Taking Care of Suffering

[JustGeorge]

I found this earlier:

A practitioner has the right to suffer, but a practitioner does not have the right not to practice. People who are not practitioners allow their pain, sorrow, and anguish to overwhelm them, and to push them to say and do things they don’t want to do and say. We who consider ourselves to be practitioners have the right to suffer like everyone else. It’s OK to suffer; it’s OK to be angry. We can learn to stop and stay with our suffering, attend to it with all of our tenderness and kindness, and take good care of our suffering.

This Moment is Perfect | Lion’s Roar

There is only one moment for you to be alive, and that is the present moment. Go back to the present moment and live this moment deeply, and you’ll be free.

www.lionsroar.com

The idea of being present, taking care of, even, one's suffering is intriguing. I'm having a hard time picturing what that looks like, though. The examples given don't really sound too tremendous; cleaning a toilet is unpleasant, but not truly suffering(in my opinion).

What does "taking good care of our suffering" mean to you?

 

[SalixIncendium]

I don't think this should be taken out of context without the next paragraph...

Let’s try not to run away. We run because we’re too afraid. But if we can be present with our suffering, the energy of mindfulness is strong enough to embrace and recognize that pain and that sorrow. We suffer because we lack insight into our nature and into the nature of reality. The energy of mindfulness contains the energy of concentration, and concentration always contains the capacity of seeing deeply and bringing insight.​

Emphasis mine. That sentence is key. A practitioner can stop and stay with suffering, though not for the purpose of suffering, but for the purpose being mindful of understanding the nature of suffering. Same can be said for anger. One can stop and stay with anger, though not for the purpose of being angry, but for the purpose of being mindful of the nature of one's anger.

Essentially, don't run from your suffering or anger for fear if it. Stop and stay with it to be mindful of its nature...to understand what it is and why it's there. Such mindfulness helps one to prevent suffering and anger, not by running away from it, but by mastering it.

 

[Aupmanyav]

The idea of being present, taking care of, even, one's suffering is intriguing. I'm having a hard time picturing what that looks like, though. The examples given don't really sound too tremendous; cleaning a toilet is unpleasant, but not truly suffering(in my opinion).

What does "taking good care of our suffering" mean to you?

Of course, the quoted is a maze of words 'Shabda Jaala', trying to be smart. 'Taking good care of suffering', for me, means not to get disheartened and work for future. Well, let me quote Krishna for you:

"matra-sparsas tu kaunteya, sitosna-sukha-duhkha-dah,
agamapayino 'nityas, tams titiksasva bharata." BG:2.14

O son of Kunté, the temporary appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I found this earlier:

This Moment is Perfect | Lion’s Roar

There is only one moment for you to be alive, and that is the present moment. Go back to the present moment and live this moment deeply, and you’ll be free.

www.lionsroar.com

The idea of being present, taking care of, even, one's suffering is intriguing. I'm having a hard time picturing what that looks like, though. The examples given don't really sound too tremendous; cleaning a toilet is unpleasant, but not truly suffering(in my opinion).

What does "taking good care of our suffering" mean to you?

The experience of my surgery, two heart attacks.

I learned insight into the first nobel truth and the koan of that red hot ball of iron in the throat that cannot ever be dislodged or removed.

It means there is an understanding to suffering and the experience that comes with it.

It's an integral a part of our experience and being that requires acceptance and resignation that it's an aspect of life and is absolutely normal for living beings.

Once that is understood, there is less attachment when suffering erupts and the relief as it subsidies.

The knowledge that sufferings will never be forever in duration as much as all pleasantries are makes it more bearable.

 

[JustGeorge]

Thanks for the replies so far.

I learned insight into the first nobel truth and the koan of that red hot ball of iron in the throat that cannot ever be dislodged or removed.

Can you share more about this? I'm unfamiliar with the koan.

 

[Aupmanyav]

The experience of my surgery, two heart attacks.

You are OK now. That proves sufferings are temporary. I too had a mild one which left a patch of insensitive skin below my left shoulder. Currently, a boil in the middle of my back, is better now. As for teeth, I will ask my son in law to get me the removable ones. Life is fun, from start to end.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Thanks for the replies so far.


Can you share more about this? I'm unfamiliar with the koan.

Actually it's not really a koan, but its often times used in reference in approaching the practice of koans. Particularly with those initiated with that introduction to Joshu's dog questionably having 'Buddha nature' to which the well known response is known as "MU".

It's also exemplified with the gyoban which is essentially a wooden fish with a ball lodged in its mouth used as a drum in a number of temples.

Personally, I do view the paradox involving the red hot ball as being a koan in its own right regardless, i adopted it as such, where the hot ball in one's throat (that can never be dislodged or spit out) I find from my experience to actually be life itself as we are stuck with the phenomenon along with suffering with no way ever out of it and have no choice in the matter as this life and all it entails was initiated without choice.

Life brings the first nobel truth to the forefront of which we are immediately faced with suffering, essentially right off the bat. Dealing with the "red hot ball of iron" in one's throat is easily the first thing noticed, hence life is pain, and not easily tamed even though it's an integral and a normal aspect of living as beings of flesh and blood.

 

[Aupmanyav]

All dogs, all pigs, are nothing other than Brahman, that which constitutes all things in the universe, just as all humans are.

 

[rocala]

What does "taking good care of our suffering" mean to you?

Suffering as a state of mind can certainly be looked at as part of a process, often with a trail of clues. Getting to the root of the issue is, I believe, a way of taking care of it.
Once, long ago, I was feeling very sorry for myself for some reason, a form of suffering I guess. I was angry about the many shortcomings of my upbringing, and my mother was my point of focus. To be fair, she was a rather weak person in many ways.
While dwelling on this, I realised that her mother could be quite "flaky" at times, so that was a part of my mum's upbringing. I carried on with this, my grandmother had been viciously abused as a child, by her step-mother. Perhaps she and my mum were entitled to be a bit "flaky". Did they have any choice? As for the step-mother, I don't know her story, but I suspect it is not a very happy one.

That, to me, is the "taking care". Not resisting or opposing it, but acceptance of what is. My suffering ceased to be personal that day. Blaming somebody became both ridiculous and unkind. Self-pity is not something I have experienced since.

 

[Secret Chief]

I found this earlier:

This Moment is Perfect | Lion’s Roar

There is only one moment for you to be alive, and that is the present moment. Go back to the present moment and live this moment deeply, and you’ll be free.

www.lionsroar.com

The idea of being present, taking care of, even, one's suffering is intriguing. I'm having a hard time picturing what that looks like, though. The examples given don't really sound too tremendous; cleaning a toilet is unpleasant, but not truly suffering(in my opinion).

What does "taking good care of our suffering" mean to you?

Personally, I don't think "taking care" in this context is a particularly helpful phrase. It suggests nurturing it.

Suffering is also a word I'm not mad on in terms of the translation from dukkha. Suffering suggests something like physical pain, whereas dukkha is more broadly encompassing than that. It encompasses feelings of disatisfaction, angst, low mood etc. "Dealing" with dukkha is what we are trying to do in our day to day living on our chosen path (whichever one that is). For me, the root of the "solution" is mindfulness, attempting to be that whether in formal meditation, or in walking meditation or in cleaning the toilet. There is only ever the eternal now so that is "where" we live. It's a matter of realising this and then trying (and often failing) to live in accordance with this understanding.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Suffering suggests something like physical pain...

I prefer to call physical pain "pain."

For me, suffering is precisely dukkha...the second arrow, whereas the physical pain is the first (the parable of the two arrows). Suffering/dukkha is a reaction to pain. Mindfulness can help one to understand, manage, and ultimately master suffering.

As I've said many times on this forum...pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.