You may have on many occasions seen people suffer due to their own foolishness or ignorance. It can be as simple as not knowing how to use a can opener and because of that the person ended up in a state of frustration due to being unable to arrive at a desired result. Or, on a more serious note, the foolishness of not knowing the danger of using a phone near a gas station may have led to an explosion that harmed oneself and also others all due to one's own ignorance.
In both the above scenarios and many other day-to-day situations which resulted in our stress or suffering, have we ever wondered for a moment what created the suffering? What produces suffering? Doesn't matter whether it is a little irritation in the mind or anger which shows up in our bodily actions. Both already resulted in stress in us which makes us no longer free, or peaceful.
Has such an important question ever crossed our minds? Can suffering be totally resolved? Is there such a potential? Or is it just wishful thinking that only the most fanciful minds can come up with? Is it really the case that suffering is inevitable, so long as we have a life? I am sure nobody on earth would want to suffer, and probably each of our motivation, albeit an unconscious one, is geared towards escaping from suffering. The question is, are we really looking for happiness or, is it truer to say that we are actually finding ways to escape from unhappiness, which itself is already a suffering? Surely, if happiness is our natural state, there is no reason for us to seek for happiness at all. And surely, that confirms we are all suffering, at different degrees, unknown to each of us, until this has been pointed out to us.
We may see or hear of others' foolishness (that we may not have) which made them suffer, but at that point of knowing it, we can be frustrated by what is happening. We can even have the "serve-them-right" mentality. But isn't that too our suffering, our stress, if we honestly notice and feel it? There is no issue which we are totally free from when it finally reaches our knowing. So, is it possible to end suffering? Is it possible to be free from suffering? Or to come closer to reality, what actually makes suffering possible, in all areas of our lives?
What if there is truly a way to end suffering? That there is a cause to its arising, and also a cause for its ending? What if, there is such a potential? Will you not seek that, and probably make it your priority — since we are doing everything for the sake of escaping from suffering — regardless of whether it is our health, career, relationship, money or anything for that matter? In short, life itself is motivated by suffering which leads each of us to yearn the opposite of it. Understanding holds the key, and the journey is supported by mindfulness or awareness.
In grace,
Tuck Loon