Words Of We: How Do We End The Suffering?

A moment to pause and think before we start.

Why do we suffer? Why do we inflict suffering, sometimes, not even sometimes, most of the times simply by ourselves?

Do we even know what we’re suffering for? I’ll stop right here, because this is the answer.

We end the suffering by acknowledging what we’re actually suffering for. On the other end of that suffering lies 2 options: to either accept it or change.

Sounds easy.

Yet if you’re not fully present these options might not be available for you. You have to be aware in order to help yourself.

If you’re unaware that your house is on fire you’ll most likely won’t run to put that fire out.

If you don’t feel the mosquito biting you, you may never slap it fast enough for it to leave no mark.

And if you don’t feel that your own thoughts are eating you alive, you may never stop them before they take your life on a miserable turn.

And sometimes, that’s what it is. Bitterness and angriness formed out of years of suffering. Suffering from our own thoughts.

I’ve recently come across an old apartment building while travelling that had many small balconies that were visible from the pedestrian street.

There were many of these french looking balconies, almost 35 or 40 if I counted correctly, however what got my attention was not the balconies itself but an old lady that was standing in one of them right in the middle of that big building.

And you know what she did? She was spitting on people. She would hide under the curtains waiting for the next person to walk and she would quickly stomp to the edge of the balcony to gather whatever spit she had left in her and try to land it on young people that were just passing by.

At first I thought it was an accident but the more I watched her the more I saw that it was indeed a full day activity.

Seeing all this made me realise how bitter the woman must be and I was finally able to match this story to many others I’ve heard throughout the years.

Stories of old bitter people that had nothing left in them except for hate. It seems that they were still trying to find somebody else to blame for whatever they’ve come to make with their lives.

And you know what, they were once young people too who unfortunately may have already carried that negativity, even before they’ve gotten old. And this - beginning of it all, we can already see in the people that live amongst us, even in ourselves.

There are so many ways to suffer.

Suffer on the inside, suffer on the outside. To suffer privately and suffer publically. And we’re not going to talk about the physical and ‘real’ causes of suffering that usually come from specific life events like illness, death, grief. Though even these events have the same path of resolving by either accepting or changing.

There are many people who have accepted their faith without having the option to change it and they’ve still got to live whatever life they had left with a calm heart and open mind.

What we’ll talk most about today is our suffering as a community. Community of the world, because the borders don’t separate us, they just happen to put us in different rooms.

Suffering as a community is much more complicated as our core identity is tied to the feel of the whole. It is almost as if we ALL feel this way, it must be because we MUST feel this way. But we don’t.

The end of the suffering of the whole community is directly tied to ending the suffering within one self.

Detaching from ideologies and identities that your tribe has been carrying for ages. Only keeping what’s worth celebrating. Understanding our history, but not letting it shape the way we move in the new world.

I’ve seen generations in my own family that have been living with the damage done by the oppression and it never seemed to fade away even in this 21st century.

I’ve seen unhappiness in faces from someone who is 90 years old to somebody that is just 25 years old.

The never ending form of suffering is the art of complaint.

Complaint of old times, complaint of new times. Nothing is ever right, and nothing is ever wrong if it means that I’m right.

There’s always something that could be better, but - it's someone else that must make it better for us. It’s never us. It is never our responsibility to change that.

And on top of that, if somebody DO try to change that, I’ll make an enemy out of that.

How is he making his life better while I’m sitting right there doing absolutely nothing? I think he may be wicked.

It does sound strange, doesn't it?

Though the problem is, the more people we have running this race of never ending suffering, the more pollution we create with all of us combined.

It feels good to know that we’re all suffering from the same things, doesn't it? It kind of feels nice to belong.

But is it worth it though?

Ego loves to be stuck and identify itself with whatever issue that is consuming us. It feels as though we are in no responsibility to do anything, just keep talking about it. And the more we talk about it the better we feel. A strange way to get your fulfilment, but one can understand. We all just want to feel good about ourselves and not be in the wrong.

But what would happen if we’d stop that? Stop identifying ourselves with whatever beliefs we had thus far and see our lives as something that is sacred and actually joyful?

What would happen if we’d stop taking anything personally and accepting that negativity exists with or without us letting it in.

What if we would just drive around it like we would any empty hole on a bumpy road? Just go and say: “I don’t want to damage my wheels, I’m not driving through that!”

That could be you - saying no to letting in the negativity knowing that it could seriously make you rot inside. You don’t want that dirt inside of you do you?

If you’re following and see where I’m going I think you may have a chance to start your day a little bit better tomorrow. Maybe you already are. Maybe you already did for a while.

Though if you did - the road doesn't end here. If you got the gift of awareness or entered it just now, you do take on a little bit of responsibility to be the voice of reason to others.

Of course you can say no, but I think you don’t want to say no. Everybody benefits from the community that thrives in life.

The task here, as I already said - is simply to be the voice of reason.

You hear many people talking around you, all the time - in your family, at work, in group gatherings. Listen to what they are talking about and observe.

Maybe they’re talking to you. See if the conversations go to things that can easily be the cause of someone’s suffering: judgment, hate, lack of empathy, or understanding, bullying, self-hate, bitterness or superiority.

Listen and calmly ask them why they feel this way? Let them fully express themselves. Sometimes, the beginning of self realization starts there. The most beautiful form - of somebody hearing themselves and slowly realizing that the thoughts they had were not even their own. They’ll slowly shift the conversation, together with their thinking to something more neutral or more positive.

If they do not hear themselves or have the capacity to understand - tell them your perspective. But never in a way to show them that it’s better than theirs. What matters is reasoning. Reasoning as to why we feel a certain way or think a certain way. We’re not here to change other people's opinions. We’re here to help them shift towards a more positive outlook in life. To learn to understand and to learn to be more accepting.

I am also guilty of dwelling in a negative space. I’ve been for years. And it took the same amount of years to unlearn it.

Now everything is more or so positive, or at least neutral. I accept that negative space exists but I also understand how draining it can be to my own essence as humaning being and to those around me.

Any arguments we have with one another could be easily resolved with: “I hear you and it’s OK that we share different perspectives”.

“We’re not here to compete for whose opinion is better. I just want you to hear me and not shrug my opinion off just because you don’t agree with it.”

That is too another example of how we end 8 hours of suffering after a heated argument.

But what about the massive suffering we’re all feeling right now? The instability, wars, separation, superiority, inhumanity, violence, suicide, money troubles, power struggles, killing of people and of our spirits?

This is another type of suffering that most of us may feel currently and it’s hard to control.

Some of us will take what’s happening in the world very personally and others will just accept that there’s nothing one can do.

But there’s really many things one can do. If it takes 1 person to destroy the planet, it may also take 1 to restore it.

We’re not going against aliens or some old ancient mystical creatures. It’s us, humans, that caused it, so we might as well fix it.

It really does take one step at a time, and one day at a time. Even if you help only one person you help everybody, because now we have 10 more helping each other out and then another 100 is watching and now a thousand is doing something great.

The greatest trap of it all is that we often overthink and get stuck in the first step of the process of figuring out how to help the world.

That’s actually the same trap that people of all ages fall into when they’re trying to do something with their lives - they think too much.

Your body has a natural ability to guide you towards the things that give joy and fulfilment. Not satisfaction - fulfilment.

We’re all equipped with different assets (maybe money, time, desire to volunteer, or talk to people, even ability to lead or organize charities, protests, movements) - you have to find your best asset and go with it. Share it with the world and find people to join you and form even bigger groups.

Even though this suffering is often created by someone who didn’t mind seeing someone else suffer in the first place, we still have the tools and ability to fight it.

To see your community burn in flames, even metaphorically, is really heartbreaking. To lose your community to drugs and or any other escape substances is also very heartbreaking. To feel alone in this world is beyond heartbreaking.

But we’re really not alone. We’re all here and none of us wants to suffer.

I don’t want to see nobody suffer. Even the people I don’t really agree with or completely understand. I still value their life and I wish for them to return to the path of love and community.

When we first got here, do you think we just opened our eyes and said - “oh, I cannot wait to suffer for the rest of my days!”

We didn’t. We saw life full of beautiful things and experiences. We smelled and tasted everything so strong, we wanted to try all things and to be all things. We’ve imagined the craziest dreams for us and none of those dreams were that crazy to begin with. We just all wanted to do something great with our lives.

We’re still here to do it, and the sooner we end our suffering, the sooner the joy of life will return, just like those early days when we first opened our eyes.

It will take a while for the world to catch up, but you can already start with yourself and your closest friends.

Catch yourself letting the negative thoughts in and ask - do I benefit from thinking this way? Does it do any good to me or the world? Exchange them with a positive thought, something that would make you excited and give you extra motivation on a day when you need one.

I will end this one with this thought: If you do choose to suffer, choose something worth suffering for.

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