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“The root of suffering is attachment.” Buddha
Everyone suffers. It’s part of the human condition.
However, suffering isn’t the boogeyman. It can be the doorway to personal evolution, growth, and expansion. We simply have to choose to shift our energy by modifying our thoughts and perceptions. Our perception of the world is what generates our thoughts and feelings. Those thoughts and feelings then reinforce our perception of the world, creating a potentially vicious cycle of suffering.
We can stop our suffering by understanding the root of what causes us to suffer and then taking appropriate actions. If we find a way to interrupt the loop and find presence, we can change how we perceive the world and generate different thoughts and feelings. To do this we need to accept a hard truth. We suffer because we resist change.
We Live in Impermanence
The world is constantly in flux and it is very little we can do about it. Yet, we still resist change with all the vigor we can muster.
Why do we do this?
Because change is uncertain and does not give us the security we crave. The ego likes to know what comes next, in fact, that is its superpower. It is what the ego is designed for, to keep us safe from trauma and pain. The problem is that the ego needs control of your perceptions to produce the illusion that you are safe.
The ego has a specific interest in keeping us safe because it fears change, it fears transition, it fears death. It tells us little lies to keep us under its thrall with the promise of safety behind its high walls.
Change is hard. We all know it is. But what if we could roll with it? What if instead, we behaved as water does?
The mindful way is to embrace change, accept it as a core truth, and flow. When we flow we drop resistance and allow things to be as they are instead of how they SHOULD be. I often speak about the dirtiest word in the world, SHOULD. Few words have generated more suffering for people than presuming or trying to control the way the world should be.
While we can make an effort to better our circumstances or that of others, we cannot change reality. Pain is a part of the experience, but our attachment to beliefs that run counter to reality generate needless suffering. Assumptions and Expectations take us out of the present moment and away from the experiences right in front of us.
Living in Disconnection
Another false truth the ego feeds us and keeps us locked in suffering, is that we are separate from all the rest of nature. It is us versus the world. This creates all sorts of dissonance between ourselves and the world around us. It creates strife, distrust, and distance. It produces feelings of inequity, unfairness, and jealousy.
Why does that person have more than me? Why do I suffer more than that person? How come I can’t be happy when everyone else seems to be so happy?
These assumptions create a false picture of our life and the lives of others. We perceive our experience as separate from that of the person next to us. Mindfulness teaches us that this experience of separateness is an illusion.
Our deeper self, the polar opposite of the ego knows that this is untrue. It is this specific suffering that leads us back to connection, to a universal love that envelopes us and provides that wonderful feeling of happiness.
How can suffering lead us to connection?
It is only through suffering that we become aware of the fact that something is amiss. This can’t be all that life has to offer, right? It can’t just be a series of stubbed toes, broken hearts, and pain!
Adopting the illusion that we are different, or other than our fellow humans, animals, plants, or the universe itself is a never-ending pool of suffering.
What if instead of buying into the otherness, we shifted our perception to connection. Her success is my success. His suffering is my suffering. When we engage in the present moment mindfully, this becomes the clear truth.
Clinging to Identity
Perhaps the most powerful reason why we suffer is our attachment to who we believe we are. The collection of labels, judgments, expectations, and assumptions that have coalesced to create the identity you have accepted creates suffering.
Ask yourself who are you?
Are you a collection of labels given to you by your family, friends, peers, co-workers, and your society at large? Or are you something greater, something more powerful?
This process of domestication, defined by the mystic Don Miguel Ruiz in his wonderful book the Four Agreements, really opened my eyes. I recall reading the book and thinking, you are right! I have accepted many labels and truths about myself that don’t feel right. Each of us has hundreds if not thousands of small agreements we have made to fit in.
What happens when we live our lives supporting the labels that are incongruent to our hearts? We feel heavy, we feel sluggish because we are dragging weight that isn’t ours to carry. We have to be diligent and deconstruct these agreements one at a time. With each agreement we dissolve, we gain a small portion of our power back.
Accepting things as they are
There is the world as it is, and the world as we think it SHOULD be. The issue here is that the world is never going to be as we think it should be because then the world would be static, unchanging, and rather dull. It would also trap others in suffering if we made the world the way we individually believe it to be.
What we need to understand is that the world as we know it is very much a different story than we have been taught, than we have accepted, or can even comprehend fully. The world outside our perception is very different than the world that lives within our minds. This is how different people experience the world differently. When we let go of our perception of being right, we open a door that allows us to see through the eyes of another. This way we can make inroads into another perspective and start to grow. Then we can begin to implement compassion for the way others suffer and in the process, we alleviate a portion of our suffering. This gives us more personal power to shift our perspective.
What we can gain control over is our world. Through the power of shifting our perspective at will.
Their Truth vs. Your Truth
All of us go through a process of indoctrination as we grow from a child to adults. Throughout this time there are two truths, the truth we hold deep within our being and the truth we have accepted from outside of us.
Most of us live as some kind of mix between the two. Suffering is created by allowing the outside truth to become our primary mode of operating while disregarding our inner truth. This misalignment with our core being is what creates dissonance, resistance, and a sense of despair.
None of us likes being told who we are or who we are supposed to be. Today, do what you can to identify ways in which you are acting in accordance with a truth someone else gave to you. How can you release this and allow the true you to shine through?
The Video Lecture
Check back in tomorrow for the next part of the series: The Problem of our Story
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