Suffering and the End of Suffering

We think we can avoid suffering by being positive about everything but the reality is that everything we are being positive about is impermanent. We have to run around always looking for new things. This is what most of us take life to be all about.


We pre-occupy ourselves searching for pleasant feeling or avoiding unpleasant feeling. Most of our mind, our personal truth, becomes concerned with that. What we do not realise is that the most pleasant feelings we can find, the highest happiness, lies in the discovery of the deepest truths of life. If we realise this then our search for pleasure can become a search for truth, universal truth.


And what is this search like?


We are not the owners of truth nor the master of truth although we may wish to think so and the truths of our own creation will never match the universal truths. Part of the work of seeing the truth is to relinquish our ambition, our sense of ownership, our sense of self or ego. It is a humble person who realises such truth.


And the deepest truth is not hidden but right in front of the eyes of anyone who can see it. While the mind searches for pleasure in the world it will never see the truth because that truth is the truth of suffering. Suffering is over-looked in the search for pleasure and has to come up from below as ‘all that stuff coming up’ all those bothersome feelings that meditators and therapists alike are trying to get rid of. When the mind, even momentarily, ceases looking for pleasure and simply, calmly observes without judgement of any kind then suffering will be seen.


Then we will realise that if the mind is peaceful it can see suffering without feeling that suffering – experiencing only compassion. Furthermore, if we can see the suffering and let go then all suffering ceases – there is no less love, we experience an unimaginable bliss and we realise that, on a deeper level, all our suffering was caused by us holding on. After we have let go like this we see that it is craving that makes us grasp and suffer all over again and we will be committed to letting go of craving for good by dedicating ourselves to a spiritual path.




I offer this for your reflection,

Ajahn Kalyāno
https://www.openthesky.co.uk/


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