It seems that there’s not a one among us who hasn’t suffered to one degree or another. I’ve even seen babies and toddlers wail away in suffering, and then be done with it. It seems that animals may be similar, not languishing in their suffering, but wholly with it just the same.
It is easy for me to see the way out of suffering when I stand on the outskirts of it. It’s a lot harder for me to be immersed in it and somehow stand on the periphery simultaneously, but I’ve been asking to experience this even amidst suffering.
Is there a hierarchy of emotions, some are desirable, some are not? Could the true extent of my suffering simply exist through my refusal to be with whatever emerges in consciousness? Was this an area to which my own loving-kindness was excluded? And finally, was there something to be learned from suffering?
It was to these questions I came when three of my girlfriends began an email exchange yesterday. One of those friends has suggested that I share my part on the blog:
I have found that suffering is only a bad thing when I judge it to be a bad thing. Otherwise suffering is just (yes, really just) another way of life’s longing to know itself in form. Who am I to declare that joy is better than suffering, that decaying leaves that will nourish this earth are better than budding pink cherry blossoms? Why is any expression better or lesser than another? It’s not, until I judge it so.
So here I am …
Wow. Thank you for sharing what you learned about suffering. this is incredibly valuable.
Thank you, Beth, from another Beth. :-)
The acknowledgment really goes to my girlfriend who asked me to post it on my blog.
… I was the reluctant poster, fingers hovering over the delete key. Your comment helps me know it held value for another. <3
A lot of human suffering comes from wanting two different out comes at the same time and we are frustrated that we can’t have both. Often they are opposite out comes. In other words we want the impossible. Only a human being could do this. The confusion clears up as we accept what “IS” and let go of “what could never be.” blessings
Dear Beth!
I’m speechless every time I read your posts….. So I’ve decided to answer with something I know you love as much as I do (from David Whyte) :
“… Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is privilege, that we are part of something, rather than nothing. Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the color blue, the green of the fields, the freshness of a cold wind, or the tawny hue of a winter landscape. To see the full miraculous essentiality of the color blue is to be grateful with no necessity for a word of thanks. To see fully, the beauty of a daughter’s face is to be fully grateful without having to seek a God to thank him……”
Thanks Beth!!
I am so grateful for these Posts and Comments from jec1951 and Karelia – so wise.
Thank you “jec1951” for sharing your thoughtful insights here.
Karelia, deep appreciation for your comments and bringing me this David Whyte quote which I have never seen before. … It’s a big, bright beautiful world we live in where we get to participate in all of its many shades and flavors, precisely because here we are – open, living, breathing, ever turning, evolving expressions of life itself.
Haven’t you seen this before?. Well, then get the complete text.
For both of you (Beth Grossman, and Bethie). Enjoy!!!
GRATITUDE
is not a passive response to something given to us, gratitude is being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us. Gratitude is not something that is shown after the event, it is the deep, a priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life. Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is privilege, that we are part of something, rather than nothing. Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the color blue, the green of the fields, the freshness of a cold wind, or the tawny hue of a winter landscape. To see the full miraculous essentiality of the color blue is to be grateful with no necessity for a word of thanks. To see fully, the beauty of a daughter’s face is to be fully grateful without having to seek a God to thank him. To sit among friends and strangers, hearing many voices, strange opinions; to intuit inner lives beneath surface lives, to inhabit many worlds at once in this world, to be a someone amongst all other someones, and therefore to make a conversation without saying a word, is to deepen our sense of presence and therefore our natural sense of thankfulness that everything happens both with us and without us, that we are participants and witness all at once. Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness. We sit at the table part of every other person’s world while making our own world without will or effort, this is what is extraordinary and gifted, this is the essence of gratefulness, seeing to the heart of privilege. Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets all other presences. Being unappreciative means we are simply not paying attention.
© David Whyte
November Thoughts 2013
Beautiful, Karelia! Is this from his Facebook page?
Yes Bethie, it’s from his Facebook page.
Thank you, Karelia!
You’re very welcome!!. I knew about him thanks to you…..