Suffering is a kind of mud, happiness is a kind of lotus, and if we know how to make good use of suffering we can produce the beautiful lotus of happiness.
Thich Nhat Hanh
As D. and I were sitting at the table this morning with our tea and coffee we were talking about how we, this generation, could "reach" what I see as the "suffering" age group, young adults, to assist them in getting beyond their suffering to healing. We were looking at our own children and the people they knew and both agreed that the true source of their suffering has a lot to do with the fear of pain in all the many forms it comes in. It is a fear-based population.
Two Emotional Driving Energies In Suffering: Fear and Desire
In the small section of this population that we are observing, there seems to be two driving emotional energies...Fear and Desire. Fear shows up in so many forms from social anxiety, to phobia, to generalized anxiety and to paralyzing agoraphobia. Regardless of what you call it though...fear is fear.
What is it they seem to be fearing? Pain!
From the information I am gathering, it seems to be pain in its many forms they are are fearing, ranging from boredom to full blow grief or despair. The discomfort of fear is one of those pains that they are fearing...creating a fear of fear itself. Fearing pain, fearing fear...they are lead into the unhealthy coping mechanism of "avoidance". They avoid by resisting the reality of pain in anyway they can...through stuffing, denying, numbing. They also try to fix and manipulate external reality so that it doesn't activate pain.
Desire
This takes them to the other emotional energy that seems to be driving them...Desire. Of course they desire to be free of pain which is healthy and normal to some extent...but they erroneously assume that the only way to be free of pain is to have its opposite in their life at all times..."pleasure". So they spend a great deal of their energy grasping and clinging to things they assume will bring pleasure: they buy "things" and develop shopping and spending issues, they use food , sex, electronics, the stimulation from screen activity, and substances in unskillful ways. They focus on superficial images rather than on depth and what is substantial, attempting to create, for example, a perfect social image so they gain social recognition on their social pages, seeking happiness from how others may view that "image" which usually only encapsulates a small portion of who they are.
They strive and strive for pleasurable life experiences by grasping and clinging at the external world of form and what it offers.Yet they are constantly disappointed by the inability to maintain this pleasure. They may gain a semblance of happiness for a while, validating in some way that externally derived pleasure can stop pain. Pleasure never lasts, however...someone puts a negative comment on their social page and they are shattered. The substance wears off and they feel worse than they did before...so they need more and more. They go into debt and even bankruptcy because of their spending and still they continue to grasp a glimpse of pleasure by ordering more of the boxes that land on their door steps.
Making the Human Condition Into a Disorder
Yet even with all this pleasure seeking...they still feel it within them...that discomfort, that pain they so try to avoid feeling. Then they listen to their overactive minds that tell them that something is wrong with them if all "this" doesn't bring and sustain pleasure...that the pain they are attempting not to feel is "bad, wrong, shouldn't be." This experience then must be a disorder that needs to be labelled, diagnosed and treated. So they get the label and become attached to that, needing prescribed chemicals to stop the pain. And the cycle begins again.
Awe! Of course, this is only coming from what I see as I view the small population sub section in front of me It is not my intention to stereotype the whole age group this way and I am also definitely not trying to diminish the reality of mental illness and the need for treatment. I am just saying that maybe we could try a different therapeutic approach before we resort to that one. Maybe, before we label what they are experiencing as an individual disease or disorder, we could look at the collective whole for a better understanding of this suffering and the root cause of it. Maybe we need to go deeper and thus teach them to go deeper.
How do we teach them to go deeper when going deeper means facing the very thing they are afraid of...pain?
That is the question I ask myself on a daily basis when I look at the suffering my own children are experiencing. What I meet when I very gently approach the subject or offer a yoga practice or steer them toward mediation...any thing that suggests they have to sit or be with what is real...without distraction...is of course, great resistance. If I dare answer any of them when they say, "I don't know what to "do" with what I am feeling?" ..."Just sit with it." "Do nothing" ...they look at me as if I just slapped them across the face and they seem to want to return the favor. The fear that shoots across their faces and the way they shut down when I say , "There is no other way. You need to go through in order to get out!", makes me wonder how I am ever going to share with my children what I have learned, let alone have them benefit from it.
I know the answer in every cell of my body is: In order to be truly healthy and happy, our children need to learn to touch reality as it is, to embrace the " suchness" of life which includes the pain they so want to avoid. Before we can even begin to help them, I suppose, we need to master that approach to Life ourselves. So I am in the habit now, every time I fail in getting through to my adult children, I go back to my practice and I remind myself to go and stay in the deeper space of my being.
Hmmm! Maybe someday, they will follow me there.
All is well!
Plum Village App (July 2020) Touching Reality As It Is/ Thich Knat Hanh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICA2gjhwqa8
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