"If there are things that are causing you to suffer, you have to know how to let go of them. Happiness can be attained by letting go, including letting go of your ideas about happiness. You imagine that certain conditions are necessary to your happiness, but deep looking will reveal to you that those notions are the very things standing in the way of happiness and are making you suffer."
Suffering primarily is an internal function that is a result of a person's attitude. You can see it every day in how people react to the situations around them. There are those that may be handicapped or sick, but they are always in the best of spirits and looking up, and there are those that at every little thing that goes wrong they scream "Why me?!" and act like it is the end of the world. The relief or avoidance of suffering begins with looking at how you react to situations around you and listening closely to the internal dialogue you are telling yourself. If you can identify your negative reactions/thoughts and begin to let these things go, then you will begin to see your suffering ease.
Try to be flexible and also try to keep things in perspective - was what just happened really so bad that you needed to lose your temper or have your day ruined? Sure, you may have preferred it not to have happened, but as things cycle through it will get better again. How can you react better next time? I used to hate it when people would say "it is what it is." "What kind of an answer is that?" I would complain. "This isn't right, now we have to fix it, this is annoying!" But now I try to react the same way-to try to more "go with the flow" than to immediately object or want to complain about has happened. What is done is done, you can't change it, complaining doesn't make it any better, so the best action to take is to react in the best manner possible.
I also want to mention that I think that when trying to grasp the concept of viewing good and bad or pleasure and pain as the same and to have no preference of one over the other, to accomplish this there are several mindsets to experiment with. There is the idea that you are trying to become indifferent to certain situations or reactions, to lessen their power by not reacting in a major way. But this quote says to be even-keel with both good and bad, and I think everyone would agree that you don't want to dull and be indifferent to the joys of life. I like the idea even more of trying to be more accepting of all situations. You want to be more tolerant, because you know that life is ever changing and as fast as something bad or painful came up, it can disappear just as easily and be replaced with joyful moments. And with this too, because you know that the good moments will change as well, it is a reminder to be fully in those moments and enjoy them for as long as they are there.
"The Buddha noted that suffering always arises due to the indulgence of some form of desire. If our house burns down, we are miserable because we desire a house that hasn't burned down. When we get sick, we suffer because we crave health.
For most of us, most of the time, it's hard to remember that pleasure and pain always goes hand in hand. We forget that we cannot have one without the other. So we seek to maximize pleasure and do our best to avoid pain. But the great masters know that life doesn't work that way. Everything in our universe comes to us in pairs of opposites, and opposites are always changing from one to the other. Pain replaces pleasure, pleasure replaces pain, over and over again, endlessly. Nothing in the material universe ever remains the same for long. But when we finally understand this truth at the most profound level, we have a chance to change the rules of the game.
Buddha taught that there is a way out of suffering, and that way is to eliminate desire. If we can retrain the mind so that it no longer craves, so that it no longer prefers one thing over another-so that good and bad, pleasure and pain, hot and cold, love and hate, are all the same to us, then suffering ceases of its own accord." -- Richard Hooper, The Parallel Sayings
The bottom line with suffering is that to begin to alleviate it you have to believe it has meaning, otherwise it can become overwhelming. I choose to believe that everything that is created in our Universe was put there for a reason and all of it functions together to keep the Universe in balance (the same idea as yin and yang).
Why did Jesus suffer? There are many other people that I am sure would discuss this topic in great depth, but I would say the main concepts are because of His love for humanity; because it was the Lord's (Universe's) will; and to show humanity an example of how they are to push through suffering of their own. God would not put Jesus through His journey if there was not a reason. And so too we were created and put here in earthly form to endure similar trials and tribulations with the expectation that we will learn and grow from the experience. Christians would say you will be rewarded in the afterlife/on Judgement Day. I think the knowledge gained strengthens the real you-your soul-and helps you to continue progressing towards becoming an enlightened being. Often you do not know what you are capable of until you are forced to act. It is when you are pushed out of your comfort zone and vulnerable that you discover new lessons and begin to really test yourself and your beliefs.
"Orthodox Christians believe that suffering has meaning, especially the suffering of Jesus. For them, suffering is part of life. It cannot be avoided, and we shouldn't try to avoid it. Instead, we should learn to endure suffering. Suffering teaches us. Suffering tests us. Suffering makes us stronger." -Richard Hooper, The Parallel Sayings
I picked this quote to be the first on my blog because I feel that it clearly expressed the purpose for which I originally began my journal. In our journey through life I believe that we should always be learning. We go through all of the ups and downs and joys and problems that we do in order that we can truly understand elements of life in more depth. I even believe that we have a purpose in mind before we come to earth for this particular life and that we actually help to plan our own life and major occurrences in it so that we can work on understanding a particular aspect with greater clarity. This could mean maybe you wanted to explore what love really is, or loyalty, trust, fear, hatred, compassion, peace or many other emotions or qualities, and so you planned out certain situations or people surrounding you that would give you more exposure to this particular lesson . And in order to really understand these feelings, you must also feel its opposite. So you must take the good with the bad in order to really see and understand what this particular element is.
This perspective is what makes me feel better when times are tough. All pain and suffering becomes just a little bit easier if you can see its purpose as part of the bigger picture. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to bad people? To truly feel a specific emotion and to understand its intricacies? Is it so that others can learn from another's suffering? To develop compassion? To see more clearly the differences between good and bad, or maybe that there really is no difference because you need one for the other? There is a lesson (for you or someone around you) in every situation, but it is not always obvious. You need to look closely and to try to see how this experience fits into the bigger picture of your life direction or goals.
What makes things most tolerable for me is thinking that what is happening in my life is because these problems and events are items that I and my spirit guide discussed and decided I would encounter in this life, and then thinking through why would I face myself with this specific situation - what was I hoping to learn? I knew, too, that I would be strong enough for anything I encountered, therefore my current situation will not kill me, only make me stronger and closer to my ultimate goal of an enlightened soul.
"So often we look at a calendar of days as merely a symbol of the passage of time. We forget why we are on this earth. We forget that there is a reason for all the pain and the struggle.
We forget that we were put on this earth to learn something. If everything were perfect in this life, we would never learn anything new. We would not be able to elevate our spirits through the events that happen to us." - Lynn V. Andrews
Hello and welcome to my blog! Since the start of 2013, I have been keeping a quote and reflection journal to help me think through some of the bigger questions about our journey through life. It has served as a great place to gather interesting quotes and to take a little extra time for reflecting on each quote's meaning and to try to apply it to my personal life. The quotes have general themes of finding peace, understanding, and/or happiness in your life. I tend to be Buddhist-like in my beliefs, so many of the quotes reflect on the uniformity and continuity of life, as well as trying to see the bigger picture of what we are supposed to do with our time here on Earth.
After keeping my journal for some time, I decided that I would like to share some of its pages with others, in hopes of hearing some feedback and other points of view of what these quotes mean. I hope to generate a lot of discussion and reflection on the quotes posted. I would like this blog to be a page for learning and for breaking quotes down into simpler ideas that every person can grasp and put to use in their own lives. The general format for the blog will be to post a quote and then to post a reflection on it, in separate posts so that the reader can comment on either the quote or my thoughts as they like. I hope you find some wisdom or comfort in the quotes I have found, and also that you will want to participate in the discussions as we search for a deeper understanding of the human experience. Namaste!
Judy Matthews is a woman in her early 30's who is working to attach meaning to her life. Our time on Earth goes by so quickly, the sooner we realize what we are supposed to be doing the more we will get out of the experience. Like everyone else, she has had experiences in her life that made her stop and reflect on their meaning, and from these experiences she was introduced to yoga, mindfulness and meditation and began exploring the concepts taught in these processes in greater depth.