Suffering

This world we live in is a school. It is a school that teaches many skills, none more important than our relationship to suffering. To suffer is the heartbreak of life.  Life carries a deep attraction  to suffering. We live in terror of the possibility, and yet are intoxicated by the very thought. We have a macabre titillation to the suffering of others. But what is suffering? Do we have to suffer? Is it simply inevitable? Or perhaps partially avoidable?

No matter what the situation, we can suffer less. So often we play chicken with the experience of suffering.  We refuse to compromise, refuse a gradual diminishment of suffering. Many not only do not want to suffer, but want to not suffer in exactly the way they want. If life does not meet their preconceived notion, they give themselves to suffering.  We must cease to romance our own suffering.

Be open minded. You have missed something. If you had not missed something you would not be suffering quite they way you are. There may be pain, but you can suffer less. If you suffer less you will have less pain.

Suffering is one of the most exquisitely painful experiences of human life. It mixes hurt and a definite quality of mourning with a distinct hatred for the present circumstance. We are never quite so alive as in emotional agony. Even the numbness of depression carries with it’s own knife edge. Accept yourself as you are, now. Observe yourself, exactly as you are. Observe that within you which sufferers, and be kind.

Do not curse the darkness as you peer deeply into it. Remember you will go towards what you are looking for. Turn toward the light of pure awareness and be still, Even the blackness of pure night will eventually lift. This is not you. No matter what has been lost, as real and as important as it is, the emotion experienced now will pass and be changed. You can be in joy, in pain, and suffer less.