Relieve Suffering

I had a good day yesterday. I had a productive writing session and I met a friend for dinner in our favorite restaurant. When she and I hugged good-bye, I was happy. I felt satisfied. I felt like my life was a good place to be – until I got about half way home and I could feel my mind pulling me down. I was in the process of editing a book. What if I did a bad job and the author didn’t like it? I had ordered some new clothes from Amazon. What if I had gained weight and they didn’t fit?

The closer I got to home, the worse it became until I was as unhappy as I had been happy a short time ago. I walked into the house and checked my phone. A politician I had never heard of had sent me a text designed to scare me into donating money to her. If she lost, she said, I would be in grave danger. She alone could make me safe in an unsafe world. No one else could do the job.

I deleted the text and sat there feeling frightened and insecure. Nothing on the outside had changed since I had dinner. What was true an hour ago was still true. But on the inside, I had taken a dive and I was suffering because of what I was telling myself.

I attended a lecture by the late spiritual leader, Baba Ram Dass some years ago. This is the gist of one of the stories he told:

I checked the stock market yesterday and all my numbers were up. I felt wealthy and clever for investing so wisely. I deserved a reward. I loved a particular kind of muffin they sold at a bakery near my house. It was expensive for a muffin but why not get one? Or two? I had plenty of money.

I walked to the bakery feeling happy. I could already taste the treat I was about to give myself. When I stepped inside, the aroma of freshly baked bread filled the air. I headed to the counter but just before I got there, I saw a stack of newspapers to my left. The headline said, “Stock Market Crash.”

My stomach sunk. I was a loser. How could I have invested in something so risky? I didn’t deserve a reward. I left the bakery without the muffins. I felt deflated and depressed.

Ram Dass had told himself stories that were both good and bad and neither was true. Someone asked him, “Is this Armageddon and everything is about to end or is this the Age of Aquarius and everything is beginning?”

“I don’t know and I don’t need to know,” he said. “Whichever it is, my work is the same.

Quiet my mind.

Open my heart.

Relive suffering wherever I can. That includes relieving it in myself.”

If you choose to do the hard work of allowing yourself to stay awake to what’s really going on without trying to push it away, your suffering will ease up. You don’t have to change yourself or anyone else. You can’t. You just need to stay present with it and it will change. That’s the only thing we can be sure of – everything changes whether we want it to or not.

In the Harry Potter books, there is a prison called Azkaban. There are no bars or locked doors. They don’t need them. Wraith-like creatures called Dementors float above the prison, emitting darkness that causes the prisoners so much depression and despair, they are rendered incapable of finding a way out.

If you spend your time trying to fix yourself and trying to change the things you can’t change, your suffering will escalate until you’re a miserable puddle of pain and sorrow. This is what our negative thoughts do to us.

Of the four Noble truths that make up the core of Buddhism, the first is:

There is suffering in the world.

While we can’t change the fact that suffering exists, we can change our reaction to it. If we decide not to feel pain, we’ve also decided not to feel joy. Not to feel anything. Instead, we can give ourselves permission to feel what’s right here, right now. The truth won’t kill us. We don’t need to try and fix what’s broken. That isn’t possible. But we can find a way to relax into what is, and allow life to take its course.

The only way out is in. When we stop feeling superior or inferior, when we actually feel curious about how we are without trying to change ourselves, we have a chance to suffer less. That’s the real reward we can give ourselves. That is the path to inner peace.