Like most of us, many of the clients I work with suffer in one way or another. It might be financially, it might be depression. We all suffer to some degree.
Because of this, many of us attempt to feel better through a variety of means. We seek to get out of the pain, move away from it, avoid it or even stuff it. At the same time we push away our pain, we also seek pleasure. We seek whatever will make us feel better.
So, we do things that seem to minimize our pain by adding pleasure to our life. We eat food that may not be the best for our body but it tastes soooo good. Or, if we are having a bad day, we hit the bars with some friends to cheer us up. We might even take stimulants or medication to help us feel better.
Mainstream marketing and advertisements do their best to address your pain points and promise you a remedy, or they will hit the pleasure seeker in you that will buy whatever makes you feel better.
In Buddhism there exists a great teaching about the nature of life. These teachings are called the 4 noble truths. Rather than get into a lengthy discourse on Buddhism and its teachings, I will just mention these in layman’s terms. If you want to go further, resources at are the bottom.
4 Noble Truths and How to apply them to your Life
Truth 1
The Buddha taught that in life we suffer and struggle. No one is above this fundamental truth. Look around the globe or watch the news. Suffering is everywhere. To pretend otherwise, is to discount the truth of life. We all suffer.
Application
Stop pretending that everything is either “great” or “miserable.” Look around at reality and see for yourself. Acknowledge that you and others suffer.
Truth 2.
Our wanting to avoid our own suffering and the suffering around us by seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, causes the suffering. In other words, suffering starts and grows by our own desire to get rid of it.
Application
Ask yourself if you are a pain avoider or pleasure seeker, or both? Get to know the ways in which you avoid your own suffering and discomfort.
Pain Avoiders
In my work with hundreds of men, the common theme is that men are too scared to feel their emotional pain and avoid feeling their feelings. They will hardly wince at physical pain, brave wars, corporate greed and beat each other to a pulp, but emotional feelings are “off limits” for most men.
If you can handle intense physical pain, why not engage your emotional pain or the emotional pain of others? Be fearless about feeling what is painful in your life. On the other side of feeling great emotional pain is perhaps the pleasure you seek. Again, try it and see for yourself.
Realize that the more you push away pain, the more you are likely to suffer.
Pleasure seekers
If you are always trying to feel better and chasing “positive” feelings such as happiness or joy, stop. Stop and notice what happens when you stop. Just sit there and be with it.
For example, you might be a dopamine junkie. You might seek pleasure through extreme sports like I did, or you might have certain addictions that give you a “rush.” Ask yourself, who would I be if I didn’t keep chasing this feeling?
If you really feel hooked by this one, I suggest finding a mentor to help you through it. Unless of course, you would rather chase that fleeting feeling.
Truth 3.
Suffering lessens when we can give up our desire to get rid of it. Freedom is possible.
Application
By you relating to your pain and catching yourself as you attempt to avoid it, the great irony is that you may feel better at the end of the day. It is through being a yes to our experience (including pain) that we become more and more fulfilled in life.
This does not mean dwell on your pain and collapse into it. Suffering becomes a vehicle for our own personal growth and evolution.
Truth 4.
The way to end suffering is the eightfold path and the path of ethical conduct, meditation and mindfulness.
Application
You don’t have to become Buddhist or even meditate to cease the suffering in your life.
However, choose to engage some kind of mindfulness and self-awareness practice. The more you get in touch with your heart and come into harmony with your deepest self, the less you will suffer and the less you will get hooked by the suffering around you.
It is not that you stop feeling the suffering around you. Rather, you feel it deeply and you are impacted by it greatly. Yet, the response is to open to it and face it fearlessly, rather than shrink, contract and run away.
Consider the possibility that suffering exists mainly because of our disconnected relationship to our own suffering. If this is true, the work then, is to engage your suffering, relate to it, get to know it, feel it and over time it will dissipate.
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References:
Reggie Ray: Indestructible Truth:The Living Spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism.
Walpola Sri Rahula: What the Buddha Taught
Wikipedia: The Four Noble Truths and The Eightfold Path.
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Fri, Aug 21, 2009
Men's Spirituality, men's health, personal development, psychology