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Suffering
weighted
Veteran
I was drawn to Buddhism through immense suffering. I wonder if it would be too grandiose a statement to say that perhaps many others here found this path through similar painful experiences in their lives.
How do we balance suffering with the joy of being alive?
Is this something that simply breaks its way out from the dichotomy of pain/pleasure when we begin to meditate and practice metta?
Is this something we have to continually cultivate?
In your own practices and daily lives, how do you deal with continually painful experiences?
The way I see it, trying to cultivate an attitude of being nonjudgmental and lovingkindness can help, but it doesn't dull the pain or the suffering. Do we just - as Pema Chodron says in Taking the Leap - lean into the pain and become very intimate with it, feel its edges, get to know how our bodies and our minds relate to this specific pain so that we can learn from it?
Or should we be less receptive to pain than Chodron claims, seeing as inviting pain in and embracing it might unwittingly break the first precept - as it causes pain to ourselves?
Any thoughts on how to reconcile pain and suffering with a growing and still fairly new practice are most welcome.
How do we balance suffering with the joy of being alive?
Is this something that simply breaks its way out from the dichotomy of pain/pleasure when we begin to meditate and practice metta?
Is this something we have to continually cultivate?
In your own practices and daily lives, how do you deal with continually painful experiences?
The way I see it, trying to cultivate an attitude of being nonjudgmental and lovingkindness can help, but it doesn't dull the pain or the suffering. Do we just - as Pema Chodron says in Taking the Leap - lean into the pain and become very intimate with it, feel its edges, get to know how our bodies and our minds relate to this specific pain so that we can learn from it?
Or should we be less receptive to pain than Chodron claims, seeing as inviting pain in and embracing it might unwittingly break the first precept - as it causes pain to ourselves?
Any thoughts on how to reconcile pain and suffering with a growing and still fairly new practice are most welcome.
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Comments
wisdom is the cause of the lack of suffering, which in turn conditions positive actions of body, speech, mind, which condition more wisdom.
wisdom begins with seeing our ignorance, misperception, assumptions and how these things condition our actions, which in turn leads to suffering.
then with wisdom we realize what we must learn and do.
so as you can see there are many ways one can approach this. but truly the only way to eliminate suffering is by understanding the root causes, which is ignorance/misperception.
compassion, metta, joy, etc all are conditional factors for one's own clear vision to ripen and one's own clear vision also is the conditional factors for all the positive qualities in life.
thankfully suffering has a cause.
I know that wisdom and metta are bound up in suffering, in fathoming it to its fullest extent. I suppose I wonder, as a beginning practitioner, that, if there is no way to stop suffering and our exposure to it, is it solely about reconditioning our relationship to suffering that allows us to remain poised and calm when dealing with it?
everything is like this. thoughts, feelings, smells, sights, sounds, tastes. all the realms of experiences are coming and going as they please.
you do not control any of these, though through misperception thinking believes itself to be the cause and maker of all these experiences.
wisdom is what allows the solidity of each experience to break down.
in actuality everything is by its nature liberated. the sound comes and then goes. with or without our help. the suffering comes and goes without our help. it is all impersonal processes coming and going.
it is seeing with the clear vision of wisdom and through the confidence in the dharma that we end suffering. or rather we see suffering for what it is. it is vividly appearing, yet completely devoid of inherent existence. not only that suffering only occurs when we consider what is happening as my, me, i, mine. which are assertion of the thinking mind.
so lets say there is a sharp pain in my leg because i scrapped it.
where is this pain? when we look for it, we cannot find it other than asserting a reference point. pain is vividly appearing, yet we cannot grasp onto it, nor locate it.
not only that when we start to build concentration we start to see how pain is points of various sensations coming together and on the basis of such sensations we project pain.
not only that we start to see how we project i like this, i don't like this, and then start to create narratives about the pain, etc which result in massive amount of suffering for self.
but with wisdom we can see. oh just sensation. nothing to do but just let to be. send love or warmth to it.
no suffering is necessary.
this is my personal experience, so it might not be clear what i am trying to convey.
the underlying assumption of inherency, subject/object duality, and not understand dependent origination truly condition ignorance, which in turn creates the whole wheel of suffering called samsara.
with even a little understanding/realization of wisdom, one can significantly lower suffering and lead a happier life.
in order to give us the opportunity to learn and to practice compassion
for ourselves and for all sentient beings,
and at the point that everyone has learned this lesson,
suffering, the harsh teacher, will no longer exist in our world.
In the meantime,
when confronted with suffering, the questions are always 3:
1. am I clinging to what I most need to release, thereby intensifying and prolonging this suffering? (all too often!)
2. what can I learn from this experience to benefit my growth, awareness, and ability to learn and to practice compassion for self and all sentient beings?
3. what can I exemplify throughout this experience to benefit the growth and awareness of all other sentient beings, and to improve their ability to learn and to practice compassion for themselves and all other sentient beings?
Much perception is mis-perception.
It results from running all experience through a filter of I, me, mine. Judgement and attachment follow. Stories and suffering.
Remove the filtering activity, then separation is seen for what it really is, an illusion of the mind created by self centered grasping.
The Buddha's teachings provide a guide to a practice that leads to this realization. Call it freedom, liberation, awakening, or even enlightenment.
When you no longer continue to feed the belief that you (or anything else) exists as a separate permanent thing, compassion peace and understanding naturally arise. Things simply are the way they are in the present moment. End of stories.
Best Wishes
Yes and yes, IMO.
When we are experiencing suffering, wouldn't this be an opportunity to put the Four Noble Truths to the test? Couldn't this be a chance to see if our attachment and cravings are the cause of our suffering? If we find that if it is our suffering then we can move on to the next
noble truth. We can try to find out what happens when we let go of our attachments and cravings.
I think through meditation we become increasingly open to both joy and suffering, both for ourselves and others. Paradoxically the more metta we do the more sensitive we can be to suffering.
Spiny
Has the definition of 'suffering' been over-extended due to a semantics?
there is no difference between internal/external mind.
anything perceived is mind, thus suffering in all forms is just suffering.
"Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha."
Conrad.
Why is that? Because if one is suffering one can't also be compassionate? I would argue that the more one suffers, the more compassion one builds. But we can always agree to disagree.
Who is it that suffers? And what remains through all the pain, through all the anguish, through all the hurt? You must look deeply at this right now, in this moment. Who suffers? The body, the brain, the mind suffers. But what remains untouched through every negative wave of pain, sorrow and suffering? What is it that is always there throughout? What never suffers, what never knows pain? Is there something here? Is there something very subtle, very quiet beneath everything else? Is there something which is there through the moments of bliss and the moments of suffering? Is there something that never fades away?
There is a tremendous opportunity here if we can look through the suffering, not evade it, not suppress it, not pretend it does not exist. Through all of it, you are there, shining, grace-filled, the silence itself. All the pain, suffering and hurt can not touch that.
So when in pain, see what is there at the core, before, during and after all suffering. If you can see that for one second, pain and hurt have no rule over you at all. Bodies are born, live, break down and die. But there is unborn, unoriginated, uncreated, the Deathless.
Māra's question:
“By whom has this being been created?
Where is the maker of the being?
Where has the being arisen?
Where does the being cease?”
…
Ven. Vajirā's reply:
“Why now do you assume 'a being'?
Māra, is that your speculative view?
This is a heap of sheer formations:
Here no being is found.
“Just as, with an assemblage of parts,
The word 'chariot' is used,
So, when the aggregates exist,
There is the convention 'a being.'
“It's only suffering that comes to be,
Suffering that stands and falls away.
Nothing but suffering comes to be,
Nothing but suffering ceases.”
I may be wrong. But that's what my intuition says here.
Conrad.