Pain an Indicator of Error

It is indeed paradoxical the way ignorance works – when we held on to a certain pleasant experience expecting it to stay on a little longer we are to mean that without it, we are back to experiencing what is unpleasant – as if unpleasantness is awaiting us on the other end. Yet we need not wait too long for unpleasantness to appear as the expectation for it to stay on is unpleasant itself. Have you not notice each time when you have the feeling “how I wish it will stay on forever” that feeling is sadness? And isn’t that unpleasant?

Thus it is interesting to note when the Buddha said pain arises in two ways – from wanting and yet not getting what we want, and from not wanting yet getting what we don’t want. Thus our expectation is the cause of our woes and pain as wanting and not wanting are unreasonable. Unreasonable in the sense that ignorance does not see that whether we are in the position of want or not want – both are attachments to the idea that it must be a certain way – reality of what is has already happened and gone! It is only seemingly still perpetuating in our experience is because of our holding on to it.

Thus, when my friend tries to let go of her holding on, knowing that it is the holding on that is causing her pain, what she is not aware is that her wanting to let go of it is causing her further pain. You see, the nature of ignorance is strange – it does not acknowledge what is already here occuring and instead tries to create what is not here. Her mind’s holding on to a situation is what she is experiencing, but when she does not want to acknowledge this fact, she is only in her dishonesty tries to move away from it of something that she can’t move away from – its all in the head! To say she is dishonest is to a certain extent incorrect as that is not what she is able to realize yet. Instead, she tries to create another experience that is not presently here. More than that, she is creating an opposing experience other than what she is not willing to experience. So long as she is opposing it, unknowingly she is holding it back from being release – for to oppose something, you have to think of it.

The simple truth is this – what we resist will persist. Hence when we no longer put any energy to it as right or wrong but simply as happening happened – in full acknowledgment without giving further meaning – that acceptance releases the meaning of “it should not have happened”. In that instant moment, we are free. Do you see the paradox of freedom? To push away is to make it stay. To acknowledge is to set it free. Hence, freedom is not something one can do by trying to let it go as that doesn’t work at all. Freedom is a result of having right understanding of reality exactly as it is. Thus, pain – opposite of freedom – is actually a good marker or indicator informing us that there is an error happening in our space that is not in align with reality. Pain equates a mistaken view – opposing what reality is.

With this in mind, we will see pain not as wrong anymore but rather a teacher to help bring us back to sanity of what once was an insane view.

“Why it should happened? It’s because it happened! Why it should not happened? It’s because it has yet to happened.”