Are you suffering?  People suffer from a variety of things – pain, illness, relationships, past events, the weather, a perceived failure, their view of themselves as flawed…the list could go on forever.  With so many things to cause suffering, how can you ever be happy?  But the truth is it’s your resistance to what is that causes suffering, not the circumstances of your life.

This idea that suffering comes from resistance is not commonly held in Western society.  But the Buddhist tradition has taught for thousands of years that suffering comes from our mind and not from outside events.  This post will include some Buddhist quotes about the mind and suffering.

It is our mind, and that alone, that chains us or sets us free.  Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

What is happening at any given time, is happening.  It is, what is. Trying to make it otherwise by resisting it is futile. If it is something you can change, then do that.  You don’t have to resist anything to make a change to it.  Acceptance is key. You can accept that the situation is there, see that you have a preference for something else to happen, and set about putting the new situation in motion.

If it is something you cannot change, then accept it.   Do you think the wind or the rain will stop because you don’t like them and resist them?  You can choose to seek shelter until the weather changes, or keep on working outside despite it, but resistance is futile, and will cause you to suffer.

Want what you have and don’t want what you don’t have.  Here you will find true fulfillment.  Jack Kornfield

We in the West are fond of doing battle.  We battle cancer and other diseases, we fight changes to government programs, we exterminate vice and immorality, and we wage war on drugs.

We continue to create suffering, waging war with good, waging war with evil, waging war with what is too small, waging war with what is too big, waging war with what is too short or too long, or right or wrong, courageously carrying on the battle.  Achaan Cha

Resisting anything puts your mind on what you don’t want, and identifies it in your mind as being ‘bad’.  Grasping at things we see as ‘good’ is also a form of resistance. Try acceptance instead. At least try stopping both resistance and grasping and see what happens.

When we step out of the battle ‘we see anew, with eyes unclouded by longing.‘  Jack Kornfield

Most people have had an experience where something happened that they initially saw as bad and later turned out to be something that they viewed in a positive light.  Losing your job unexpectedly, then a few days later being offered a  job that pays better or is something you have always wanted to do, is one example of this. In truth, neither of these situations is intrinsically bad or good, they just represent your preferences.

When there’s disappointment, I don’t know if it’s the end of the story.  But it may be just the beginning of a great adventure.                  Pema Chodron

The first step to stopping resistance is to acknowledge that the thing that is happening is not intrinsically bad, or good, it just is.  Your feelings about it simply represent your preferences.  This step should take you out of resistance, though when you are first trying this, it may take some time.

Be aware, that even when you are not resisting something, it can still be painful.  Serious illness in yourself or a close member of your family, death, or any other unexpected major loss can trigger emotional or physical pain.  But pain and suffering are not the same thing, unless you are also resisting the pain. The trick, as with any other emotion, is to open up to what you are experiencing, feel it and allow it to flow through you.

Every event, every situation in which you may find yourself has a positive value, even the dramas, even the tragedies, even the thunderbolt from a clear sky.  Arnaud Desjardins

If you have a comment on how resistance to what is causes suffering, or how it fits with your experience, or something you specifically liked or did not like about this post, please leave a comment below.

American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron has a very clear and down-to-earth way of expressing Buddhist teachings.  This quote on pleasure and pain talks about being with our experience during meditation.  But it also applies to being with our experience whatever we are doing – so if you are not a meditator, it still applies to you.

Wakefulness is Found in Pleasure and Pain.

In practicing meditation, we are not trying to live up to some kind of ideal – quite the opposite. We’re just being with our experience, whatever it is. If our experience is that sometimes we have some kind of perspective, and sometimes we have none, then that’s our experience. If sometimes we can approach what scares us, and sometimes we absolutely can’t, then that’s our experience. “This very moment is the perfect teacher, and it’s always with us” is really a most profound instruction. Just seeing what’s going on – that’s the teaching right there. We can be with what’s happening and not dissociate. Awakeness is found in our pleasure and pain, confusion and all wisdom, available in each moment of our weird, unfathomable, ordinary, everyday lives.             Pema Chodron

When we are ill, afraid, or in pain, just being with our experience, not denying it or resisting it, may be the most helpful thing we can do.  When we can truly be with our experience, we can become curious, and open to it, rather than being afraid.  It is only when we can completely accept our experience as it is, that we have hope of transforming it.  Strangely, when we are awake to what is, and can accept both pleasure and pain as part of our experience in the moment, we may find that there is little to choose between them.

How does this Buddhist quote on pleasure and pain, fit with your experience?  Leave a comment below.