oneself about life, which is indeed the way to more misery,
one should be fearless and face up to dukkha. Though it may
seem strange to some people, this is the path to happiness. How
many times have we seen the Buddhasāsana called “gloomy and
pessimistic” because it emphasises that one should look straight
at the dukkhā, in oneself? But how this contradicts reports about
Buddhist people—their happiness and imperturbability which is
remarked upon by to many visitors to Buddhist lands!
Some time in the past we were born. Now, birth (jāti), has special
meanings from a Buddhist point of view. Generally it refers to
parturition but when the Buddha says that “birth is dukkha,“ He
refers to the whole period from conception to extrusion from the
womb. The whole process of nine months or so is continuous
experience of dukkha.
Some people are under the impression that the womb is a cosy
little home where a being is well sheltered and comfortable; even
that it is a place to which we desire in life to return as a retreat
from problems and difficulties. But Buddhist texts give a very
different picture. The classic description is in “The Path of
Purification,“ Ch. XVI paras. 37–40, where the womb is pictured as
anything but pleasant. As Venerable Buddhaghosa Thera says: “
… when this being is born in the mother’s womb, he is not born
inside a blue, red or white lotus, etc. … ” but surrounded by all
the unattractive collection of tubes and lumpish organs with
which the skin is stuffed. Even then there are more attractive
parts of the body than the belly where digestion
