Suffering Well

 


Talk about mind boggling.  The title is so Thay (Thich Nhat Hahn)!  Oh, how he going to be missed.  I don't know that I'm all that different from other westerners who are attracted to Buddhism, but, at first and for some time thereafter, I found this type of language and the concepts they described rather uncomfortable. "Suffering well"? Who wants to suffer at all?  

If you pay much attention to Thay, the Dalai Lama, et al., you will notice that it is never a simple sentence in any sense.  We can't avoid the suffering, so suffering well is going to give us peace and happiness because it means we have learned to live completely in the present and make friends with life, which includes the suffering. 

For me it took some time just to get a handle on the concept. The first step after that was philosophical understanding. Now I know it, but I find that I drift away from my happiness from time to time. Returning is always further evidence of its truth.  

#Buddhism, #Thay,  #Suffering,  #VanceP&T 

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