A digest for conscious living
I was unable to post yesterday, as played a concert last night and I spent the past 24 hours away from home. My accommodations for the night were in an 11th century monastery . I woke up this morning in a ascetically furnished room with glorious sunlight shining through my window and did my practice facing an open window with a view over a mountain forest. Gratitude!…
I hope that “Lucid Living” will allow me to decrease the amount of suffering that I create for others and experience for myself. It is important here to define the differences and similarities between pain and suffering. Pain is the protective mechanism of the body and suffering is the protective mechanism of the mind. Both are designed to help determine those things or behaviors which are harmful. As human beings we have raised our intelligence and sensitized our bodies to the point where we take it for granted that physical pain is something to be avoided. Suffering is very similar, but more subtle. The increased complexity of the human psychological mechanisms make determining the causes and effects of suffering more difficult. I postulate that ultimately, human suffering is not an objective reality, but rather a perceived state of being. It is the mind which creates suffering by judging and preferring one state to another. Without this judgment suffering would not exist. I do not contend that all suffering is bad and should be avoided. Suffering is a fantastic mechanism which can serve a human being as a measure of how much judgment is being passed on his circumstances by his mind or intellect. Further, at certain times during human evolution as well as in an individual’s life, suffering, like pain, was and continues to be an extremely efficient survival mechanism. As a tiger uses its claws to secure its survival, we human beings use our intelligence motivated by our seemingly endless state of perceived dissatisfaction to ensure ours. Mercifully, the Tiger is able to retract its claws at will- when it plays with its young, or indeed at any other time when they are not necessary or useful. Modern human beings have all but lost their ability to sheath the razor sharp talons of our minds. We have reached a point where judgment and preference have take on a momentum of their own in our minds. In most people, the inherent strain of this incessant judgment has created an underlying suffering which has taken a heavy toll on the human condition in general. This is the kind of unnecessary suffering that I seek to diminish within myself.
Good night.
Kikta