THE REALITY OF SUFFERING
by Alex Lamas

In the spring of 2005 I was involved in a rather nasty car accident. I was struck from behind while stopped at a stop sign. I suffered from a severe neck sprain, whiplash, and a broken tooth. After a series of doctors, physical therapists and an acupuncturist for the pain, I came to the suffering part. The bill, the insurance company only paid for a portion of my medical and dental procedures. At this point I realized that the pain was real and suffering, realized.

Luckily at that time I started practicing meditation under the guidance of Thai Buddhist monks. Meditation taught me that grand, ultimate awareness is the key. So many of us dull our senses and wander in the dark when we need the light the most. We watch too much television, drink alcohol and take drugs when we need to have ourselves at full attention. I'm not making a judgment on these activities, I love “The Sopranos” and German beer. But we medicate ourselves with entertaining distractions to avoid the pain. This is making a judgment on pain. There is a Zen saying, "pain is inevitable, suffering is optional." In order to release pain we must experience it first. We must observe it and ourselves without judgment and allow ourselves to feel the full range of emotions good or bad. When we suppress our emotions or worse, avoid them, then and only then will they have power over us. I realized by using a non-judgmental observation of how I felt, I was able to experience the emotions so I could release them.

Non-attachment is the only way to end the suffering so many of us go through. In Buddhism we practice this daily. The Buddha taught that suffering is caused by our attachments to things, thoughts and emotions, good and bad. Our attachments serve us and allow us to believe certain things that we want to believe in ourselves. They allow us to have judgments on ourselves and the people in our lives, so we are able to feel frustrated by them. But all these attachments are not real, they cloud our reality and keep us in a state of delusion, so we can believe what we want to believe and not deal with reality. Why is reality so scary?

Reality is absolute. Things are exactly as they seem and life is just what it is. Nothing is hidden unless we make the choice not to see. Morality is relative but there are universal truths, lying, stealing, killing and harming others or nature are defilements of our own spirit. Sure you may say you are only hurting yourself but this is a defilement of your life and what of the other people who care for you? Why not honor their love by honoring yourself every day and how do we achieve this honoring? By honoring our word, by living in the present moment as much as we can and by allowing all our emotions, thoughts and feelings to arise so they can cease. The most important lesson that I have learned is from the Buddha's first sermon to his followers; "All that is subject to arising is subject to ceasing" what has a beginning, has an end. Every bad situation that we find ourselves in has an ending, because it's all temporary and by being aware of how we feel and act in those situations we can transcend them, learn and grow. All that has a beginning has an end, the spirit is the only thing that is deathless.

You need not become a Buddhist to use meditation or to believe in the philosophy of the nature of suffering. Many other religions come to the same conclusions through different paths. The techniques and principles are quite secular and follow sound psychological understanding on how the mind works. It was Carl Jung who coined the phrase, "what you resist, persists." In other words, whenever you suppress or avoid an emotion or situation that thing will haunt and control you until it is realized. Once done and brought out into the light it loses all power. If starting out on a path of meditation be warned, at the beginning I found that I felt much worse than better. I became angry and was given to quick bouts of depression during this time. The difference was that the spells of bad emotions although very intense were short lived. This was because I was uncovering all the hurt, frustrations and anger I had suppressed for 30 years. I wasn't alone many other meditation practitioners have had similar experiences.

It's a clearing of the mind and it's important not to judge these experiences but to just be in them and forgive yourself and others for what ever may come up. We constantly judge, we are judging machines and it may be easy to say that we mustn't, we still judge everything and everyone that comes into our lives. Instead, be aware of when we judge. Observe it so then we can let it go and make choices based on the choice itself and not on considerations from meanings that we make up. Judgments are based on pure ego and have nothing to do with reality. They are the consideration created by us, to make us feel better about accepting or rejecting something that is presented in our lives. These judgments aren't real, they're fantasies created in our mind. When we release our judgments we can have opportunity to truly be free to make choices and not worry about making mistakes. Worrying is also created by ego and has no basis in reality. It's a fantasy about the future and story that is given power so we don't have to responsible about the choices we may have made. Awareness brings us back to the present moment and forces us to deal with what is happening now. Worrying is a distraction from dealing with reality because we know that reality is absolute. Only by being aware can we eventually come to the cessation of what we were suffering from and realize that many of our fears, worries, anger and judgments are creations of ego and don't exist in reality.

Reality just is.

Copyright  2007 Alex Lamas, All rights reserved.