Practicing with Suffering - JD Doyle

Rather than constantly trying to escape discomfort, can we engage with suffering as a gateway to insight and connection?

In this talk, JD Doyle helps us turn directly toward the ever-present reality of suffering in our lives. Drawing from Joy Harjo’s poetry and personal anecdotes, JD invites us to reflect on how we orient ourselves in a world that often feels destabilizing. They compare the cycle of samsara to bumper cars at an amusement park, where we continually crash into each other through our reactive habits. JD explains that instead of merely surviving these crashes, we can choose to investigate them with compassion and wisdom.

JD skillfully unpacks the Buddhist concept of dukkha—commonly translated as suffering—by outlining its three types:

1. Dukkha-dukkha – Direct physical or emotional pain (e.g., illness, heartbreak, mental anguish).
2. Viparinama-dukkha – Suffering from impermanence (e.g., things changing against our will).
3. Sankhara-dukkha – The suffering embedded in conditioned existence, shaped by past actions and systems (like societal structures or inherited trauma).

They emphasize that wise reflection helps us meet these forms of suffering not with blame or avoidance, but with inquiry and compassion. JD also highlights the importance of community—how even crises, like a scary moment on a flight, can bring strangers together as a spontaneous sangha. Ultimately, they call us to meet suffering not with fear but with courage—a word rooted in the heart—and to help others find their way through the dark.

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JD Doyle serves as a core teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC) and has served as a board member and was the cofounder of the LGBTQI meditation group. JD is a graduate of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center teacher-training program and was in the Dedicated Practitioner Program (DPP2) and the Community Dharma Leader Program (CDL4). JD has practiced Buddhism since 1995 in the U.S., Thailand, and Burma.

For over twenty-five years, they worked as a public school teacher focusing on issues of equity and access. JD holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies from Cornell University and a master’s degree in Language and Literacy and Sociocultural Studies from the University of New Mexico. JD identifies as gender non-conforming. They are committed to celebrating the diversity of our human sangha, addressing the impact of racism on our communities, expanding concepts of gender, and living in ways that honor the sacredness of the Earth.

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CREDITS
Audio Engineer: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter