How does suffering come to be

[Wu Ming Jen]

Different ways of suffering, an alternative view.  Someone reaches rock bottom and there is no way but up. Strange things are happening.

 

The suffering is a lesson.

Sip the bitterness and go through hardship, endure all that is. The stronger to adapt or suffer is a personal choice.

 

Look trough a different window and see a new view. Up and down depend on each other. We can not wish the wind and tides to stop but we can navigate to safe harbors in the middle of a storm.

 

Storms do not exist forever and I have nothing to do with that...... at all..

[Marblehead]

But some people who are down and out don't want to get up because they don't want thee suffering.

 

[Zen Pig]

I had a dream years ago, where I was climbing up a very high tower trying to escape some kind of monster.  I ended up hanging hundreds of feet in the air, grabbing onto a steel bar,  there was only an abyss to fall into.  I was stuck, and fearful. 

All at once,  I saw that I just could let go.  I let go and fell, all the while laughing my ass off.  It was wonderful. 

[Marblehead]

And you heard a voice, "Welcome to the abyss."

 

[Zen Pig]

no voices, only the wonder of living. like the voiceless wonder of your first fuck.  or the feeling of waking up and seeing it is , and has always been perfect, even the fear, the pain, the shit.  just like being in a dream, and seeing that you are dreaming, and not taking it so serious.  not that a dream is un-real, but it is also not as real as we think it is.  that kind of feeling.

[Marblehead]

Quite an experience, that was.

 

And I do agree that dreams are real for the dreamer.

 

 

[Small Fur]

Question: How does suffering come to be? There is a world of people born into the most dire circumstances. Take the millions that live in slums. What is that?

 

 

 

 

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How does suffering come to be?

There is circumstantial suffering- the external conditions of life that appear unfavorable in their hardships and challenges. And there is personal suffering- the internal perspectives and perceptions that feel like hardships and challenges. The two experiences intertwine in perpetuation of a condition that we can more singularly and basically call “suffering”.

 

Suffering arises when we lose connection to Consciousness. Another way to say this is that when we are not present or when we are not in alignment with Consciousness itself, we suffer. From within that perspective of personal suffering we create more circumstantial suffering and in that generally created suffering, more suffering is created for the individual… again and again. This perpetual reverberation can happen in a moment, for years, over decades… across lifetimes. 

 

Thus, suffering is as much a perspective, as it is a state or experience: its myriad of manifestations is one continuous perpetuated movement born of unconsciousness through the lack of awareness in presence.

 

 

What is presence?

True Presence engenders a certain self-mastery in non-reactivity and peaceful resolve: this basic capacity for ‘arresting the spirit’ creates the opportunity for stillness and emptiness that allows for a pure awareness to move through our system. When we are consciously non-reactive, we are not motivated by fears or desires.  When we are truly resolved there is no perpetuation because we have transcended the conditions we thought to be discordant in their diverse facets, and so we recognize the simple harmony in peacefulness. 

 

Ultimately, presence is the depth of integrity in alignment to Conscious through each moment of our being and that allows for effortless action.

 

Thus, when one is able to be truly present, life is no longer a smorgasbord of emotional reactions to experiences. Instead, one becomes a grounded, embodied, engaged and present witness from within the simplicity of Beingness itself.  When you recognize existence from a place of essence, the myriad of fictions resolve themselves in a simplicity from which the experience of suffering is extinguished from within.

 

 

What can I do to stop suffering?

Therefore, concern yourself less with the unconsciousness that is suffering, as the questions are as endless as their diverse manifestations.  That attention to suffering can itself be an unconsciousness in motion and it is the way of the 10,000 creations, not the resolve of the One or the Nothing.

 

Instead, choose to engage the light of Consciousness continuously; learn to perceive its unconditional omnipresence through all things, including: all conditions, all people and in yourself. The practice of cultivating this awareness is integral to how we ‘turn the light’ in ourselves and in unison with existence through reflective consciousness- not only deeply and formlessly from within the specifics of profound meditation, but also generally in living and in connection to all of life through ourselves. This practice of being in the light is the process of applying awareness through presence.

 

As a starting point, come to recognize and sense the light in yourself, in experience and in others: hold this light (shen) through all things as you move through the world. This initially can take the form of ‘clearing and cleansing the path’ (the refinement of yin so that the yang shen can emerge) through releasing old resentments and the harbor of unnecessary forms of discrimination, the healing of old wounds, transforming patterns of stress and illness in the body, ceasing harmful consumption like violent or exploitive ‘entertainment’; to increasing or ‘tonifying’ your health and awareness through things like deep and honest self-reflection, eating cleanly and living healthfully, maintaining soft and kind eye contact, allowing for more heart-to-heart connection in daily interaction, realizing more specific gratitudes, expressing greater feelings of love and appreciation, moving from an inner softness quietness and stillness even when moving fast in the external world, sharing more generosity in compassion, or allowing for more freedom in joy as we move ourselves away from the unconscious habituation to misery.*  

 

[Take the time to read these guiding points less from the conceptual idea of specific blunt mechanical actions to take, but rather make  time to experience each potential as a sense in yourself; then as you become more conscious of each movement and expression, continue to refine how it is you are. As we turn the light, we refine ourselves. So too can we do this from within the subtle essences of qi, but also can we do so from the coarse condensation of qi as form and form in motion. This is how we become subtle- in mind, in breath, in movement and in sense. So re-read these pointers and self-reflect upon them as a sense in yourself- what do they feel like in your heart, in your body, in your spirit? Learn from the undiscriminating mind of sense by becoming more self-aware of how you live in stillness and in action, internally and externally.]

 

Then eventually as we relinquish even the desire for pleasure and beauty and move into a greater awareness, we can experience the true undifferentiated essence of nature in being: we can experience our own soul; we can experience Consciousness itself.

 

 

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*Note: conversely, do not to use pleasures or beauties as a way to escape, assuage, project or otherwise delude yourself away from truthfulness or you will be using pleasure for unconsciousness instead of misery for unconsciousness. The transcendence of these two unconscious ways is found in the willingness for truthfulness that comes from presence. 

Edited February 13, 2020 by Small Fur

[Rocky Lionmouth]

On 2020-02-13 at 1:49 PM, Starjumper said:

Lao Tzu sez suffering comes from having a body.

 

Well, the guy supposedly rode backwards on an ox never to be seen again. Ominous much?