Suffering...

Although it may sound surprising, I do not intend to help anyone get rid of their suffering. Suffering is not the problem. Rather than trying to get rid of suffering, it is more important to inquire into the suffering itself, to investigate the reality of the sufferer. Inquiry is the front door.




The inquiring mind is an open mind, willing to explore most deeply. In that openness, it can allow the presence of suffering with-out rejecting it or trying to escape it. This can be just as powerful, just as terrifying, and just as profound as facing your own death. When you inquire into suffering, you meet suffering, and when you meet suffering, it is possible to discover that suffering is not what you thought it was. In a direct meeting between subject and object, sufferer and suffering, both disappear. Both are discovered, in reality, to be nonexistent.



I will make an even more precise and outrageous statement. I recommend that you consciously suffer. What is wrong with suffering? What thought or voice in your head says suffering is wrong? Painful, yes, but not wrong.

Willingness to suffer fully, even for an instant, without trying to escape or be saved, means that suffering is no longer an obstacle to full surrender into the mystery of existence. Relief from suffering stops being the goal.




According to the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, "When you know how to suffer, you do not suffer." The "how to" of suffering is to suffer all the way. It is to suffer with full consciousness. To consciously suffer is to consciously recognize the impulse to escape and instead face directly whatever is appearing, be it grief, horror, extreme loss, or sadness.



Gangaji
The Diamond in Your Pocket
Sounds True, Inc
2005
Boulder, CO