When I returned from Hawaii, my mule encounter fresh on the brain, I made an appointment to talk to Mae Yo. I had, after all, identified a huge tendency of mine, a deep wrong view in which I divide the world into neat little partitions: areas of suffering and areas of comfort. I live for those corners of comfort, my spaces of refuge from suffering — that peace, that joy, that comfort is part of my life, if only I could figure out how to have it forever…

Of course, there is no life without suffering, that my friends is Buddhism 101, so my question for Mae Yo — how do I fix this delusion that I can set-up boundaries to delineate suffering free zones? Because, as long as I think those zones exist, I think this world is worth it.

In response to my question, Mae Yo and LP Anan read me a quote from the Buddha. Roughly paraphrased it went something like this, “ If I the Buddha, the most ninja awesome badass ever, could separate Sukka (happiness) from Dukka (suffering), I would have continued to live in this world. But, because I can not separate Sukka from Dukka I will return Sukka back to its true owner, Dukka, and I leave this world for good.”

That then was my homework, to go and see that everything has 2 sides. That and one final question from Mae Yo — Can I call something Sukka if what is outside of it is Dukka?

Once again, I had my work cut-out for me…