-Aristotle (https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/suffering-quotes)
Suffering appears to be such a big nasty word doesn't it? Pointing to something dramatic and dreadful, something we may never escape. It implies that there is deep, unrelenting pain of one kind or another inflicting our human experience.
Suffering is just a word
It is, however, just a word ...and like all words, it is just pointing to a mental definition of experience and not to the experience itself. Suffering, then, as the Buddhists have taught for centuries, is an inevitable experience for all humans until they realize what causes it and follow the path away from it. It is a mental journey to suffering and a mental journey from suffering.
We All Suffer
Truth is, we all suffer in one degree or another, if we are defining our lives but what our minds are telling us. Life is going to give us what it gives us and regardless if that something appears big and worthy of the term suffering or not, it may lead to a fair degree of mental anguish for you.
One person, for example, may lose their ability to work in a job they love and find themselves suddenly without a regular source of income on which to support their dependents. They may lapse into a mental resistance, "Oh My God! This should not be happening! Life is so unfair! How could they do this to me? Why am I being punished? Oh my God...what will happen in the future? How will I support my children? We are all going to end up homeless. This is the last straw. I can't take anymore."
Another person with the same situation might fall into the mental response of, "Oh that is too bad but it is what it is. I will enjoy this break from work to figure out what I really want from life. This is probably a good thing for all. The kids and I will cut back on "things" and enjoy what is really important until I find another source of income."
Both individuals are faced with the same situation but only one is suffering. Why is that?
In the Mind
The mind loves suffering. It is its thing and if we allow it to it can carry us off, convincing us that it is the life event, the health issue, the loss, the other person that is "inflicting" suffering on us. It will drag us into fears for the future and a drastic need to alter upcoming events. It will also pull us back into the past to ensure we stay stuck. We can quickly get lost in this quest or this "stuckness" but it is only in the mind that we are. The loss of work did not cause the suffering...our mental reaction did. Do you see that?
Even in the one individual mind suffering comes and goes. My initial experience, for example, of being unable to work was at first reacted to with a great deal of mental resistance and fear which led to a great deal of suffering. It was not the giving up of the job I loved, the extreme financial hardship it put me in and the lack of support I perceived I needed that was the problem. It was my reaction to it. I resisted, and struggled against it. I fought it and it exhausted me.
Stop Resisting What Is
When I got to the point of realizing how my struggling against this life situation was impacting my life in a negative way, even though I could not change the outward situation, I began to change my inner one. I stopped resisting and struggling against what Life was giving me. I settled into it and found the blessing in that. I mean I still did some things . I spoke out and took action where I deemed necessary but it was a peaceful calculated action and not one where I was flailing about striking out at anyone I thought was responsible, no longer putting all my energy into blaming and pointing fingers, into attempting to control and fix the situation. I stopped building a victim's story around it...stopped starring in a drama I was constantly creating. I stepped back from what my mind was trying to convince me was going on...and I realized I did not have to follow it into suffering. I started thinking in terms of the second example above.
"I can't take anymore!"= Grace
I began to apply this practice to all avenues of my life. What suffering, all the forms of Dukkha I experienced in my mind over all the decades of my Life, gave me...was an opening to experience what was really important. My life situations took me to the place of "I can't take anymore." and that led me to the Grace that was waiting for me. Grace broke down this heavy little shell of illusion...one that told me that I was this separate little body that was failing and this role I played for years in terms of a job title; one that convinced me I needed so much money and so many things in order to be okay and it took me to the true solutions for all Life's issues...to a spiritual understanding rather than a mental one. My sense of suffering led to a path of true healing. I find myself very, very grateful for all of it now.
I got to the point of my experience where I was ready to hear the wisdom all around me that came in spiritual teachings. That teaching began to make sense and it pointed to even greater learning that existed within me.
There will be more challenges up ahead. There is no doubt about that. That's okay. And I may not always respond to life events with this peaceful reaction. The momentum of the mind, after all , still has a tendency to pull me with it from time to time. I am, however, very aware of that tendency and I can usually gently coax my way back away from its pull. That in itself is an amazing feat! I truly am healing.
Applying This Learning
If you too are sick of suffering, just notice how you are reacting to the life events you encounter. Understand that it is not the life event...and I don't care how big it seems...but how you mentally respond that will determine whether or not you will suffer. Just by noticing, you are stepping away from the mind's pull to suffering. You can then choose a different approach. Choose to own your reaction and change your thinking. Stop resisting what Life gives you, embrace it, learn from it and grow from it. See it as an opening into greater wisdom and the greater you.
Suffering can actually be a blessed opening into the higher Self.
All is well.
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