The End Of Suffering

The way I see it, we have two choices. We can rail against reality and exhaust ourselves.

Or we can find a way to leave the room, the house, the office, the world, the moment, a little bit better every time, no matter how we’re feeling or what’s happening around us. We can learn to let go of wanting things to be other than they are.

Door number one: suffering. Door number two: the end of suffering.

Transcript

Hey everyone,

It's Judy Cohen and it's this wake-up call 445.

So let's go to basics and talk about suffering for a little while.

So suffering is a word I'm starting to hear in the vernacular in a way that I remember starting to hear the word mindfulness in the vernacular maybe a decade ago.

And so hearing the word mindfulness,

It surprised me and it really was,

It really delighted me to start to hear that and I feel the same way about suffering.

Hopefully that's not too strange,

But I really do feel that way.

In the ancient mindfulness texts,

The Buddha said,

I teach one thing and one thing only,

Suffering and the end of suffering.

And 2,

600 years later,

It's still the practice.

You know,

Here we are trying to understand what suffering really is and how it ends.

And I want to talk about what suffering is in the next few wake-up calls,

But today I want to talk about what I understand as the end of suffering,

Or you could say the beginning of the end of suffering,

What leads to the path to the end of suffering.

And I want to talk about that first because I think there can be a pretty big misunderstanding about it.

And the misunderstanding usually goes something along the lines of,

If we practice mindfulness,

Our lives will be entirely pleasant and we'll never be unhappy and that's the end of suffering.

And sometimes I meet someone who has that understanding and even has that as a goal,

You know,

To have an entirely pleasant,

Never unhappy life.

And they've maybe committed to never getting angrier,

They see sadness as more of an opportunity to find the pot of gold at the end of sorrow,

Or they believe they need nothing and sometimes no one and are therefore,

You know,

Living their lives free from desire.

And I think this is just as pervasive in our legal community as every place else.

A few years ago,

I was working with one of our teacher training students who was putting together a talk for their law firm,

And they said they weren't going to talk about suffering because no one was suffering at the firm.

Billable hours,

Requirements were low,

Pay was good,

There were no internal squabbles,

There were no screamers,

Nobody was getting divorced,

That was sort of the lineup.

Everybody was good.

And so it's another way of misunderstanding the end of suffering,

Being high up enough on Maslow's hierarchy that there isn't any more suffering.

But in all the conference rooms and classrooms I've been in,

You know,

Teaching mindfulness,

Whenever I ask people to raise their hands if they've never been angry or never had a sad moment that had no redeeming qualities or no good ending that they could see or never lusted for the next shiny thing,

Everybody laughs and nobody raises their hand.

So no one has no difficulties,

You know,

No one has no suffering.

And since that's the case,

It can't be that the end of suffering is having no difficulties,

Having no suffering,

Because there are people who have either reached that end of suffering or glimpsed it or had moments of the end of suffering.

And maybe you have,

And probably we all have had moments of the end of suffering.

And so what is this end of suffering?

And the way I understand it is it's the end of wanting things to be other than they are.

It's the end of believing if only anything.

You know,

If only I were wealthier,

Younger,

Older,

Healthier,

Taller,

Shorter,

Smarter,

More attractive,

Resilient,

Even more mindful,

Even more compassionate or self-compassionate,

Then I'd be happy.

And my happiness would be durable and something I could count on.

It's the end of all that.

All the great teachers have said it much more simply than that.

It's just letting go.

And so letting go of,

Letting go of wanting things to be other than they are.

And for me,

The genius of mindfulness is in seeing that the state of wanting things to be other than they are and never being able to let go into whatever is actually happening is what causes suffering.

And that amazingly,

And this is why we meditate,

When we sit quietly and pay attention to what's going on,

We can see that we have agency right here in this moment to relax and let go of all the wanting and wishing and end suffering by simply being with what is.

So you could probably tell,

By the way,

I'm talking and I'm getting over,

Or maybe I'm still in the middle of a cold or a flu,

Could be COVID,

Although my tests were negative.

I started feeling sick on Saturday,

I got really sick Sunday,

I was a mess on Monday,

Totally couch-bound Tuesday.

Yesterday,

I finally was up and about a little,

I'm here today,

Barely.

And also during those days,

This is what's happening,

Right?

Because this was all planned months ago,

I had to fly to Portland on Friday,

Help my kid make some really tough decisions on Saturday,

Help her pack her house,

Pack her house all day Sunday,

Help her load the car and drive.

And I was kind of barely conscious from Portland to Tahoe,

Lake Tahoe on Monday.

It's a nine-hour drive.

All right,

So here's what I noticed about the end of suffering.

I was mighty sick.

So I thought,

Okay,

I'm going to use my practice,

I'm not doing anything else,

I mean,

Other than all the things.

So why not use mindfulness to track suffering and the end of suffering?

And here's what I saw.

In the moments when I was feeling really sorry for myself,

I was suffering.

So the virus is bad,

Whatever this is,

But the feeling sorry for myself,

It made it so much worse.

I was,

The Zen folks,

I always talk about this,

Putting a hat on top of a hat.

I was making a virus that was a 10 out of 10 into a moment that also contained a 10 of feeling sorry for myself.

And the whole moment therefore became either a 20 or a 100,

Depending on whether the add-on emotion,

And I had agency over it once I could notice it,

Was either an add-on or a multiplier,

Right?

So when I let go of feeling sorry for myself and just,

You know,

Swigged another two Tylenol with my cough syrup,

There was a moment of,

Okay,

This is just how it is.

Same thing when I was worried my girl would get the virus,

Right?

The worry was also a 10 or maybe it was an eight or a nine.

And adding that to my 10 virus made for a lot more suffering.

And letting go of the worry kept the situation at a 10.

And she got it,

Of course she got it anyway,

Such a bummer,

Which was a good reminder to me of how useless worry is on all the other levels as well.

So there it is,

The 10 virus,

Nothing I could do about that other than,

You know,

Tylenol and cough syrup.

It was just happening.

When I forgot that,

Which happened plenty,

And the level 10 poor me thoughts or the level eight or nine worry thoughts started marching through my mind,

There I was,

Wanting things not to be the way they were.

When I remembered that,

Which truth be told,

Happened somewhat less frequently,

Essentially,

When I could be mindful of that,

There was still all the discomfort and grossness and terrible things about being so sick and sitting in a car for,

I don't know what it is,

655 miles.

But there was also an end to suffering.

And so I want to say one more thing,

Which I think is kind of funny.

And that is that when I first wrote this wake up call last night,

I had it completely characterized as that the end of suffering had happened throughout this whole exploration of the virus and the packing and the driving,

And that I was aware of it the whole time.

It was kind of interesting to read that back,

Which I always do in the morning before the call and realize that I was missing some of the suffering as well,

That I wasn't paying attention just like my friend who was doing his talk for his law firm.

And that when I really paid attention to what was going on,

I could see how much poor me there was going on and how much worry there was going on.

And then I could actually speak about this in a more authentic way.

So just to end with our old friend,

Pema Chodron,

Since we just finished her book,

And she just says this very simply,

She says,

No more struggle.

And so that's my understanding of the end of suffering.

So let's sit.

So finding your posture for this sit and bringing whatever uprightness is available to you right now to your practice,

The uprightness of the body and the dignity of doing something really important for yourself.

And just beginning by sensing into the body,

Either sitting or standing or walking or lying down or driving and seeing,

How am I feeling today?

I hope you're feeling better than me,

But see how am I feeling today?

And whatever you're noticing in the body,

Whatever you're noticing in the body,

Can you just be with it?

Maybe there are pleasant sensations.

Maybe there are unpleasant sensations.

Maybe it's neither,

But whatever you notice,

Can you just be with it?

Just noticing the body breathing and how the body feels.

And then also checking in what's going on in the mind.

And yeah,

Maybe there are thoughts.

If you're a lawyer,

If you're a human,

There's probably thoughts.

Yeah.

Just letting that be fine as well.

Just observing,

Oh,

That's just the way it is.

Not wanting more stillness in the mind or yearning for more stillness in the mind.

Just being with things just as they are right now.

Or noticing that there is yearning,

That there is wanting things to be different in some way in the body,

In the mind.

And letting it be okay that that's there,

Relaxing at that next level.

Yearning is happening.

Wanting things to be other than they are is just happening.

And then letting go there.

Or maybe an emotion crops up,

And it wasn't the emotion that you were hoping for.

And just noticing,

Oh,

That's what's happening.

And then letting go.

Or noticing that it wasn't the emotion you wanted,

And then letting go of that.

And then for the last minute we have together,

Maybe just calling up some gratitude for yourself.

For this beautiful practice and your energy and your devotion to,

Yeah,

Exploring the mind and letting go and maybe having a little less struggle.

Thanks,

Everyone,

For being on the wake-up call today.

Take good care and have a good week.

Be safe out there.

I'll see you next Thursday.

Reviews

Thanks Judi!