖ Birth is perpetual suffering. True happiness consists in eliminating the false idea of “I” ❖ Mankind’s problems reduce to the problem of suffering, whether inflicted by another or by oneself. ❖ Everyday language - Dharma language: In everyday language the term birth refers simply to physical birth from a mother’s body; in Dharma language birth refers to a mental event arising out of ignorance, craving, and clinging. ❖ Whenever there arises the mistaken idea “I”, the “I” has been born; its parents are ignorance and craving. ❖ The kind of birth that constitutes a problem for us is mental birth. Anyone who fails to grasp this point will never succeed in understanding anything of the Buddha’s teaching. -- ❖ -- The subject we shall discuss today is one which I feel everyone ought to recognize as pressing, namely the following two statements made by the Buddha: “Birth is perpetual suffering.” (Dukkha jati punap- punam) and “True happiness consists in eliminating the false idea of ‘I’.” (Asmimanassa vinayo etam ve paramam sukham.) Mankind’s problems reduce to the problem of suffering, whether inflicted by another or by oneself by way of mental defilements (kilesa). This is the primary problem for every human being, because no-one wants suffering. In the above statements the Buddha equates suffering with birth: “Birth is perpetual suffering”; and he equates happiness with the complete giving up of the false idea “I”, “myself”, “I am”, “I exist”. The statement that birth is the cause of suffering is complex, having several levels of meaning. The main difficulty lies in the interpretation of the word “birth”. Most of us don’t understand what the word “birth” refers to and are likely to take it in the everyday sense of physical birth from a mother’s body. The Buddha taught that birth is perpetual suffering. Is it likely that in saying this he was referring to physical birth? Think it over. If he was referring to physical birth, it is unlikely that he would have gone on to say “True happiness consists in eliminating the false idea ‘I’” because this statement clearly indicates that what constitutes the suffering is the false idea “I”, when the idea “I” has been completely eradicated, that is true happiness. So suffering actually consists in the misconception “I”, “l am”, “I have”. The Buddha taught: “Birth is perpetual suffering.” What is meant here by the word “birth”? Clearly “birth” refers to nothing other than the arising of the idea “I” (asmimana). The word “birth” refers to the arising of the mistaken idea “I”, “myself”. It does not refer to physical birth, as generally supposed. The mistaken assumption that this word “ birth” refers to physical birth is a major obstacle to comprehending the Buddha1 teaching. It has to be borne in mind that in general a word can have several different meanings according to the context. Two principal cases can be recognized: (1) language referring to physical things, which is spoken by the average person; and (2) language referring to mental things, psychological language, Dharma language, which is spoken by people who know Dharma (higher Truth, Buddha’s teaching). The first type may be called “everyday language”, the language spoken by the average person; the second may be called “Dharma language”, the language spoken by a person who knows Dharma.