The Number One Reason We Suffer

This Podcast is describing two of the three characteristics that the Buddha says exist in all things. Paying attention to these characteristics: change and dissatisfaction can give us deep insight into our suffering. I offer a few suggestive practices when you find yourself suffering.

Transcript

I'm so grateful that you are here.

I'm so so grateful that you are here.

Today we're going to talk about change and how deeply uncomfortable changes and how I believe in what they teach in Buddhism,

How change is literally one of the most fundamental occurrences in nature in the natural world and that in order for us to suffer less,

We have to really examine this truth of the natural world.

And we have to not only examine it,

But understand that change is one of the big reasons that we feel so dissatisfied in life.

And so I'm going to kind of talk about both of those things and kind of share how I've been working with change and hopefully you get something beautiful out of it.

So in Buddhism,

There's kind of the Buddha talks about that there's like three characteristics of life.

And these characteristics are always here,

They're always present.

And there's the three characteristics that we can always be present to,

To help us alleviate our own suffering.

And the first one is that everything changes.

So impermanence.

Now,

I want to clarify impermanence because as I've been teaching impermanence over the years,

Something that I notice when we begin talking about impermanence is that people tend to think that it means end,

Like stopping,

Gone forever.

And I want to say that's actually the exact opposite of impermanence.

So if something were permanent,

Then it would be here and then if it went away,

Then that would also be permanent,

Right?

So like,

If something is permanent,

Then it's here forever.

Or if something is permanent,

Then it's gone forever.

And impermanence is the idea that nothing is permanent,

But everything is always changing.

Everything is always here and then coming and going and coming and going and always shifting into something different.

And we can really begin to just observe this in our life.

You know,

I think the first place that we can really observe it is in our particular life and our experience.

And if you think back in your life,

You can really begin to notice how things are always changing.

Our situations,

Our circumstances,

Our age,

Our job,

Our moods,

Our thoughts,

Our dreams,

Our dreams are always changing.

Our bodies are changing.

And we can really begin to just notice like,

Hmm,

Yeah,

Nothing has stayed the same for too long.

Even if you're in something that seems like it's staying the same,

Let's say like marriage or something,

Or job.

That marriage or relationship is constantly changing.

Today you really like the person,

You're really connected,

You feel intimate.

Tomorrow they do something annoying,

You feel disconnected,

Right?

And that span can occur in a few hours.

It doesn't even have to be day to day,

It could be moment to moment.

I really care about you.

I love you.

And then they do something annoying and it's like,

Oh my gosh,

Can I do this?

I'm raising my hand.

I totally had that exact situation happen,

You know?

And so noticing how even how we feel about things is constantly changing.

And if you have a job,

You know,

Same thing.

It's like even if your tasks look very similar,

They're actually quite different.

Like you'll be,

Let's say if you're a car mechanic,

You might be working on the same sorts of things over and over again.

But every day it's different cars,

Different little micro problems,

Or let's say you're bank teller,

And you count money most of the day,

Or you're giving out money,

It's different customers,

It's different actual literal $20 bills that you hold in your hand,

Right?

Or let's say you're a counselor,

A therapist,

Same thing,

A different different client,

Different challenges,

Different things that they want to talk about.

So actually,

Even if something looks exactly the same,

It's actually different.

And we can begin to open our eyes and begin to notice how everything is always changing.

So we can start with our own world and our own experience.

I think a really healthy place to start is with our emotions and our moods,

Because those are some of the things that make us most stuck in our life.

You know,

We have a mood that we're sad or depressed today or anxious today.

And we forget that it will change.

I don't know a single person who has had anxiety every single moment of every single day of their entire life or depression,

Every single moment,

Every single day of their entire life,

No,

They have moments of joy,

Moments of calm moments of focus,

Maybe they're eating something like moments of reprieve from those and then maybe,

You know,

The depression or the anxiety arises at times throughout the day.

But it also goes away at times throughout the day.

And we can really begin to fine tune our awareness and really notice the ebbs and flows of ourselves,

Of our bodies,

Our lives,

Of the planet,

Of our relationships.

Literally we can begin to observe it in every single moment like,

Oh,

And when you begin observing a moment knowing it's going to change.

And for me,

This is super relieving.

You know,

It's also a little bit sad.

And so,

You know,

We were going to have to learn to be with that.

But even even when we have sadness arise,

That too will change.

That too will come.

It'll peak and then it'll begin to dissipate.

It'll go away,

It'll shift,

It'll change.

And it's sad because you know,

A lot of times,

And this is where the second characteristic of Buddhism comes into play.

When something is good,

Or feels good or is pleasurable in our lives,

We don't want it to go away.

So that evokes sadness,

Or that evokes grief.

And the Buddha,

The second characteristic of life is that life is unsatisfying.

And life is unsatisfying because everything changes.

So when something is really good,

We want to cling to it.

We hold on tighter,

We don't want it to go away.

You know,

If you're in a relationship,

This can often look like manipulation,

You know,

Or changing who you are,

Because you like,

Want to appease this other person,

Right?

It can begin to take on this clinging can begin or neediness or overbearingness or trying to control.

We can see this when we begin to cling because we're afraid of change.

We have fear of the natural tendency that things that come also go away.

And in relationship,

You know,

Even if you're with the same person,

For your entire,

You know,

One relationship for your entire life,

Eventually,

Right,

Guess what?

We die.

And then the relationship goes away then.

So it doesn't matter necessarily,

The length of time,

It's knowing that at some time,

It will go away.

And even if you're in a marriage,

There are times when the relationship,

You know,

Gets more separate,

Gets more disconnected,

And then you have to reconnect or reconnects,

You know,

This kind of constant shifting,

Constant changing that's occurring.

And so we're constantly unsatisfied in life.

Because when things are good,

We cling to them.

We hold on tighter,

We don't want it to go away.

And so we start acting in the fear of clinging,

Right,

I'm going to lose this,

I need to cling,

Cling,

Cling.

And that creates a lot of suffering for us.

Or if something is bad,

Quote unquote,

Bad,

Hard,

Challenging,

Then we want it to go away quicker.

So then we begin becoming unsatisfied or dissatisfied because this thing is lingering,

And we don't want it to.

We would rather not feel anxious.

We would rather not feel depressed.

We would rather not be in a fight with our partner,

We would rather not have made the mistake at work.

And so in those moments,

We have we have a version,

We push away the thing instead of also recognizing,

Wait,

Wait,

Wait,

Wait,

Wait,

Yes,

This is uncomfortable.

And instead of fighting it,

Or running from it,

Or numbing it or distracting from it,

Beginning to recognize,

Okay,

This is dissatisfying,

This is suffering,

And it will change.

This too will change.

I can't tell you how many times in my life coaching practice,

I hear people say the words to me.

I feel like this is going to be here forever.

If I feel the pain,

I'm afraid it won't go away.

And I have such deep compassion for that,

Because I,

I know that feeling,

I know that experience of like,

Oh my gosh,

Will this ever go away?

You know,

The biggest experience that I can share for my own personal life is when I got divorced.

One,

Very,

Very,

Very painful,

And,

You know,

I would,

I would just see someone on the street that reminded me of the relationship or something.

And I would just burst out into tears,

You know,

It's kind of uncontrollable.

And I was like,

Oh,

My gosh,

Is this ever going to end?

Is this ever going to my ever going to be able to just function and be okay again.

And the bigger one is that I would when I like for years,

You guys years,

I think it was like three or four years.

After my divorce,

I would see a couple and I would literally think I was going to puke.

I would get so nauseated,

Like,

Especially if they were like a happy couple.

My whole body would react.

And I really wondered like,

Oh,

My God,

Is that gonna go away?

Like,

Am I going to be able to celebrate people's love?

Am I going to be able to like,

Seek goodness and relationship?

And Oh,

And it's gotten better,

But it's still even there sometimes like,

Like it arises at times where I will see an old couple walking in the grocery store.

This has happened to me recently.

I saw like an old couple walking in the grocery store.

And they looked kind of like disconnected and they like he was like walking way ahead of her and she was like trying to talk to him and,

You know,

Catch up to him.

And I could see she was like annoyed in her face or something,

You know,

All of this is story by the way,

I have no idea what's actually going on.

But as I'm watching,

You know,

I'm like watching this couple and my whole body reacted.

And it felt like,

Oh,

My gosh,

Can people be married forever and be happy?

You know,

That was what kind of rose up in me and my body had this physical reaction.

And the thing to really notice is that so you know,

I've this is my eighth year of being divorced.

One is to notice that I can begin to think back about how strong and intense it was at one time.

And now how mild it is,

You know,

I also see couples now and I totally celebrate them.

I think,

Oh,

They're so sweet or so cute,

Or they seem so connected and enjoying each other.

And I can now celebrate that where when I first got divorced,

It felt really challenging for me to celebrate that.

So I can watch kind of the changing nature of my own experience of my feelings of my moods of my beliefs or viewpoints about relationship.

And by the way,

Our beliefs and relationships are our sorry,

Not relationships,

Our beliefs and viewpoints also change.

Our beliefs and our viewpoints also change.

And if we don't have spaciousness in order to allow that natural change,

Change is natural.

We're not meant to stay the exact same our entire life.

We're meant to change,

Shift,

Evolve.

And if you don't believe me,

You have to just look out at the world like look at your own life,

Like,

Look at how you've changed with time.

Like it's not me saying a truth.

It's you have to see it in the real world.

And you can see it in nature to nothing stays the same.

Trees,

They get bigger,

They grow leaves,

Then they lose their leaves,

Some of them grow fruit or flowers,

Then they lose that fruit and flowers,

Grass grows,

Then it dies.

Wind comes and then it goes the sun is shining one day and then at another day,

It's,

You know,

Covered by clouds or it's raining,

Like,

Everything is changing.

And that includes our beliefs and our viewpoints.

And I think so much suffering in this life occurs because we cling to our beliefs and our viewpoints.

We cling to them,

Right?

And then something shows up in our life that wants to bump up against our viewpoints.

And we're clinging so tightly that we suffer greatly.

Now I'm not saying just believe everything you hear.

Like to change your belief system and to change your viewpoints,

I think takes some independent thought and takes some like,

You know,

Deep inquiry and self questioning and listening.

You know,

Part of what I think what I see in the world so much is that there's so much information in the world.

And pretty much,

You can find information that supports every viewpoint.

So if you believe in something,

You can find evidence for that belief.

And then if somebody believes the opposite,

They can find evidence for that belief.

And like,

Good evidence,

You know,

You can find scientific evidence,

Usually on a lot of,

You know,

Opposing sides,

You can find,

You know,

People sharing their experience,

Like hearing real life stories that support both.

So I want to just say that I think a lot of when we begin shifting and changing our beliefs or viewpoints,

It takes a lot of being silent and being able to be with yourself really asking yourself what feels actually true or what feels right in my body,

Not just reading what you read on Instagram and automatically believing it.

So I want to really just preface that because,

You know,

To be honest,

There was a time in my life when that is kind of the position I took.

Where like,

Even with Buddhism,

Let me really explain this in Buddhism,

When something bumps up against something that I believe in Buddhism or something that I,

You know,

Am curious about in Buddhism,

There will be times when I'm like,

Oh,

That seems to go completely against what I thought.

And so then I will actually sit with myself practice it,

Sit with it,

Inquiry,

Look,

You know,

Investigate for myself.

And usually what ends up happening is something quite beautiful,

Which I have insights arrive or I have,

You know,

Wisdom arise around whatever the topic is.

And a lot of times,

And you know,

This is just my experience,

A lot of times it actually strengthens my ability to really lean into Buddhism.

And so like,

For me,

That's helpful because it just keeps verifying this thing.

But the verification comes from me actually being willing to say,

Hmm,

I don't know.

Hmm,

That seems to butt up against that seems to,

To clash with.

And then sometimes we have to just be okay,

We have to learn to be okay with that clashing with that unknown with that ambiguity,

Because things are constantly changing and in flux.

So if things were like,

Forever permanent,

Right,

Like if you knew that you got married,

And you're going to be married to that person for the rest of your life,

Like if that if things were permanent,

Then we would need less of an expansion of being you know,

With tall,

Expanding our ability to be with tolerance,

Because like things would be known.

Well,

That's not how the world works.

It's not it's not reality.

And I'm not saying get into a marriage and then question it all the time.

But I am saying get into a marriage.

And then when doubts arise,

Be able to be with those doubts.

Without beating yourself up without believing the doubts like you don't have to necessarily believe the doubts.

But doubts are going to arise.

Questioning arises.

Fears arise,

These things arise.

And we don't have to have a version to them,

Right?

Because a version creates suffering.

But instead,

We can say,

A fear is here.

Hmm,

Doubt is here.

What's doubt like?

We can bring in mindfulness.

Hmm,

Clingings here.

What's that like?

So we can bring in mindfulness,

And then the second part always is mindfulness and kindness,

Mindfulness and compassion for ourselves.

So whenever we're doubting,

Or maybe we're having,

You know,

I have people all the time hire me and they're like,

Well,

I'm thinking about divorcing my spouse.

And I feel so guilty about even thinking about that.

It's like,

Okay,

Well,

I don't know if I've ever known a person who hasn't been in a marriage who hasn't thought of the D word.

I literally do not know a couple that hasn't been married,

That has not thought about the divorce word.

Now,

It's different to think it than to cling to it or to have a version to it,

Right?

It's different to just think it and allow a thought to come and know that the thought will change.

And be in kind of the discomfort of the thought like,

Okay,

I'm having a thought about divorce.

That's a little uncomfortable.

Can I be kind to myself right now?

And can I be kind to my partner right now,

Knowing that this is what's here?

Versus what I see people doing is that they have such guilt around feeling these ways,

Even though feeling these ways is normal.

And so what they do is they cling to them like,

Oh my gosh,

Because I'm thinking it must mean something's wrong,

Right?

They cling to it,

They try to find all the evidence for it.

Or they have a version to it and they don't,

They're not willing to let themselves be human and have duality or have opposing thoughts.

We're going to have opposing thoughts.

There's nothing wrong with opposing thoughts.

Like they're going to arise.

Life is challenging.

Relationships are challenging.

Like if you're in a job and you're questioning whether you should be in the job,

That's normal.

That's normal.

I think we think in this life that we're going to get into something and then we'll never question it.

And it's such an unrealistic goal.

It's such an unrealistic goal.

That's not how the mind works.

The mind actually is always searching for what's wrong because if the mind knows what's wrong,

Then it can protect you.

And so that is quite normal.

But what we do as humans is we don't understand the constant changing nature of things.

We don't understand that our thoughts are going to change,

That they're going to kind of like a tennis court,

Go from here to there to here to there.

We don't really understand that.

We haven't observed it enough in our own experience.

And when something like that happens,

We then pile it on with clinging or neediness or trying to keep it around like grasping at something.

Or we have aversion to it.

We numb ourselves.

We run.

You know,

And we never actually just learn that life has constant change.

And because of that change,

We are always suffering.

And remember,

Suffering has a small s and a big s.

So there are small sufferings like little irritations,

Like stubbing our toe,

Right?

There are little s.

We suffer every day,

Even in little ways.

We eat something,

It upsets our stomach.

We're at work and we feel tired,

Right?

And instead of just allowing ourselves to feel tired,

We cling to this idea that something's wrong with us or we need coffee,

Right?

We don't just allow things to come.

Like tiredness will come and it will go.

It might take a little time,

But it will arise and then it will go away.

Same as our moods,

Same as our bodies.

You know,

There's so much suffering around body because the body is in constant change,

Constant fluctuation.

And especially over time,

You know,

Like from birth until death,

Like the body changes a lot.

The way it looks changes,

The way it feels changes.

And what we do is we don't want the change,

Right?

So the first thing is that there's change.

And the second part is that we're dissatisfied because we don't want the change.

We either want the change faster,

Like right,

Like if we want to lose weight,

We want to lose weight faster.

Or if we,

You know,

Are getting older,

We don't want it.

We want it to slow down.

We don't want it to change so quickly.

And so we're constantly in this dissatisfied state instead of just beginning to recognize everything's always changing.

And I can really begin to observe that because of that constant changing,

Because of that impermanence that I suffer.

And it's really interesting to watch it instead of be constantly reacting to it.

You know,

I think that so many humans,

It's like,

We're always trying to fix things or figure out things or change things or,

You know,

We're constantly feeling like we're not,

This isn't enough.

This isn't good enough.

This isn't what I really want.

This isn't,

You know,

We're in this constant,

But I kind of feel like we're constantly looking for the next best thing because we're just not okay with reality,

Which is that things are always changing.

And because of that change,

We're either clinging or having aversion.

And that creates so much suffering and we don't want to feel suffering.

We will do anything to try to not feel suffering.

And this is where kindness,

Kindness is key.

You know,

The first noble truth of Buddhism is that there is suffering and we can begin to observe that suffering in our day to day life,

Whether it's the small S sufferings or the big S sufferings.

And as we observe these sufferings,

We can really,

We need to lean more and more and more into kindness and compassion,

Being kind and gentle with ourselves.

I feel like so much of our culture is like work hard or do better.

You know,

It's like this,

Like,

Um,

Kind of like let's beat ourselves into submission type of attitude.

And I want to suggest that effort definitely has its place.

We can have effort.

We can,

We can,

You know,

Put effort into our lives,

But we need to meet that effort with the same amount of kindness.

If you're like trying to lose weight or something and you're putting in a bunch of effort,

But then you're just beating yourself up for everything that you're doing,

That beating yourself up is gonna,

It's called like the vicious cycle.

You know,

That beating yourself up is going to cause you to want to eat worse because you feel like crap about yourself.

Right?

It like the beating yourself up actually scientifically has proven to not be as helpful as kindness,

Like kindness research,

Compassion research is,

It's like exploding right now.

It's really cool that they keep proving that the kinder we are to ourselves,

The more compassion we give ourselves,

That actually it really helps us create lasting change and it really helps us choose more healthy things for ourselves because we like ourselves.

When we're kind and compassionate to ourselves and we really like ourselves,

We want to do the helpful thing.

Whereas when we're berating ourselves and beating ourselves up all the time and thinking that we're doing everything wrong,

Then we tend to treat ourselves that way and choose things that like aren't as healthy or aren't as life-giving because like,

Who cares?

We're a piece of crap anyway.

And so our job is to really like up,

Up,

Up,

Up,

Up,

Up the volume on kindness.

And so as you suffer,

Right?

So we're going to suffer because everything is always changing.

And because everything is always changing,

We're always fighting that change.

We're clinging to things that are good and we're,

We have aversion to things that are bad.

And in that suffering,

In that natural suffering,

This is natural and we can observe it instead of reacting to it.

We can observe that we're suffering,

Bring in kindness and watch it change.

So we can observe that something is changing,

That it's causing us suffering and we can be really kind to ourselves and gentle with ourselves and slow with ourselves and watch it change again because that too will change.

And something that I've been really practicing and this incorporates both the knowledge that things change and this kindness is whenever I'm suffering.

So in a moment when I am feeling a lot of suffering,

Maybe it's I'm feeling insecure,

Maybe it's I'm feeling like I made a mistake and I'm trying to figure out how to fix it.

Maybe it's,

You know,

I just feel crappy in my body that day,

Whatever it is.

I've been like placing my hand on my chest and I'll kind of close my eyes down and I'll just say,

It's okay,

Babe,

This will change.

It's okay,

Babe,

You can be with this.

You can be with this discomfort.

You can be with this suffering.

You can be with it.

I'm right here with you and I promise you it will change.

And the second that I do this,

It's interesting because it like it kind of like,

Um,

It allows for the change to occur quicker.

It's almost like I soften and open and in that softening and opening the change can naturally occur.

Whereas when I'm clinging or I'm having aversion,

It's almost like that holding on or that avoidance keeps the thing around longer.

It kind of traps it.

And when people say that they feel stuck,

Cause I have a lot of people that come to me saying that too.

I really can see that the stuckness is often us not wanting to be with the dissatisfaction that's here.

And so we feel stuck instead of feeling the dissatisfaction.

Like I kind of feel like in the ease of being with the dissatisfaction,

The relaxing into the dissatisfaction,

Oftentimes in that space,

That awareness space,

New things arise.

The change begins to occur.

So let's say you're dissatisfied in your work and you're like kind of trying to force,

You know,

I need to change jobs.

I need to do something different.

And you're having aversion to the discomfort that you're having in your job.

Oftentimes you're so obsessed with the discomfort and you're like searching for everything.

You know,

You're like looking around trying to that oftentimes you miss something that might arise right in the space of being like,

Okay,

This is uncomfortable.

Can I be kind to myself?

And inside of that relaxing,

A lot of times something new will arise,

But we miss it because we're so like obsessed with our discomfort.

We're clinging to it or we're trying our hardest to avoid it.

And I want to say right where the discomfort is.

That's also where the breakthroughs happen.

Right there.

The breakthroughs are in the breakdowns.

Because right in the moment when you feel unsatisfied,

That's where we can actually do the work.

You know,

It's kind of like the saying like,

You can only put a fire out where the fire is.

And right where the fire was,

Is then one day right where it will be cool and at peace.

But where we feel the fire,

The discomfort,

We want to run from it.

And I want to suggest not running.

Clinging is a form of running,

Right?

We cling,

We try to change.

It's like clinging is like a form of like,

Holding on so tight that something can't change,

Even though it's going to,

You know,

That's why it causes suffering is because the clinging doesn't work.

Just like the numbing doesn't work.

It doesn't work because the change is going to happen anyway.

Everything changes.

And so my suggestion as you kind of walk away from this podcast is that you just really begin to observe the changing nature.

And as you observe the changing nature,

You know,

I want to really suggest that you just offer deep,

Deep,

Deep kindness for yourself because sometimes that change is relieving.

When you're suffering,

It's relieving.

And sometimes that change is sad when something's really good.

So just,

You know,

Being mindful of how you're feeling when you're observing change and offering yourself comfort,

Placing the hand on the chest saying kind things like you can sit with this,

It's okay.

And sometimes when we think about big change,

Like death or something,

We sometimes have to go away from it.

So you don't have to sit with it forever.

You can sit with it until it feels maybe like too uncomfortable.

And then you can go distract yourself in healthy ways.

But distract consciously like,

Okay,

I sat with this,

I feel it.

And it's becoming a little intense and maybe the act of kindness for myself is to go take a walk to do something healthy.

For myself,

Take a yoga class,

Get on the floor,

Roll around,

Pick up your kitten,

Hold your kitten love on your kitten,

Your puppy,

You know,

Doing a healthy distraction,

But doing it consciously.

The really only goal is to just keep bringing in more and more mindfulness and more and more kindness.

Okay,

If you loved this podcast,

Please rate and review and comment.

I can't wait to hear from you guys.

And you can also visit my insight timer front page and you can find my website and everything there too.

Thank you guys so much.

Reviews

This was a beautiful podcast and really put a lot of definition to ‘everything changes.’ Thank you so much for such a thoughtful talk. It really helps. 🩵

A beautiful and gentle way to express some difficult truths regarding the reality of life, but truths that welcome an awareness that offers a newfound freedom or a sense of deliverance from our old way of thinking, feeling, and seeing life. A crisp way of creating space for a new perspective that allows for the acceptance of the ebbs and the flow of life and the awareness that change is a constant variable in the journey of life.

The truth will set you free, but first it'll piss you off. That's how I feel towards this brilliant talk right now. Thank you.

Great podcast! Sensational explanations! So simple yet in a crisis may be challenging! Good suggestions! Thank you very much! A+

Absolutely superb reflections delivered in a lovely American accent 🌟 Warm Season's Greetings to you 😁

Very easily grasped the essence of this talk. Thanks so much.

Lots of wise words quite valuable to a life. Thank you for your thoughts and meaningful insights

For me you pulled together many of the things I've learnt and am still learning about suffering and my behaviours over many years. In your words I see the connection between the different threads. Thank you so much. I will return to your practical advice and insight. And above all, continue to sit with uncomfortable feeling and practice kindness and compassion xx

Wise words. Thank you for this 🙏🏼❤️

Very helpful. Thank you.

This was fantastic.

Thank you very helpful 🙏