Suffering is painful and difficult. No one wants to suffer, but it is always there in some form or another. Our personal suffering may stem from a myriad of origin points - problematic physical or mental health, family conflict, societal injustice, political wars, existential fears - but they all have a similar flavor of a deep, seemingly unbearable pain.
The typical human response to pain is to do everything you can to push it away, ignore it, or destroy the source. In doing this, we try to solidify our life with routines, familiarity, and keeping away from anything unknown. Even if what is familiar is toxic - addictions or an abusive relationship - we cocoon ourselves in a safety bubble to avoid experiencing the depth of our current suffering, assuming the unknown will create more suffering. We become rigid against the daily pain of our experience.
However, by not engaging with our suffering directly, we create more suffering for ourselves and others. In Buddhism, the three primary reactions to suffering - attachment, ignorance, and aggression - are known as the three poisons. In my experience, these three reactions are what adds additional layers of suffering onto the original painful point. Any reaction to pain can be distilled down to one of these three “poisons”.
Suffering in itself is not bad, it is a true part of the human experience of change. All things change. You aren’t a bad person because you suffer, you are a human being having a human experience. There will always be a cause to suffer, whether it is stubbing your toe or that irritating person at work, but it is our reactions to our pain that can make our suffering worse. To learn how we can soften to our suffering, we must first understand our habitual reactions to suffering.
Attachment:
(a.k.a. greed or passion/obsession)
With attachment, one often immediately thinks of holding onto something that we want to keep in our lives. We cling to joyful experiences and pleasure. The pain of attachment is most acutely experienced when the people and things we love and treasure are either taken away or threatened to be taken away from us. Grief and loss is the origin point of this form of suffering. Our reaction to the grief and loss and refusal to let go are what compounds our suffering and what makes attachment so problematic.
While we cling to things we like, we also hold onto things we don’t like. When we try to alleviate our suffering by pushing something away, we wind up getting closer to it. The harder we push, the more we engage. Often, we become obsessed with whatever we are trying so desperately to get rid of which causes more suffering. This is regularly seen in addictions - substance, love, screens, news. Often, addiction creates an unhealthy dynamic that creates more suffering through clinging, while simultaneously using the addiction to avoid the pain of what is actually happening in our life.
Ignorance:
(a.k.a. delusion or avoidance)
When we ignore our suffering or the suffering of others we are doing our best to pretend it doesn’t exist. This behavior doesn’t actually make the pain disappear, but traps you in a false reality. This delusion creates more difficulty and suffering for ourselves and others. Burying our head in the sand to avoid encountering suffering only causes more pain. We may wrap our world in bubblewrap to escape the sharp edges, but find ourselves numb to the world because we refuse to actually engage with it.
We may also choose to blindly follow the guidance of a spiritual or political leader, partner, or family member to avoid making our own decisions. In this case, we close off our own intuition and inner guidance to follow the path of someone else. This can often result in a polarized view of the world and victim mentality. Both of these reactions cause more suffering by alienating friends and family and promoting hatred and anger of anything or anyone outside your safety zone.
Aggression:
(a.k.a. hatred or anger)
When we try to destroy the source of our suffering, we use anger and aggression to get rid of what we perceive is causing us pain. We blow up relationships, jobs, or opportunities because we are so fixated on avoiding that pain. This can manifest overtly in outright violence or more subtly in passive aggressive ways, like gossip.
Life is painful, but when we have difficulty experiencing our suffering, we may want to lash out or blame others. We are mad we are stuck in traffic, so we react by driving recklessly and honking at everyone in our way. Rather than simply feeling our frustration at not moving, our fear about the consequences of being late to work, or anger at ourselves for not leaving home earlier, we take it out on everyone around us.
While it can be easy to see the effects of our aggression toward others, our suffering becomes more nuanced when we turn our anger inwards. Often self-hatred results in additional pain that affects our physical or mental health. We may put ourselves in dangerous situations, fall into addiction, self-harm, or simply not take care of our basic needs.
The Trap and Exit Sign:
Ironically, we may try to use the three poisons against our reactions to our own suffering, thus perpetuating and compounding our pain. The three poisons can be identified within us because these reactions are innate to our human nature. They are not inherently bad tendencies, they are simply human tendencies.
If we learn how to identify them in action, we can shift our perspective to view them as teachers. From this place of understanding, we can truly work with our suffering in a genuine way that, while it won’t alleviate our suffering, will allow us to soften to our experience of pain. The goal is to prevent us from habitually and mindlessly creating additional suffering for ourselves and others.
How do we soften?
When we look inside ourselves, we can often find some not so friendly inner voices. These voices tend to be the instigators of using the three poisons to cover over our pain. These inner voices are how we justify that using the three poisons will work to relieve our suffering. (Reminder: It won’t. Suffering is not something that needs to be obliterated, but something to be worked with.) I’ll address two voices most of us are very familiar with:
Inner Critic. This is the voice that tells you what you are doing is bad or wrong and judges you harshly for your thoughts or actions. This is the voice you hear when you beat yourself up. This voice lives in aggression and cruelty, judgement and greed.
Inner Fawner. This is the one that tells you its okay to do whatever you want. This voice tells you that whatever it is, you deserve to have it regardless of the consequences. This voice lives in delusion, desire, and selfishness.
Between the strict, harshness of the critic and the selfish indulgence of the fawner is the voice of our true self - our intuition. When we learn how to quiet these voices we find a middleground of gentleness, spaciousness, and honesty.
To calm these habitual voices, we can be curious and get to know them better. These voices rely on reaction, distraction, and fear to perpetuate our suffering. Rather than running away from, fighting with, or giving in to these voices, try first taking a moment to hear what they are saying and then determining if it is relevant to or compounding your suffering.
By taking time, you naturally create space around the voices so that you can see the issue clearly. Once space is there, then you can apply gentleness to keep those voices calm and allow for other options to arise. Once you have space and gentleness, then the honesty and truth of what is right for you becomes clear. The following meditation will walk you through how to do this.
Meditation:
Find a quiet spot to sit or rest comfortably. If you find you tend to fall asleep when lying down, I recommend sitting. Make sure that you won’t be disturbed for 20 - 30ish minutes.
Figure out an issue or decision that you are currently struggling with that is causing pain and suffering in your life.
Think about the issue and to start just notice the reactions in your mind. Are you getting angry, justifying your actions, or feeling guilt? At first, these difficult emotions may all be a giant tangle. If so, try separating them out and feel the nuances of each one to identify the reaction.
As you explore more reactions, you may want to write them down. If you want to assign them to the critic or fawner, feel free. Stay curious and open. If you feel stuck, you can remember this may just be another reaction to the issue and explore that.
Begin to get closer and more curious around the reactions and notice the feelings behind the reactions without judging them. Feelings just want to be felt, so as icky as they may be, you are brave enough to get through this. If it gets too intense, take a moment to come back to your body and feel your breath. When ready, keep going until all the feelings around this issue have been properly felt and acknowledged. You’ll know this has happened when your mind becomes more quiet and spacious while contemplating the issue.
Once you feel some space around the issue and your myriad of feelings, apply gentleness. This is a quality of acceptance and appreciation toward yourself. What is done is done and moving forward with integrity is your intention. Contemplate the issue and imagine what you could do next in the situation. Be curious and inventive about all the possible options - whether they are something you would actually do or not. Maintain the space without judgement. We are just exploring options - there is no wrong answer. If an option arises and you know it is what someone else wants you to do, make a note of that. Feel free to write them down if you like.
Once you feel like you have explored all the options, make sure you are maintaining the spaciousness around the issue and the gentleness toward yourself. You will soon recognize a neutrality arising in the space. The issue is less triggering and your mind is calmer. From this quiet space, review the options for what you could do (or not do) one by one. For each one, gauge your genuine internal response. This is your intuition. Listen to it.
You will be able to tell what option is in your best interest by your internal response while contemplating it. You may hear a "YES" or "NO", you may see an image that gives an answer, or you may have a feeling about an option. Darker, uncomfortable feelings are options that may cause more suffering. Lighter, calming feelings are options that may cause less suffering. Sometimes, though, we will get a sense of what the “right thing” to do is, but it may carry the feeling of a broken heart. Trust yourself. You are your best guide.
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