The Buddha’s Teaching Of The 2 Darts

There’s a well-known teaching from the Buddha of “The 2 Darts”. This teaching points to the two ways that you experience pain and suffering in your life. The 1st dart is when you get “hit” by something in life that causes pain and suffering. The 1st type of darts happen in life and to a certain extent, they are impossible to avoid. The 2nd type of dart is entirely different.

The 2nd dart is the way you perpetuate the pain and suffering with unskillful thoughts… about the 1st dart. Thoughts of judgment, blame, regrets, resentment, sorrow, lamentation, and so on.

For the most part, you have no control over the 1st dart. It’s the fruit of past karma ripening in the present moment. It happens. Nobody’s free from being hit by that first dart. The second dart, on the other hand, is entirely in your control.

The 2nd dart is largely unconscious and completely self-caused. Working with it means owning it. Becoming mindful of unskillful 2nd dart thinking reduces the pain and suffering these thoughts cause in your life.

Take this famous saying from the great Viktor Frankl; “between stimulus and response there’s a space in that space I have the freedom to choose In that choice I find my power”.

Viktor Frankl’s “space between stimulus and response” is the space where we insert mindfulness between the first dart and the second dart. Developing the skill to choose to be mindful of that second dart is where you find your power.

The first dart is going to happen. There’s nothing you can do to avoid it… that’s life.

The second dart is completely your choice.