Letting Go Of Suffering

A clear-eyed practice on suffering - both what suffering is and the mental source of suffering in our delusions of attachment, anger, and self-centered ignorance. We practice the antidotes to these delusions, giving us tools for a more balanced, less self-centered view of our experience that offers sustained stability and happiness through life’s challenges and desires.

Transcript

BELL Find yourself someplace quiet.

Cross-legged on the floor,

Elevated on a cushion.

Or seated in a chair with your feet flat on the floor.

Your spine straight.

Your hands on your lap or on your knees.

Tilt your head slightly down,

Half-close your eyes.

Relax your shoulders,

Your face,

Your brow.

Let go of all the tension in your body.

And establish your motivation for meditating today.

That there's nothing better I could be doing with my time right now.

Going inward into my mind to understand and create the true causes of happiness.

To create a happy,

Meaningful life for myself.

And to be a great partner,

Friend,

Father,

Mother,

Son,

Daughter,

Brother,

Sister,

Co-worker.

To everyone around me.

And feel a sense of refuge in your own best qualities.

In your mind's natural goodness.

And if you can think of them,

The goodness of the kindest,

Warmest,

Most patient and loving people that you know or that you know of.

Both in your own life and in the world around you.

And let the qualities of those good people,

Those making the most of their lives,

Let that manifest like a vast space of light in front of you.

Like a foggy field where every point of fog emits a little bit of light.

And let it press forward and envelop you.

And your body feels light and energized,

Filled with those good qualities.

You feel a sense of courage and capability and strength.

And openness,

Kindness,

Love and compassion.

Bring your mind to your breath for a moment.

Focus on your nostrils as air comes in and out.

Especially at that moment of fullness when there's a pause.

Or focus on your abdomen rising and falling.

As you try to focus on your breath,

If memories,

Thoughts and feelings,

Or pains or sensations in your body,

If these occur,

Try to just let them pass by without giving them your full attention.

Notice that they'll naturally rise and diminish on their own and bring your attention back to your breath.

And for one minute,

Focus on your breath.

And let it press forward and envelop you.

And your body feels light and energized,

Filled with those good qualities.

And your body feels light and energized,

Filled with those good qualities.

And for one minute,

Focus on your breath.

If memories,

Thoughts and feelings,

Or pains or sensations in your body,

If these occur,

Let them press forward and envelop you.

And your body feels light and energized,

Filled with those good qualities.

Feel your body and mind and Ouais.

Let them press forward and envelop you.

Of how to transform any experience into one that brings happiness and stability in your own mind and a deeper connection to everyone you encounter.

The purpose isn't to get depressed or down,

But to take a clear-eyed view at reality,

How suffering naturally occurs in all its forms,

To prepare us for it so that we're ready and so that in fact we suffer less when the problems of life occur.

We contemplate the first form of suffering called the suffering of suffering.

You can reflect on poverty,

The billion or so people who don't have enough to eat every day,

Don't have a safe place to live,

Don't have clean water,

The pain that so many people feel every day,

The sickness that befalls people from colds to cancer,

The natural suffering of aging as our bodies wear out.

The everyday forms of suffering,

Not getting what you want or getting what you don't want.

The suffering of loneliness,

The suffering of the constant change in your reputation,

Your job,

In relationships,

The unreliability of any position in life,

The things that make us anxious and competitive.

All of these things are natural parts of life,

All these forms of suffering.

And by acknowledging this,

Meditating on it,

We come to a realistic view of problems,

To expect problems,

To be ready for them.

And then we also reflect in a clear-eyed way on what's called the suffering of change.

The suffering of change is a term that refers to the things we ordinarily call pleasures.

But the first way to understand this form of suffering is to realize that things wear out.

The shiny,

Expensive objects we buy that we saved up so long for,

Like a phone,

A car,

And even your home.

As we recall from our meditation on impermanence,

Each of these wears out,

Breaks down.

Everything that begins ends.

But even if things don't wear out,

And don't wear out in the span that we have them,

Our mind can change.

We get sick of objects.

We get tired of the fancy phone that we were once so excited to unbox.

We get annoyed with the partner who once we thought was our greatest source of happiness.

Our mind changes over time.

We change how we feel about the objects.

They don't give us lasting happiness.

And yet there are cases when an object might satisfy us for a long time,

Even for our whole life.

But even if objects don't wear out,

Even if our mind doesn't change,

We have to accept that we lose everything when we die.

And that this thought isn't depressing.

Thinking and meditating like this isn't meant to make you feel bad,

But to be a motivation to live the most meaningful life possible.

To not sweat the small stuff.

To bring our joy and compassion and attention to the daily pleasures and pains of life.

That's the reason to reflect on suffering.

To come to a more realistic view of reality.

To be ready for suffering.

And to label it clearly when it occurs,

Without letting it take hold of our mind,

Destroy our day or week or year or the rest of our life.

The source of suffering isn't the external objects themselves,

But what we call our delusions.

The three strongest delusions call the root delusions of craving and anger and ignorance.

So for a moment we meditate on these and reflect to get a clearer sense of the true causes of pain in our minds,

These delusions.

Attachment or craving is when we exaggerate the positive aspects of an object.

When we look at a thing or a person or some achievement or status and all we can think of is the way we believe it's going to make us feel.

If only that person would love us,

We'll be happy,

Have the perfect relationship.

If only we got that job or that raise or promotion or recognition,

Status,

Some reward or prize,

We'd be happy.

That if we only get that phone,

We'll have the perfect device.

But look at your mind,

That mind of attachment.

You see that that mind is exaggerating.

There's a part of you that already knows this.

See how your mind is exaggerating right now?

Bring to mind one of the objects of strong attachment that you have.

See how your mind unrealistically imagines that if you get that object,

A certain amount of money,

If a certain person loves you or loves you more,

A view that if this one thing happens,

That you'll be truly happy.

See how that's a little bit deluded and exaggerated?

And then anger is the other side.

Or you see an object or a person or an experience and all you see is the negative.

You exaggerate its power to harm.

You can't see any good in it at all.

You see it as a negative.

You see it as a positive.

You can't see any good in it at all.

And see this now bring to mind some object of anger for you.

And see how hard it is to see any good in that object,

That thing.

How your mind projects total harm,

Total annoyance upon the object and how your mind resists a realistic view of the object or thing or achievement,

Understanding its benefits and not just seeing its drawbacks.

And then we look at ignorance and ignorance of failing to see the true causes of happiness,

The interdependent nature of reality,

Ignorance of impermanence,

Of cause and effect.

The way things truly exist is changing,

Transforming,

Dependent.

And then the core form of ignorance,

Of believing that we're more important than others,

And my happiness,

My satisfaction,

My partner,

My kids,

My money,

My stuff.

This exaggerated sense of self-importance is the root of ignorance,

The root of our suffering.

Try to see that clearly now without judging yourself for feeling bad.

But just honestly looking at your mind,

Seeing how we each think that I'm just a little more important than everyone else.

My problems,

My suffering,

My needs,

My relationships.

And now we move on to the antidotes.

Many of us might think that our attachment,

Our anger,

And even the confusion and self-absorption of ignorance are part of our personality,

That if we gave them up,

We'd lose some essential part of ourself.

But attachment,

Anger,

And ignorance are not our friends.

They're not me.

They're simply inaccurate ways of seeing reality.

Happiness and mental stability come from simply seeing reality as it is rather than how we wish it to be.

And there are ways of bending each of these distorted views of reality,

Each of these delusions,

By applying its antidote.

So with attachment or strong craving,

An antidote is to see the flaws of the object.

And so try this now,

See if it works for you.

Bring to mind an object of strong attachment,

Of strong craving for you,

Whether it's a person or an object or some achievement in life.

And for a moment contemplate the flaws of the object.

If it's a relationship,

You could see how there's no way that person would be perfectly pleasing to you,

That many problems and irritations would arise in your everyday life if you did get into a relationship.

Or that thing you want to buy inevitably won't work as well as you think it does.

And also owning fancy things makes you nervous that they could be stolen.

Or the job you think it's perfect for you,

If you got it,

Might completely overrun your entire life and have no time for anything else.

And the people you work with might change the way that you act,

Change the way that you act.

You might become different in a way that you don't like,

Too busy for your friends as well.

You might lose track of who you really are.

So whatever it is,

For a moment,

Quietly,

Consider the drawbacks of some object of strong attachment to you.

And now we move on to the antidote to anger,

To seeing the benefit of problems,

Of problematic people,

Even the benefit in how they help you turn away from external objects.

So consider an object of anger for you,

That could quite likely be a person,

And bring them to mind,

Whether it's someone you like,

Or someone you don't like.

Bring them to mind,

Whether it's someone close to you,

That you work with,

Or in your family,

Or a politician,

Or a business person,

Someone in the world,

You don't like what they're doing,

Who's harming you or harming others in a way that you don't want.

Bring that person to mind.

Now try and contemplate that this person has good qualities,

That they do good things,

That they have people around them who love them,

Relatives,

Friends,

A mother even,

Who thinks they're the greatest person in the world.

If they're famous,

They might even have millions of people who admire what they do.

And also this person,

Their actions have positive effects too.

They don't just harm.

In fact,

Their harm might be a very small part of their life.

So try and gain a balanced view that that person doesn't only do evil,

And that many others admire,

Like them,

Even love them,

That they do good things as well as bad,

That they help as well as harm.

But another benefit of this person is that they can help galvanize the opposition.

They may help crystallize people with the opposing point of view,

Who would not have otherwise been organized without them.

A person who's irritating you also helps you to become patient or forgiving.

That may be hard to admit,

But perhaps due to the pain of getting angry again and again,

This person's behavior helps us to finally give up on anger and practice its antidotes like we're doing today,

In meditation,

In contemplation.

Every day on the cushion or as we read the news.

When we get angry,

It's a helpful reminder that our mind still needs training.

And if we're aware of the antidotes,

We can practice them immediately.

Both attachment and anger help us realize that we're lucky to be among those who have tools to show us the true source of satisfaction in life,

That we're not someone like this disturbing person,

This enemy of my mind.

How we can feel compassion for that person who lacks the tools that we do for training and calming,

Soothing the mind.

When I get a little bit angry myself,

It can help me feel compassion for those who are ruled by their anger.

To understand that they aren't willfully harming others,

But that they're controlled by their delusions,

By their own cause and effect,

The habits they've burnt into their mind.

Every time you get angry,

You're reinforcing your habit of getting angry.

And every time you're patient or forgiving,

You reinforce the habit of patience or forgiveness.

And I can go further in reflecting on cause and effect.

I can think how I'm not in control of external reality,

But I am in control of my mind.

I can see reality as an interdependent chain of cause and effect.

I can see how my thoughts and actions have some small effect,

But really I'm not in control of anything but my mind.

Once I gain control of my mind,

I'll be in a far better state to genuinely help others,

To genuinely fight the injustice that I see in the world.

How can I really help anyone when I can't even control my own mind,

My own anger,

My own attachment?

That's the first step.

By seeing this mental cause and effect,

That I can plant the seeds of satisfaction and happiness by having a more realistic view that attachment,

Anger,

And ignorance are not my friends,

They're not a key part of my personality.

To apply the antidotes like this to let them go brings real happiness.

And letting go of attachment and anger,

I can still enjoy life.

In fact,

I can even enjoy it more.

Without these exaggerated reactions,

Exaggerating the joys of food or sex or jobs or relationships,

I can more realistically appreciate their complexity,

Their impermanence.

Exaggerating the harm of things that hurt me or hurt the world.

Can better see how these are a natural part of life,

How they offer me the opportunity to practice patience,

Kindness,

Forgiveness,

Non-attachment.

Can even come to see the benefits of difficult experiences,

That without them I couldn't evolve my consciousness.

Without them I wouldn't have been drawn to meditation,

Philosophical contemplation,

Considering the true causes of happiness and meaning and purpose in life.

And so ending the meditation,

We set a motivation to go into our day now,

And to stay mindful,

Be aware of when our mind feels attached,

To observe it with a little distance,

And then to consciously reflect on the drawbacks of the object that we're craving so much.

And then also to watch ourselves as we get angry,

And notice how we completely exaggerate the harm of that person.

And see if you can,

Just for a little bit,

To reflect on the good qualities of that person,

That they're loved,

That they do good and kind things too.

And even the benefit that the harm that I experience from their actions helps me to cultivate patience,

To do this practice,

To understand suffering,

To come to a more realistic view that problems occur in the world,

But that if I can control my mind,

I can remain stable,

Happy,

Present,

And connected.

Reviews

This help me realize a lot about my life at present

Welcome the gift of this finely paced and carefully crafted meditation. It is a pleasure to unwrap again and again. Thank you.

This is a very well presented teaching and reflection on the topic of suffering; certainly to be recommended. For me it was more of an experience of a lesson rather than a meditation though, and I might have categorized it as a “talk”…and, as I said, one well worth learning from.
Thank you 🙏

A thoughtful and easeful exploration of suffering and ways of diminishing it. Thank you, I'll listen to this again.

Very helpful contemplation on causes of suffering and antidotes to habits of mind that cause suffering.

The 3 amigos of suffering. Truly grateful for this meditation. It has caused me to see suffering and root causes differently.

Great session

Thank you. I am working through a long time of suffering and this will help me stay on course with healing. Blessing & light to you 😇

Excellent

Thanks for these useful tips. ❤🙏🌎

Much wisdom given with a clear and gentle voice. Love it!

Such a great meditation that is an elegant reminder to be an alchemist and that everything is for our expansion!

Clearly presented, easily understood. Much to ponder.

Excellent walk through and recommendations on how best to let go and be present.