Grasp the scope of suffering
Friday, April 20, 2007 at 1:24PM To connect more deeply with people, common Humanity, and to better understand thyself, it's useful to deepen understanding of the scope of suffering. What types of suffering do you notice or overlook? How do you react? With emotion? Indifference? Compassion? Now what?
1) Mental & physical pain: This includes everything from the stubbed toe and toothache, back pain and arthritis, to discomfort and restlessness. If you overindulge in something, like food, or exercise, you may know physical pain. Most people seek to medicate, to heal if possible, and to move beyond pain psychologically and otherwise. You may not know that believing in or dwelling on pain gives it life. What if pain is actually illusion that you devise, bring on or exaggerate? Notice what you observe, the story you tell. Do people magnify their sense of suffering to cling to the past or something else unreal? What about yourself?
2) Financial pain: You may find it easier to empathize with someone who experiences poverty than with someone living in apparent prosperity. Yet, suffering is a perception, state of mind, that can be linked to every condition. Why distinguish someone as being better off than another? Is this not a way to perpetuate illusion of separation and suffer yourself?
3) Emotional pain. Temporary pleasures have an underlying nature of pain or loss. As you grasp nature of overuse and impermanence in anything you experience, you can gain insight into the power of resistence, temptation and the potential difficulty of adapting to what you have when it differs from what you desire. Dissatisfaction is a feeling you may find yourself grappling with on some level. Notice when emotions control you and you, them.
4) Conditioned pain. People are constantly being influenced by cause, conditions, and events beyond their control. This kind of cycle can create a sense of suffering. You may become susceptible to undesirable experiences which alienate you and convince you that you must feel discomfort. You may also sense helplessness because you're unable to control the actions and reactions of other people. Rather than take steps to control the uncontrollable, be open to gain insight into yourself. Expand your awareness of suffering.
Consider the benefits of moving beyond a superficial understanding of suffering. Your sense of peace and contentment would not falter. As you interact with people then, you could imagine painful situations, and yet, not be controlled by them. Instead, you remain grounded in inner nature. As you grasp meaning behind your actions, you'll effectively remove yourself from conditioning and expand how you see and connect with people.
Accept that suffering includes more than what you think you know. As you expand your vision, you'll understand better suffering means more than what one has or has not. Deficiency is a human invention. Perception differs. We have much to unlearn.