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@Jeroen said:

@Jeroen said:
The last few days I have been revisiting the feelings I have around my stepfathers death. It was one of the most difficult things I have done, coming downstairs in our shared house early in the morning to make coffee and listening to his laboured breathing as he lay in bed on morphine slowly dying in the annexe to the living room. In a way that was suffering for me, he was one of my closest and longest friends and I loved him for being such a good partner to my mother, even though the Alzheimer’s made him into someone new also.

That experience has been working its way through my soul, it has been harrowing but has also revealed new depths, and in a way it has made me conclude that suffering is just part of the human condition, something that is meant to impart wisdom and empathy and understanding. I don’t think that after an experience like that you can look at death and loss in the same way.

In a way this has made me realise that I no longer look for the Buddha’s solution to suffering, the idea of Nirvana and being free from it all. Some forms of suffering are indispensable parts of the process of human growth, I’ve come to realise.

This puts me all in mind of a farmers wisdom, that plowing the land is a process of harming and disturbing the earth, only to provide fertile soil for seeds to fall onto and a new growth. It’s funny I had no idea where this came from, I haven’t thought about these things since we were taught about farming in primary school.

I make a division between the worldly and the transcendent in my mind. For life in the world, I find the philosophy of Taoism speaks to me more. Things operate in a balance, moving from one state to the other, in dependence on one another. For a longer term (multiple lives, just in case) view Buddhism speaks more to me. Working on insight and seeing the workings of self and suffering to ultimately uproot its causes. Which also helps in the here and now.

@person said:
I wouldn't want to encourage an attitude of denying someone's pain or simply telling them to suck it up. But going forward if by comforting without encouraging resilience are you also rewarding and reinforcing the painful emotions?

I have been thinking about how I handle suffering:

• Small bits of suffering: ignore, it builds character and mental strength
• Long term low level suffering: treat by looking into the causes, letting go of things as necessary
• Acute suffering: treat with mindfulness, painkillers as necessary

It’s a good thing to be able to be at ease. But one has to be able to ignore the discomfort that comes with exertion, you have to be a bit robust in how you handle suffering. Athletes learn this too about their bodies, there are pain barriers that you need to push through.

Suffering that comes with illness and injury, you kind of have to bear it, but it challenges the feelings of those around you. It calls forth empathy, friendship, love.

I was on a beginners Buddhist meditation retreat. The teacher had completed 8 years of solitary meditation @person.
At the start of their retreat, the temple was undergoing major noisy building repairs. They asked their teacher how could disturbance to their 'peaceful' meditation be accomplished.

It was as you mention in your post, all in the reaction…
https://www.mindful.org/even-loud-sounds-meditation-practice/

Something from long ago that stuck with me. When my niece was about 2 (she's 19 now) we were watching a big freight ship come into harbor. It blew its horn and it was very loud, startling us all. I was back a bit while my sister held her daughter, I saw her face (I don't think anyone else did) begin to react with a cry. But all us adults laughed at the startle, she saw our reaction and began to laugh as well.

I've thought about this small episode in regards to how it may have shaped her life. What if we all would have been upset and she learned to be afraid and hurt by being startled like that. If she would have cried anyway in spite of our reaction I'm certain my sister would have comforted her. But its like which reaction to something like that do you want to encourage and attempt to instill? What will create mentally healthier and happier people? Comforting the hurt or learning to not be hurt in the first place?

I wouldn't want to encourage an attitude of denying someone's pain or simply telling them to suck it up. But going forward if by comforting without encouraging resilience are you also rewarding and reinforcing the painful emotions?

Suffering is a drug?
I imagine there is a balance to be found and probably something for me to learn and try to integrate.

I'm under the impression this 'balance' (aka Middle Way way between over-compensating and under-compensating) is not something one learns to integrate, it's a thing which develops naturally as part and parcel of one's ongoing Dharma practice...

We suffer because we crave & cling... clinging & craving is a drug.

I think different methods work for different people, and we should all do our own thing.

You can work it out by Fractions or by simple Rule of Three,
But the way of Tweedle-dum is not the way of Tweedle-dee.
You can twist it, you can turn it, you can plait it till you drop,
But the way of Pilly Winky's not the way of Winkie Pop!