There is no need to suffer

Really. There is no need to suffer. I give you permission here and now not to suffer. There is no reason for pain to be anything more than a passing feeling. There is no reason for fear to be anything more than a mind-alerting instance urging you to take appropriate action. There is no reason for love to be clinging and fear-based. There is no reason for anger to be anything other than a tool to garner awareness of what lies inside and to bring it to the forefront and allow it to dissipate.

Suffering is a choice and that may sound harsh, but it is true none the less. It is comprised of emotional attachment. Feelings are actually just moments of experience. You are out in nature - you feel the breeze draw across you, you feel the sun warm you, you breathe in the exuberance of what is around you - it is a feeling. Love is a feeling, it is something that you can cultivate, but not something you can cling to in any way. It is the willingness to be completely present with another human being who is willing to be completely present with you. That experience is not static, it is constantly changing, like the ebb and flow of the tide. It wells up and simmers down to well up again.

Pain is as fleeting a feeling as the rest, it is our memory of it that causes us to suffer, and there is no need for it. We can lay that memory to rest by allowing it in the light. Hidden in the deep shadows of our fear, it festers and hurts us; brought to light, pain dissolves. We can think about the pain of childbirth, but it is the experience of hours. Once it's gone, we can remember that it hurt, but we can no longer actually feel the pain. We may have been hurt in love, but what lives with us still is not the pain, but the memory of the pain. That memory is suffering.

Bring it out, dredge it up, bring those memories out into the light; tie them to the proverbial balloon and let them float away, to dissolve into the flames of the sun. Release the memory of your pain, and let the suffering end.

Blessings.
- Darshan

© 2008 Darshan F Jessop