The suffering of change April 10, 2008
Posted by bodhidude in : Psychology, Spirituality , trackback
In Buddhism, the first of the Four Noble Truths states that all life in this world is characterized by suffering or unsatisfactoriness. It specifies three forms of suffering; basic suffering which includes obvious things such as physical pain, sickness and emotional distress, then there is the suffering of change and what is referred to as all pervading suffering based on our illusory sense of self and separation.
I’ve been experiencing all three forms of suffering lately as everyone is but most intensely the suffering of change. This type of suffering occurs because all things are impermanent and change both in the moment and over time. However we usually don’t relate to things with this understanding rather we become attached to those things we think provide us with comfort, safety, pleasure and security. When we lose these things due to inevitable change we experience suffering due to our attachment. What we don’t realize is that these external things are not the actual source of our pleasure, love, security and peace. Our mind is the source and projects these qualities onto these external objects.
I’ve been in an intense process of letting go of much that I held onto in my life, everything from my job and career to my way of being in relationship to my living space. I’ve shifted from working a regular job with a consistent paycheck to working for myself with the uncertainty, increased responsibility and freedom that entails. I’ve begun to let go of my need to be in traditional relationship and instead have started to focus on being in more open free connections with people including lovers. I’ve just moved out of my apartment of four years, one of which was with my partner, and into a shared living situation which is very fluid and uncertain. I’ve experienced intense pain, fear and sadness throughout this entire process because letting go of each of these things has illuminated my attachment and clinging to them, its illuminated what I was getting from them and relying on them for. It has also illuminated to the degree to which they had become part of my identity. The process has been quite scary and unsettling at times but also extremely illuminating and freeing.
Letting go of so much at the same time is not something I would necessarily recommend to everyone but it has forced me to go inward for my sense of peace and security, the very place it all originated from anyway. Without as many of the typical external objects on which to project my peace and security I’ve been able to more clearly see its inner source and find ways of accessing it directly. I’ve seen this as finding incredible freedom because I feel like I’m getting to the point of not needing external people, things and situations to be a certain way in order for me to be happy because I see how I create my own happiness and can therefore access it at will, if I can get out of my own way in doing so. This way of seeing things seems to allow for change and impermanence to flow more freely because I’m not needing to hold onto or solidify things as much.
Its an ongoing process filled with moments of freedom and bliss and moments of terror but its a process I have chosen.
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