Wow, what a topic! Talk about biting off more than I can chew! Well this is going to be another big one I think. How to end suffering… I guess the first thing we need to establish is just what is suffering and perhaps even, where does it come from. What kind of suffering are we talking about here. I guess this would be mainly psychological suffering because if one can be in a certain state of mind, then nothing that happens physically could cause such a person suffering. Meaning that, no matter what was happening outside ourselves or to us physically, we would be able to transcend it. If that is the case, then we cannot blame things outside ourselves, for our suffering. This is a very important statement, actually the two together; if we can transcend any kind of physical or ‘imposed’ suffering then it stands that the real origin of suffering comes from within us.
If suffering comes from within us,then we are able to end it! If you agree that we are the creators of what lies within us, then we are able to uncreate what lies within us. So let’s look at this again. What causes our suffering? Are we ready to be brutally honest here? There will be a lot of resistance to this. We are the cause of our suffering.. Please spend a little time on that statement because it can lead you to great freedom. If you are the cause of your own suffering then you can be the one that sets yourself free from suffering.
There are so many instances where we behave like victims, constantly blaming situations outside ourselves for our discontentment and unhappiness. But again when we are truly honest, we know that we can choose how we react to every situation in our lives. This was shown very beautifully in Victor Frankl’s book about the people in the concentration camps and how in very similar, very extreme conditions, people coped very differently. So let’s take this as a wonderful example of an extreme physical and psychological experience. If we follow the theory that many of us currently hold, consciously or subconscioulsy that our lives are miserable because of a person/people, or circumstances, and that our happiness will only come about when those external situations change and we place that theory in the context of the concentration camp. Then it would follow that all people would have suffered on average about the same and would have had a very similar experience on the whole. But actually that did not happen, even in these and many other historically extreme situations there were people who ‘rose above the situation’ and were able to find inner peace.
So that is how we end suffering. At least it is a start. Look within yourself and see what it is within you, that has put you into a victim role. You always get to choose how an interaction or a situation will affect you. Please watch carefully. Catch those very fast inner voices that are saying things like ‘this always happens to me’, ‘if only my life/job/relationship/financial’ situation were better, then everything would be alright. When you do that, you have done two things: you have put yourself in the position of a victim and you have given up responsibility for your life. So first thing, change the sentences to ‘I have created this in my life’ and ‘I am responsible for how I respond to what happens in my life’. Start with these two sentences and you may find a slight shift in how you see your world. Try that for a while and then we will move on to the next level of why we suffer. But this one is a big exercise, start practicing it and let me know how it goes…
