Inner Practice Series: Pain & Suffering
There is a difference between pain and suffering. Pain is the unpleasant physical sensations experienced by all human bodies. Suffering is the mental and emotional distress that is added to these physical sensations. Physical pain is inevitable and can be resolved with traditional methods but the suffering added by the mind is optional.
Does our mental distress help cure the physical pain? No, it only makes it stronger and prolongs it. We usually take simple temporary physical discomfort and turned it into a mass of suffering.
There are however some benefits to suffering. If we never experienced suffering, we would coast along in life without motivation to change. Unfortunately it seems to be true that we are the most motivated to change when we are the most unhappy.
But if we can restrain the mind from speculating and blowing the matter up, we can just experience the physical aspects of “pain”. If we just experience pain as it is, when we are not adding mental and emotional stress to simple physical discomfort, the pain is free to change and even dissolve.
Can you be in pain but not suffer?
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