Pain and Suffering, Part Two

Yesterday, I wrote that "pain will always be with us. It comes with having a body. When there is pain, suffering follows." But pain also comes to us because we have hearts and minds.

The little pains are the easy part of the practice. Having a painful knee can be handled pretty easily with various practices.

The deep pain of losing someone we love is very different. Knowing we will no longer see the person we miss so much washes over us at the most unexpected moments. The loss hurts all the more because a second ago we were happily doing something, and then in an instant, we feel like we are drowning in a sadness that will never end, will never stop torturing us. The ground has suddenly fallen away from under us and we are flailing away in space, feeling insecure and alone. Our pain of having lost someone we loved very much and still miss very much is made worse by our continued suffering.

Pain is the loss, suffering is our sadness.

We cannot stop the loss. We will lose all those we love. Perhaps to  death. Perhaps to separation. Pain is inevitable, but the degree of our suffering is not. 

At some point, when our time for mourning is over, we have the ability to stop the suffering. I still walk around apologizing to my mother, saying that I'm sorry but to think of her is just too difficult. That I am stopping the thoughts of her not because I do not love her, but because I do and because I miss her very much.

Then I gently close the door to suffering, just as she would want me to. And gradually, I find myself opening another door instead—the one that leads to happy memories, just as she would want me to.