Everyday billions of people over the world live their own unique story. Each story has its conflicts and resolutions. Some have happy endings and some end tragically. Yet one binding factor, the inevitable experience of pain, connects all these narratives. Regardless of skin color, gender, or social status, all individuals at some point in time get exposed to an unpleasant encounter with physical or emotional pain. When this happens humans universally experience sorrow and feel the need to get rid of it.
So how did we come to assign so much power to what is simply an experienced emotion? It is not the actual pain but our negative interpretation of it that leads to suffering. We have equated the sense of pain to agony and upon its slightest presence; all our actions get geared towards its eradication. Sometimes we feel strong enough to fight this rival, so we put on our armor and courageously face it, but every so often we feel too weak for this battle, so we fall in despair and relinquish to the familiar realm of suffering.
One can’t help but wonder, how do we resolve this dilemma of pain? If fighting it isn’t always an option and surrendering to it is unpleasant, then how do we tame this hidden beast?
There is an ancient tale about a monk and his meditation practice. During meditation the monk hears a knock at the door; when he responds the devil at his doorstep, so he immediately shuts the door knowing that the devil’s presence in his house would keep him from his spiritual practice. Upon returning to his practice this time he hears two knocks. When he returns to check he learns that the devil has multiplied. The monk continues to tenaciously fight the presence of the devil until he realizes that each resistance causes the devil to multiply in numbers. Reluctantly he lets the devil in and assertively states, “Now that you are in go to the corner because I need to mediate. “
It is said that it was only at that moment that the monk was able to finish his ritual of meditation.
If we symbolically view pain as the devil at our doorstep, we can compare our attempts to fight it to the fruitless efforts of the monk. It seems that the most effective way of dealing with pain is creating room for its presence and nonjudgmentally allowing it to coexist until its time for it to leave.
Pain seems to be an inevitable part of our lives; the suffering on the other hand is optional.
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