The Crying Baby

The Way Out Is In...
Thich Nhat Hanh


Important Learning: dealing with The Unpleasant


Once again I was taken back to this very important learning...the importance of noticing  our feelings without judgment and then embracing them.  Most of us have a hard time noticing them, let alone embracing them or even allowing them. We are okay with the pleasant feelings.  We will happily go through our day seeking, and "grasping' at those or the things we think will bring them...but when it comes to  the not so pleasant feelings.  Yuck! 

We will do what we can to ignore them, deny them, close up to them, stuff them, run from them, "cover them up" , or numb from them... right?  Just sitting with our feelings is not something many of us find particularly easy because we do not want to face those unpleasant feelings we have a tendency to resist.

Go In Rather Than Out

Yet many Buddhist teachers will tell us that in order to get through this idea of suffering , we must sit with it.  To deal with grief we must sit with it.  To deal with sadness, we must sit with it.  To deal with anger we must sit with it.

Hmmm!  Not only do we need to notice our feeling of suffering...we need to embrace it.  We need to allow it, open up to it, become one with it.

The Crying Baby

Thay Phap Lu'u in his beautiful dharma talk, On Suffering and Happiness , teaches that we should see the suffering inducing emotion as a crying baby doing what it can to get our attention.  Would you ignore your crying baby?  Would you run away from it?  Would you put it in a box in the bottom of your closet just so you wouldn't hear it? Would you feel the need to drown a forty prior to going to it? 

Likely not. 

If you are a loving, compassionate parent as we are all equipped to be you would stop what you were doing at the initial sounds of crying, make your hurried way to the baby, pick it up and hold it to your chest. You would give the baby your full attention.  You  would notice, respond, and embrace the baby before you spent time trying to figure out why the baby was crying. You would be present for it and compassionately and lovingly respond to the baby's needs.  Would you not? You would see that that baby is a part of you and you a part of it. You would see that the baby needs something.

Suffering, Trying To Get Your Attention

Your suffering is trying to get your attention! Yet in our quest not to experience suffering in this life time...we have a tendency to ignore the crying baby of our own unpleasant feelings and experiences.

 We begin by judging what emotional experiences are "good" and which ones are "bad"; which ones are worthy of opening up to and which ones we should close up to. We say "No!" to the ones we judge as unpleasant and unworthy and then we attempt to cover them up with more pleasant feelings.  We look outside ourselves for "things", "circumstances, "experiences and emotions that feel better. ..in hope that they will make the unpleasant go away.  They don't! Our emotions will not go away until we deal with them.

The Way Out Is In

The solution to ending our suffering is not "out there"...it is "in here".  We need to go inward and stop long enough to notice how we are feeling.  We need to allow the feeling, embrace the feeling by putting our full attention on it.  We need to put away our judgement of it. 

Whatever that feeling is...it is worthy of your full attention, your loving understanding because it is a part of you!  It is no less worthy of your attention than happiness is...maybe it is even more worthy because it can teach you and open you up. It is telling you there is something you need to look at...look at it! There is no "good" or "bad" here...there is just what this moment is offering you and all of it is perfect just as it is. 

Accept all of it  Then the baby will stop crying and once content,  it will fall back to sleep in your arms.  You will  find the peace of mind you long for in acceptance of what is!

All is well!

Plum Village ( January 2020) On suffering and Happiness/ Dharma Talk by Thay Bhap Lu'u. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9kckqDP2KA