On Awakening

If we can learn to be open to our pain; if we can get past how we imagine our pain to be and simply be with it; then we are open to explore into our suffering ... those two places in our minds are in fact two different places but often confused as being the same place.

It is best to have guidance and support when we do this “venturing into the exploration of our suffering” business ... but at the same time this whole process can be of immense value in our efforts to work with or be with others.

When our understanding of our own suffering deepens, the natural outcome of this process is, we become more available at deeper levels to those we care for.

When we are in this place of deeper understanding of our suffering, we are far less likely to project our feelings on to others, or diminish or deny what is real for others.

As we open to the depth of the Way of Things, the natural outcome is we become much more sensitive and alert to the Way of Things and the nature of human pain.

One of the great necessities of life is that each of us has to be able to separate our pain from our suffering. Once we have broken the link between those two places in our consciousness ... we can begin the arduous task of sorting through the reality of our past to find ourselves.

Know this: it is in our humanity that we suffer ... it is in our spiritual awareness (our divinity) where we feel the pain of our humanity.

When we see life from the latter vantage point, we can see life “with eyes unclouded by longing .”

It was the Buddha who said that when we view life from this place of separation of our pain and suffering, we can see our existence with “the Smile of Unbearable Compassion.”