Suffering

Are you ready to take on your daily suffering?

I know this is not my typical salutation and I apoligize, but it seems to be how many people brace themselves to face their day.The funny thing is know one see's what they put themselves through as suffering! Many just call it life, others say that's the way it is and most just accept all the baggage as the way it is. . . .

But is it?

Emotions are states of mind and we tend to give them more power than they deserve. Each of us has experienced anger, hatred, desire, jealousy and other such emotions many times throughout our lives, and as humans we have the incredible capacity to justify these emotions. When we are in our anger, for example, saying, “How dare they say that to me!” We spin a calculated web in our minds about how stupid and unbelievable this other person is and we begin to plan various ways to tell them off or undermine their support among others. However, we rarely stop and notice that our own anger causes us suffering. It doesn’t feel good to be angry, yet we do it again and again. Does this sound familiar?

In the same vein, hatred, though it may give us some sense of twisted purpose, is also suffering. Whatever we hate we want to eliminate, but often cannot. Trying may consume us or we may create enemies in the process, or we simply stew in our own hatred, which causes all manner of madness (road rage anyone?).

Similarly, jealousy can make us feel inadequate and drive us to chase after all forms of accomplishment in order to overcome our sense of failure. In the end our own unwillingness to accept ourselves just as we are, perfect and whole cause us to spend lifetimes proving ourselves to others.

Desire is trickier. We think desire feels good because we can daydream about getting what we want, but if we can’t or don’t get it, it is suffering. If we get it, the joy in having it does not last, and we suffer. If we get it and then loose it, we must chase after it again, suffering it’s loss. So what is the value of desire in your own life?

All of this is as obvious as the nose on our faces and yet we continue to reinforce our tendency to fall back on such responses, only leading to more suffering in the future. So what is to be done? That is a highly personal question, but by recognizing our own suffering and then asking this pivotal question of ourselves we take the first step towards our own cure.

Suffering is a part of life, but how we see and respond to it makes all the difference in the world!

Peace and Love, Jim