The Story of Dukkha

Dukkha is one of those people whose life has been a series of trials and tribulations, one after another after another.?

His first trauma comes when his parents abandon him at a young age. Unable to fully process the weight of that pain, Dukkha begins carrying around the sorrow like a backpack full of bricks, something cumbersome and unwieldy that weighs him down and holds him back.

Flash forward to when Dukkha is a young man in love with the woman of his dreams until the very same woman falls in love with Dukkha’s brother and runs off with him. The double betrayal adds more bricks to Dukkha’s backpack, and the burden builds.??

Filled with anger and spite, Dukkha moves to another town and funnels all his energy into seeking riches. He builds a business and, eventually, a reputation as a solid businessman. He’s plugging along, still lugging around the backpack but doing OK, until a rival business owner frames him.?

During the legal battle that ensues, Dukkha loses all his money. By the time it’s all over, no one wants anything to do with him. He has no friends, no family. What he does have is more bricks in his backpack. But now, they’ve become too heavy to carry, and something starts to break inside him.?

Dukkha begins taking all his resentment out on others. He starts to believe that his hurt justifies him hurting others. He begins to lie, cheat, and steal. He loses whatever sense of morality he has left. He becomes the quintessential Base Level Human, moving through the world in a way that screams, “It’s me against the rest of you. And I will do anything in my power to ensure you don’t get the best of me.”?

But this self-destructive behavior is not bringing him power. It’s not bringing him peace. All it’s giving him is more pain. Now that damn backpack is so unbearably heavy he can’t even take a single step. His back is aching; his knees won’t bend. The energy depletion eventually sickens his body, and before he knows it, Dukkha finds himself on his deathbed.?

As he draws what might be one of his final breaths, an angel appears to him.?

“Dukkha,” she says as he peers at her through barely open eyes. “Open your backpack.”?

Dukkha musters his strength and shakes his head. He can’t understand what the angel means.?

“Open your backpack,” she repeats. “Look inside. You have never paid attention to what is in there.?

All this time, you thought you were carrying bricks when you’ve been carrying tools. Each trauma, each instance of pain, was a gift I gave you, and you ignored it every single time.?

All you had to do was look in the backpack to see what awaited you.”?

As the angel’s words wash over him, Dukkha knows he has a choice. He can open his backpack, confront his pain, and begin to learn and grow from it. Or he can ignore what the angel is telling him and perish.???

Drawing on all the strength he has left, Dukkha closes his eyes and, in his mind, opens the backpack. He sees all the grief, all of the betrayal, all of the rejection, the sadness, the hurt, and the pain he’s been tethered to for his entire life. But instead of seeing them as bricks, for the first time, he sees the lessons buried in each. He removes them one by one and turns them over in his hands. He sees that they are, in fact, tools he’d had all along.?

He sees how each tool can help him move through the world more meaningfully. He sees how he can use them to help others who have lived through the same pain he has.?

At that moment, Dukkha knows he will spend whatever time he has left on earth still carrying that backpack, but knowing it holds more than his pain. It contains his purpose.?

Credit to Jade Tata