Suffering, Perfection and The Mind You Live In

1. There is suffering.
2. There is a cause for suffering. (attachment, avidya...)
3. There is a way out of suffering.
4. There is a path to the cessation of suffering.

Four noble truths. I find modern day spiritual stuff and lofty interpretations of yogic concepts like vairagya (dispassion) seem to downplay, ignore, villainize the human experience of suffering. Lovely beliefs around everything being perfect and all that seem to cut the head off of the human experience of pain, living with mind that does what it does.... as well as seeing things correctly, it misperceives, it fantasizes, it has memory and it sleeps. That can lead to some painful moments. (Non-painful ones, too) Even if everything is perfectly as it is, there can be great suffering! Perfection or unfolding or moments that unwind to bring you to here and now don't negate that!

Sometimes things suck. To be honest and awake in the process of the suffering, to me, is holy work. Be present to the suffering, not wallowing in the stories that perpetuate it; but, go deeper and deeper into the root causes of it, until we have gone far enough for the time, to dwell there until ready to go deeper... Whatever the case, here we are, and of how much each day are we actually aware and present to where we really are?

Navigating the illusions we and others create with thought is challenging. But, I do know how much I believe to be true the world I have created with them. I am attached to the world I create and I can no easier relent the belief that makes it than I can stop breathing. Like, I am attached to the belief that I need to sleep, eat and get sunshine. That is some of the way I am still identified with body. I am not ready to give that up. I am certainly going to breathe, eat and sleep until I am! And no one else can do it for me! No one can treat me a specific way, tell me a profound concept or do it so perfectly themselves that I am absolved from the need to do it myself! If someone explains that I am not the body and do not need to eat, their explanation better be loaded with calories! Being enlightened or awake doesn't mean thoughts and beliefs stop "doing" what they do.

I am navigating other people's head of ideas and views of things all the time. Sometimes I am sitting in the same car with one particular friend riding around on totally different planets. Sometimes, due to his stories that include fear and paranoia, he requests me to ride along on his planet with him. Then I am at an interesting place! "What to do!?" I am struggling to find balance between compassion and detachment. I do not want to participate in a way that reinforces his illusions, but I want to be respectful of him.

A perfect example happened the other day. The battery went dead in the car. We were at a grocery store parking lot. No problem! A stranger offered us a jump start before his friends even arrived (who were coming to jump us off and meet with us) In my mind, all was well. We were going on a bit of a long drive, the car would recharge and no matter where we went, we would always be close to folks who would have the means and (probably) inclination to help us. He went into a different mode all together. He wouldn't allow the air conditioning to be on. He didn't want to stop the car at the pull overs where we paused to regard the mountain view (beautiful!) His concern did not end! Meanwhile, I decided to honor his request of no A/C and I didn't turn the engine off until we stopped for the bathroom, perhaps an hour into the trip. (He was not pleased). Although I had a different opinion about all of that, his fears were real to him.

At a certain point, however, I was not willing to continue making concessions. He got mad at me. When we talked about it later, he shared that he was afraid because he had been a hippy with long hair, stranded in the dark with a dead car and worried about the red necks who might want to hurt him. That was based on an experience he had back in the early 70's.

I asked him if he wanted to get rid of that phobia or keep it? He was able to look at it some, more than he had been able to before. He was not ready to give up the beliefs, he was still attached to the fear, and the suffering it caused him was easier to live with than facing the fears. I can surely relate to that.

An interesting situation for me. And this type of thing often arises between people. I suspect we don't have clear awareness of it most of the time. This situation was such that it was easily revealed. And his beliefs projected onto the situation shone light on my own mind, revealing the impediments and supports to choosing compassion in a new context.

And I think it goes back to the other point. About our suffering!? And at how much are we ready to look and release? Even understanding that these concerns are propped up by that tyrant, the mind, most of them got there for good reason. However, times have changed and the beliefs may be out-dated.

Maybe we grew up, got a hair cut and a better car. Maybe it is broad daylight and we are surrounded by kind people. Does this make us ready to release the idea that saved our ass from base ball bat wielding drunks on the road outside a small town? Through the grace of God, we look around and notice the sun shining and realize the jumper cables are in the back of the car and there is friend beside us on this Sunday afternoon.

Through the grace of God, we blink and open our eyes in the present. Perhaps we feel the sweat of fear chilled across our brow as we wake up to a new and different moment. Maybe this is the moment to actually feel the terror that was more than we could handle three decades ago when our mind folded up a belief, sealed it into an envelope addressed it to the future. Maybe we feel safe enough to suffer right now and let it forever go.... Perhaps the terror is still more than we imagine ourselves able to handle.

Meanwhile, there are these amazing opportunities to practice compassion with ourselves and with others. It helps to remember that we are not so different from one another. While a situation is as it is, it is still perceived and experienced through as many different filters as there are people who view it. Remember the group of blindfolded gurus around the elephant?

I can usually peel away yet one more layer of thought through which I perceive a situation. No matter how clearly I see it, there is seemingly always another degree of clarity available. Often, suffering comes when I convince myself that I have gotten to the Truth of a thing. Suffering releases when I surrender and go deeper. Layers of fiction make up this world. Some are rather useful still.

We are all in this together, but we each have to be in it for ourselves. And as unique as we are, we are much the same. There is suffering. There is a cause of it, and we can actually do something about it! We can transcend suffering.