How long can pain be endured? Well, for as long
as you don’t wish it didn’t exist in the first place!
This may sound paradoxical. But that’s really a good way
to deal with pain. Any pain. From a headache to a cancer to a relationship
breakdown to a loss – even of a dear one.
When you have a headache, it is a simple, painful fact.
There is a headache. Period. That pain, of the headache, is converted into
suffering the moment you start wishing that it were not there. Your wish that “it”
– the headache – did not exist is causing “you” to suffer. You can understand
this better if you become an observe that merely observes the headache. As an
observer you are seeing the reality – a form of pain is affecting a human body
that you are currently residing in. Is the observer – you – in pain or is the
body in pain? Obviously the body is feeling the pain. Because you are able to
see it as distinctively different from your real Self. So, in reality, the pain
is not affecting “you” when you are an observer. It affects you, however, when
you begin to relate to the body, identify it as yours and wish that the pain
was not there. That’s when pain, in this case a headache, becomes suffering.
This is true in every painful context in our lives. The
key is to become a witness, observe the pain, accept it and not wish it weren’t
there. This may not take away the pain in any manner. Nor even reduce it. But
it will surely free us from suffering. And incredibly enhance our ability to
deal with any kind of pain. When there is no
suffering, there’s an inner peace, an indescribable calm that makes journeying
through Life, despite the pain, an interesting, at times even beautiful,
experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment