DUKKHA: The Art of Suffering
- Neil Freebern
- May 18
- 5 min read
From a Buddhist perspective, the "art of suffering" often revolves around understanding and transforming our relationship with pain and difficulties. The Buddha taught that suffering (dukkha) is an inherent part of human life, but by recognizing its nature and origins, we can develop a more peaceful and liberated state of mind.
One key concept is the Four Noble Truths, which outline that suffering arises from craving and attachment. By practicing mindfulness and cultivating equanimity, we can learn to observe our suffering without being consumed by it. This doesn't mean ignoring or suppressing pain, but rather understanding its impermanence and letting go of the mental clinging that magnifies it.
Through meditation and ethical living, we can transform suffering into a path for growth and awakening, ultimately leading to a deeper sense of peace and compassion.
RELEVANCE TO MY SITUATION
I’ve spent the last week undergoing healing sessions inside a hyperbaric chamber, hoping to reduce my hearing loss. So far, there’s been no change. The idea was to flood my bloodstream with oxygen-rich plasma, potentially jumpstarting the healing process. The success rate is low—but for me, it felt worth trying.
Now, as I move forward, I’m beginning to accept that my hearing might not return. That hope, once so present, is starting to dissolve.
Dukkha
After spending the day traveling and attending my daughter’s concert with one ear plugged, my tinnitus spiked. What’s strange is not knowing whether it’s actually louder—or just occupying more of my awareness. That night, I sat on the back porch, letting the rain, the peepers, and the wind carry me somewhere quieter inside. I put on some ambient music from Spotify, letting it mix with nature. And the first song that came up? “Anna Leigh”—a piece I composed years ago in honor of my daughter.
As the trumpet enters the song, my tinnitus takes hold and the distortion makes me turn it off. My mind flashes to the time when I wrote the song and was laying down the trumpet lines. The feeling that came over me as I improvised the soaring lines came back to my heart and in a blink were lost to the gut punch of the reality before me. I’ll never hear this song the way I once did. I may never hear anything purely again. I began to cling to my past and began a beautiful wallowing session late into the evening.
Time to contemplate impermanence?
My emotions were now in control of every fiber of my being. Grief. Agony. My heart was breaking. "Just breathe" as I lost myself in the tears.
Needless to say, music has been the great love of my life. My playground. My passion. My voice. And now, it’s slipping into memory, filtered through a noise I can’t escape. The agony of that loss is hard to put into words.
Life is suffering. Dukkha.
I sat with that thought.
Why this? Why now? Why me?
The joy I’ve found in teaching, conducting, composing, playing trumpet and piano—it’s all been tied to the ability to listen. And now that thread is fraying.
If dukkha is caused by clinging or attachment, what am I clinging to? Music? Sound? Performing?
Silence? How and what do I let go of?
I’ve been studying equanimity—upekkhā. But WTF what do you do with the emotions?
So, I look for answers.
Finding equanimity inside grief is one of the most difficult and profound human challenges. It’s not about suppressing the pain or pretending it doesn’t hurt—it’s about learning to hold the grief without being destroyed by it. Here's how Buddhist teachings and psychological insights might help illuminate that path:
1. Allow Grief to Arise
Equanimity (upekkhā) doesn’t mean being emotionally flat. It means allowing whatever arises—grief, anger, sorrow—to show up without resistance or clinging.
“This, too, is part of being alive.”
You let the grief come. You feel it fully. You don’t have to fix it or run from it. You witness it.
2. Observe the Nature of Impermanence
Grief feels permanent, but it isn’t. Even the sharpest pain shifts. Sometimes it softens, sometimes it tightens. Equanimity is rooted in understanding that everything changes.
Sit with the grief—not forever, but just for now.
In mindfulness meditation, you learn to observe sensations, thoughts, and emotions like weather. They move through. Grief is a storm, not the sky.
3. Separate Pain from Suffering
Grief is a natural pain. Suffering is what we add to it through resistance, judgment, or the belief that it shouldn’t be happening.
Equanimity sees this difference.
"This hurts. But this is not punishment. This is not wrong. This just... is."
The pain becomes more bearable when it’s not wrapped in shame or “why me?” I can see how my pain was turning me inwards and linking itself to all the loss I have experienced in the last two years. While living in my pain, I created suffereing because my mind was in resistance.
4. Expand Your View Beyond the Self
Grief isolates. Equanimity connects.
When you realize others have felt this depth of sorrow too—parents, lovers, artists, monks—it reminds you that you're not alone. The human heart is vast enough to contain loss and love at the same time.
Sometimes the most healing thought is:
"Others have survived this. Maybe I can, too."
I have a friend who lost his son far too soon. His son had been my star student—gifted, curious, and deeply creative. After the loss, his father and I grieved together through music. His son had been a music producer, and in an effort to feel closer to him, the father asked me to teach him to produce music, too. We became close friends as I guided him through music software, showing him how to navigate the new tools his son once used. My recent blog on Upekkha and the use of AI was originally written for the father as a tool for his own exploration with lyrics.
I was always struck by his ability to feel his grief fully, but still function. That balance—that grace—was something I admired deeply. Recently, in the midst of my own struggle, I reached out to him, hoping to learn from his resilience.
He shared the story of the memorial he built for his son—stone engraved with the titles of his son’s songs, watched over by a serene Buddha statue. He embraced a process to get to know his son on a deeper level and finds time every day to work on building his talents to better understand his son's world. He found something completely new to explore, has taken new risks to think in a new ways, and is discovering creativity in the process. He encouraged me to do the same.
"I encourage you to focus on your endless talents and leave behind what cannot be fixed. Challenge yourself and try something completely new—way out of your comfort zone."
Then, he sent me his song, which someday I hope he will share with the world.
He had taken the lessons I shared while building Upekkah with AI and used them to create his own music. The blog post I wrote to outline my process? It had quietly become his process too. He was walking the same path of music therapy I had followed—transforming grief into sound, love into composition. For a fleeting moment, I felt joy. Knowing I had helped someone else carry their grief—that my own pain had created a path for another—gave my suffering a sense of purpose. And maybe that’s where healing begins.
5. Use Grief as the Path
Instead of seeing grief as the enemy, see it as the teacher. What is it revealing about what you loved, what you feared, what you valued? Equanimity is born not from escape—but from insight.
“This grief exists because I loved deeply. And I would not undo that.”
Final Thoughts
I don't have to feel balanced right now. Equanimity is not a goal to reach—it’s a capacity to cultivate. Sometimes it flickers for just a second in the middle of the storm, like a candle in the wind. But that second matters.
Remember that pain and suffereing are two different things.
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