“the key to genuine liberation”
Henry David Thoreau stated that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” He was talking about the void inside that we fill with money, possessions or fame, as if these will relieve our suffering.
Workers in the health care system during the corona virus pandemic (2020) arguably experienced a great deal of suffering. Helen Ouyang, an emergency room doctor in a New York hospital shared this insight: “Staying human is painful … it’s no longer getting through this day or this week; we are in the deep now, the interminable. For doctors to survive this pandemic, we have to feel each moment—even if it makes each moment more difficult to endure.”[i]
In the East, suffering is the theme of the Buddhist’s Four Noble Truths. First, they say life is suffering, and we agree. Our Paradigm-B world creates suffering.
Second, they say suffering is caused by craving and aversion. Again, we agree. Our P-B worldview promotes seeking security, sensation and power, and rejecting silence, simplicity and solitude.
Third, there is freedom from suffering. Yes, of course. Freedom is possible by leaving behind the P-B world and accepting the Truth.
Fourth, adopt a mindfulness practice where you observe every action of the body, mind and emotions, and thereby let go of all attachments which create a life of suffering. We suggest The Point of Power Practice.
“If I choose response over reaction, I find myself in the present moment, beyond craving, aversion and suffering. Or, if I choose reaction and identify with my mind, body and emotions and accumulating things, lust after pleasure and seek power, then I am suffering. Is life suffering? Yes and no! The choice is up to you.”[ii]
Some people think the only “cure” for suffering and pain is when the body dies, but that’s not true. In fact, for some, suffering can be a learning experience. Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho: “Not all storms (suffering) come to disrupt your life, some come to clear your path.”[iii] George Eliot wrote: “Deep unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state.”[iv]
C. S. Lewis says: “The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt. God whispers to us in our pleasures but shouts in our pains; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”[v] Obviously what Lewis is suggesting is that we should pay attention to what our suffering is telling us.
Insight # 82 come to us from Reginald Ray (b. 1942) an American Buddhist academic and teacher and spiritual director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation which he co-founded in 2005.
“According to Buddha, there are four great things that we need to understand about suffering: first, the full extent of its existence; second, why we suffer as we do; third, that in reality suffering is not what we think; and, finally, that it is suffering that holds the key to genuine liberation. In fact, one of the early Buddhist schools insisted that if we fully understand the first noble truth [life is suffering], the others become unnecessary.”[vi]
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Additional Reading:
- Suffering, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 2
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[i] Ouyang, Helen. “State of Emergency.” The New York Times Magazine. April 19, 2020, p. 65.
[ii] Henry, Roy Charles. “The Great Paradox.” The ABC’s Of Simple Reality, Vol 2. May 2018, p. 72.
[iii] https://paulocoelho.com/
[iv] https://www.inspiratus.org/relationships/life-is-suffering/ August 22, 2009.
[v] Lewis, C. S. The Problem of Pain. New York: MacMillan, 1962, p. 92.
[vi] Ibid.
