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Right View and Suffering
Brigid
Veteran
I've been thinking about the Four Noble Truths a lot recently and the nature of pain and suffering.
For those who don't know, I got injured at work and I'm now physically disabled and live with chronic pain. After much resistance and trouble coping with the injury and the pain I started to see it through the understanding of the Dharma. I had been seeing it as an enemy that hurt me, an enemy with whom I couldn't cope or come to an understanding. But when I relabeled it as a teacher everything seemed to change.
I don't know how long I'll have this teacher so I have to pay attention to every possible lesson it can offer me. It's become a precious circle. Without it I never would have come so far along the Path, but it's the Path that has given me the direction and skills to view it realistically and helpfully. It's the injury that forced me to stop my meaningless whirlwind of activity and gave me the time to study and practice the Path and the Path that gave me the ability to appreciate the injury.
I think this could be applied to any health issues, physical and mental or emotional; suffering in general. It sounds trite to say that it's important to make lemonade out of the lemons life serves us. But it's true. Embracing adversity for the teacher that it is not only helps us deal with it but empowers us to an incredible extent. When we start seeing pain and suffering as helpful and precious we lose our fear of it.
For practical purposes we can view our pain as an enemy who hurts us. In his book "How to Practice; The Way to a meaningful Life" His Holiness the Dalai Lama writes of enemies:
"Enemies provide us some of the best opportunities to practice patience, tolerance and compassion. Shantideva gives us many marvelous examples of this in the form of dialogues between positive and negative aspects of one's own mind. ...Here is an example:
Reflection on this type of reasoning can help develop great patience, which in turn, develops powerful compassion. Real compassion is based on reason. Ordinary compassion or love is limited by desire or attachment."
The Four Noble Truths are more than the just the declaration that there is inevitable suffering in life, that Nirvana is the cessation of that suffering, and that The Noble Eightfold Path is the way to reach Nirvana. They are the first steps in the realization that suffering doesn't have to hurt. The Path is the lesson that can teach us how to stop suffering from being painful in the negative sense. Pain is not bad. Suffering it is. Right View can help us to see pain for what it can be.
If we view any adversity in our lives as our precious teacher and our opportunity to practice patience, tolerance and compassion, we not only neutralize adversity's power to harm us, we transform it into a positive force that propels us down the Path. We can learn to embrace pain in a healthy way instead of avoiding or suffering it. We can turn our fear of it into a clearer understanding and appreciation for its existence. We can live a much more meaningful life.
Yes, life is full of suffering. Good. I'm glad. Bring it on.
Love,
Brigid
For those who don't know, I got injured at work and I'm now physically disabled and live with chronic pain. After much resistance and trouble coping with the injury and the pain I started to see it through the understanding of the Dharma. I had been seeing it as an enemy that hurt me, an enemy with whom I couldn't cope or come to an understanding. But when I relabeled it as a teacher everything seemed to change.
I don't know how long I'll have this teacher so I have to pay attention to every possible lesson it can offer me. It's become a precious circle. Without it I never would have come so far along the Path, but it's the Path that has given me the direction and skills to view it realistically and helpfully. It's the injury that forced me to stop my meaningless whirlwind of activity and gave me the time to study and practice the Path and the Path that gave me the ability to appreciate the injury.
I think this could be applied to any health issues, physical and mental or emotional; suffering in general. It sounds trite to say that it's important to make lemonade out of the lemons life serves us. But it's true. Embracing adversity for the teacher that it is not only helps us deal with it but empowers us to an incredible extent. When we start seeing pain and suffering as helpful and precious we lose our fear of it.
For practical purposes we can view our pain as an enemy who hurts us. In his book "How to Practice; The Way to a meaningful Life" His Holiness the Dalai Lama writes of enemies:
"Enemies provide us some of the best opportunities to practice patience, tolerance and compassion. Shantideva gives us many marvelous examples of this in the form of dialogues between positive and negative aspects of one's own mind. ...Here is an example:
'For a practitioner of love and compassion, an enemy is one of the most important teachers. Without an enemy you cannot practice tolerance, and without tolerance you cannot build a sound basis of compassion. So in order to practice compassion, you should have an enemy.
When you face your enemy who is going to hurt you, that is the real time to practice tolerance. Therefore, an enemy is the cause of the practice of tolerance; tolerance is the effect or result of an enemy. So those are cause and effect. As is said, "Once something has the relationship of arising from that thing, one cannot consider that thing from which it arises as a harmer; rather it assists the production of the effect." '
When you face your enemy who is going to hurt you, that is the real time to practice tolerance. Therefore, an enemy is the cause of the practice of tolerance; tolerance is the effect or result of an enemy. So those are cause and effect. As is said, "Once something has the relationship of arising from that thing, one cannot consider that thing from which it arises as a harmer; rather it assists the production of the effect." '
Reflection on this type of reasoning can help develop great patience, which in turn, develops powerful compassion. Real compassion is based on reason. Ordinary compassion or love is limited by desire or attachment."
The Four Noble Truths are more than the just the declaration that there is inevitable suffering in life, that Nirvana is the cessation of that suffering, and that The Noble Eightfold Path is the way to reach Nirvana. They are the first steps in the realization that suffering doesn't have to hurt. The Path is the lesson that can teach us how to stop suffering from being painful in the negative sense. Pain is not bad. Suffering it is. Right View can help us to see pain for what it can be.
If we view any adversity in our lives as our precious teacher and our opportunity to practice patience, tolerance and compassion, we not only neutralize adversity's power to harm us, we transform it into a positive force that propels us down the Path. We can learn to embrace pain in a healthy way instead of avoiding or suffering it. We can turn our fear of it into a clearer understanding and appreciation for its existence. We can live a much more meaningful life.
Yes, life is full of suffering. Good. I'm glad. Bring it on.
Love,
Brigid
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Comments
So thank you for the wonderful post today. My only hope for you is that your pain eventually goes away! But, like you, I will see this "pain" as a good teacher in my life right now, and learn all that I can from it! Now I just need to work on the "forgiveness" part and the part about practicing toleranace with my enemy...that one is not so easy for me.
I'm so glad this post was timely for you.
On the one hand I have the intense desire to take away the source of your suffering. On the other, I'd never wish to take anything away from you that could prove to be so powerful a source of experience, practice and transformation.
Isn't it funny how a TV show could initiate such deep thinking in ourselves? Through the filter of the Dharma it seems like small things become big understandings.
It's not easy but I guess that's why it's about practice. And I think with practice it gets easier. You're doing a very important thing that will echo on and on and I admire you highly for it. Remember we're all here for you.
Love,
Brigid
Thank you.
Love,
Brigid