Practical Wisdom with Dr. Rick Hanson
Aug 26, 2026 · 46 min · 15 segments
This week, I was joined by Melvin McLeod, editor-in-chief of Lion’s Roar and author of The Complete Path of Mindfulness, to explore what mindfulness can become when we see it as much more than a…
Melvin McLeodGuest
Rick HansonHost
I wonder if you could comment on a really deep theme having to do with, let's say, cancer.
So just to kind of set this up in a frame that people here might be somewhat familiar with, technically there is the dukkha of the three characteristics.
In other words, living inherently involves change, interconnectedness, and the fact that sometimes there are unpleasant experiences, and the fact that even pleasant experiences end and have the nature, due to change and interdependence, of being cloud-like rather than brick-like, so we can't own them or possess them.
Then there is the dukkha of the Four Noble Truths, the first of which is the dukkha of suffering.
And a distinction might be made in English between pain in the inherent, you know, the three characteristics, and the suffering that involves our mental reactions.
That distinction is also found between the first arrow and the second arrow, or the first dart and the second dart of the dukkha of the three characteristics and the dukkha of the Four Noble Truths.
And understanding that distinction is crucially important because life is not suffering.
It includes sukha, which is pleasure and happiness and sweetness and contentment, as well as dukkha.
So much of our practice is about relieving ourselves from the machinery of tanha, the second Noble Truth, of our drives, our cravings, and our selfing.
And so one may have cancer, cancer's a fact, and with it may come understandably the pain, the sorrow, the discomfort that's emotional, the grief.
All that may be the case, and yet if we do not add craving to it, in the second Noble Truth of tanha, if we do not add craving to it, then, and selfing to it, then we do not add suffering to it.
How might the five elements of the complete path of mindfulness help a person, you know, [laughs] throw fewer second arrows, including with a serious health condition like cancer?
I wonder if you could comment on a really deep theme having to do with, let's say, cancer.
So just to kind of set this up in a frame that people here might be somewhat familiar with, technically there is the dukkha of the three characteristics.
In other words, living inherently involves change, interconnectedness, and the fact that sometimes there are unpleasant experiences, and the fact that even pleasant experiences end and have the nature, due to change and interdependence, of being cloud-like rather than brick-like, so we can't own them or possess them.
Then there is the dukkha of the Four Noble Truths, the first of which is the dukkha of suffering.
And a distinction might be made in English between pain in the inherent, you know, the three characteristics, and the suffering that involves our mental reactions.
That distinction is also found between the first arrow and the second arrow, or the first dart and the second dart of the dukkha of the three characteristics and the dukkha of the Four Noble Truths.
And understanding that distinction is crucially important because life is not suffering.
It includes sukha, which is pleasure and happiness and sweetness and contentment, as well as dukkha.
So much of our practice is about relieving ourselves from the machinery of tanha, the second Noble Truth, of our drives, our cravings, and our selfing.
And so one may have cancer, cancer's a fact, and with it may come understandably the pain, the sorrow, the discomfort that's emotional, the grief.
All that may be the case, and yet if we do not add craving to it, in the second Noble Truth of tanha, if we do not add craving to it, then, and selfing to it, then we do not add suffering to it.
How might the five elements of the complete path of mindfulness help a person, you know, [laughs] throw fewer second arrows, including with a serious health condition like cancer?
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