Welcome back to bootability, a weekly interview series about the amazing ability we all have

to change our lives and the world if we're brave enough to tap into it. I'm your host, Ghi Jolly.

We're back today with our tips and insights mini episode series.

Over the last two years of Buddhability, we've heard so many incredible insights from Buddhist practitioners all over the country,

which are based on key Buddhist concepts.

In order for those who are newer to the practice to learn a bit more about them,

these many episodes introduce one such concept at a time

and how it can be applied to your life.

Today's is about suffering, an inescapable fact of life for all living beings, but one that Buddhism offers

a refreshing and concrete perspective on.

Let's start with a definition of suffering.

Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda explains,

During our lives as human beings, we experience

transience as the four sufferings, the suffering of birth and day-to-day existence, that of illness,

of aging, and finally of death. No human being is exempt from these sources of pain. It was in fact human distress, in particular the problem of death that spawned the formation of religious and philosophical systems.

For those familiar with Buddhist history, various sutras describe the historical Buddha Shakyamuni's quest for enlightenment as motivated by a desire to find a solution to these four sufferings.

Aniturin Daishonin, the 13th century Buddhist reformer who created the practice of chanting Namyo Hōrengekio taught that chanting this phrase is the ship that allows all living beings to cross the sea of suffering.

But how exactly does this work?

Ikeda refers to his own mentor, Jose Toda's teachings about suffering as a key starting point for his own Buddhist practice.

He writes,

I first met Jose Tota in August 1947. At that fateful discussion meeting, which marked the start of our mentor-disciple relationship,

he lectured on Nietzschean Dishonan's treaties on establishing the correct teaching for the peace of the

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