Tanha

First Noble Truth: Suffering exists. 

Second Noble Truth: There is a cause for suffering. 

Tanha [craving,desire,grasping, clinging, preference] is the cause.

The Buddha

No matter what you do. No matter how you try to pretend otherwise...suffering exists. Pain is a natural and necessary part of this life experience. Though Life is filled with ten thousand joys, it needs to be contrasted with 10,000 sorrows. The joy and the pain balance each other out. 

Denial, pretending, running from, selectively choosing what you will consciously accept as reality...does not change reality. Life is as it is; it is as it is.The more resistant you are to the contrasts that do not feel comfortable to your inner experience of living, the less open you are to reality; the less open you will be the the full experience of Life. This is suffering.

Tanha...the craving we have for certain things (joy) at the exclusion of their opposite (sorrow) creates suffering.

So, instead of resisting and saying "No! I will not accept that into 'm' reality!" when something we judge as "bad, wrong, shouldn't be" shows up, which leads to soul crushing resistance in the form of repression and suppression, we need to....

Relax in the face of discomfort.

Honor its right to exist and let it pass through.

All is well.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True (July 20. 2026) The Mind is a Voice of the Heart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_cDau9yNf0