“Pain is part of life, suffering is optional.” Last week I heard this phrase used so many times in a workshop that it began to sound like a bumper sicker slogan. It’s catchy and it stuck. I sat with this idea for over a week contemplating why there is the experience suffering in my life, and here is what came up.
The experience of suffering presents itself because the self-limiting image/ego resists being in flow. Plainly stated, the self-limiting image wants absolute safety and security from the unknown. It wants to know what is coming around the corner. On top of certainty, the ego wants to be right about what it knows! The self-limiting image feels as though it is at the center of the universe and the universe should behave according to its wishes. When the universe doesn’t behave as the self-limiting thinks it should, then lamenting and suffering results.
However, change is an absolute in life. Pain is part of the change or growth process. Our tendency is to swim to shore to avoid change, rather than remaining in the flow of the river of life. This simply prolongs the pain and results in suffering. For me, learning to relax into the river of life may be frightening and painful at times, but the pain usually amounts to little more than a small bruise, unlike the prolonged suffering that is brought about from swimming to shore. Therefore, in short, pain is part of the flow of life, and suffering is the result of the resistance to the flow and its occasional pain.
What do you think?
