Got
suffering?
Want to feed
it?
First question, yes. Second question, probably not.
Time is to
suffering what oxygen is to fire. It takes ‘time’ to suffer. Not 'real' time, but 'borrowed' time. Time imported by remembering the past or anticipating the future.
Other than
the real pain we feel from injury or disease, brooding about the
past or worrying about the future is what causes pain. As somebody said…"Pain is unavoidable. Suffering is optional."
In the extended
quote below, Eckhart Tolle gives a really clear account of ‘optional’ pain—the
pain that is nurtured by ‘psychological time’—not real time, not now time, but time
remembered or anticipated.
There’s a
world of wisdom in his description (particularly about borrowing trouble from the future). If, when we’re caught in suffering, we can
remember what suffering is and how suffering works AND remember how it ends,
then we begin to understand and experience a kind of freedom that is almost
imaginable.
---
All negativity
is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present.
Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry — all forms of fear — are caused by too
much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances,
sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much
past, and not enough presence.
When you create a
problem, you create pain. All it takes is a simple choice, a simple decision:
no matter what happens, I will create no more pain for myself. I will create no
more problems. Although it is a simple choice, it is also very radical. You
won’t make that choice unless you are truly fed up with suffering, unless you
have truly had enough.
To alert you
that you have allowed yourself to be taken over by psychological time, you can
use a simple criterion. Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what
I am doing? If there isn’t, then time is covering up the present moment, and
life is perceived as a burden or a struggle.
To alert you
that you have allowed yourself to be taken over by psychological time, you can
use a simple criterion. Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what
I am doing? If there isn’t, then time is covering up the present moment, and
life is perceived as a burden or a struggle.
If there is
no joy, ease, or lightness in what you are doing, it does not necessarily mean
that you need to change what you are doing. It may be sufficient to change the
how. “How” is always more important than “what.” See if you can give much more
attention to the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it.
Give your fullest attention to whatever the moment presents. This implies that
you also completely accept what is, because you cannot give your full attention
to something and at the same time resist it.
As soon as
you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life
begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out of present-moment awareness,
whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love — even
the most simple action.
So do not be
concerned with the fruit of your action — just give attention to the action
itself. The fruit will come of its own accord. This is a powerful spiritual
practice. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the oldest and most beautiful spiritual
teachings in existence, nonattachment to the fruit of your action is called
Karma Yoga. It is described as the path of “consecrated action.”
When the
compulsive striving away from the Now ceases, the joy of Being flows into
everything you do. The moment your attention turns to the Now, you feel a
presence, a stillness, a peace. You no longer depend on the future for
fulfillment and satisfaction — you don’t look to it for salvation. Therefore,
you are not attached to the results. Neither failure nor success has the power
to change your inner state of Being. You have found the life underneath your
life situation.
In the
absence of psychological time, your sense of self is derived from Being, not
from your personal past. Therefore, the psychological need to become anything
other than who you are already is no longer there.
