The Fabulous Advantages of Suffering
At dang near every Mahayana lecture I hear teachers praising happiness. I want to put in a good word for suffering. Here are seven fabulous advantages of suffering:
Suffering weakens that super-super glue which binds us to Samsara.
If you meditate with intense concentration on the sensation of suffering, the suffering briefly gets stronger, AND THEN IT GOES AWAY!!! I swear it works.
If you get the hang of relieving suffering by meditating on it, it becomes a habit. Now you have a source of free and effortless practice. Stub your toe? Free practice. Flat tire? Free practice. Rejected by your beloved? Free practice. Diagnosed with a fatal condition? Free practice. You’ll achieve Shamata in no-time.
Meditating on suffering is EASY. Suffering naturally screams: ‘pay attention to me!’ After meditating on it for a while your attention wanders. No problem. When your attention wanders the PAIN GOES AWAY!! Later the pain returns and again screams ’pay attention to me!’ and your meditative concentration effortlessly returns. You didn’t even have to do any work.
Suffering is like the engine of compassion. If you meditate on your own suffering, you realize compassion for every one else who is in the same boat.
Suffering is like the canary in the coal mine. No matter what Dharma mistake you make (ouch!) the result is suffering. Search out the suffering, examine it, and you will understand the mistake. We all have Buddha Nature. It’s covered in garbage. This is a way of figuring out which chunk of garbage is blocking the light. Then you can zap the chunk as in #2, or Mandala-offer it up to the Lineage.
This last advantage is messy. When we see suffering as bad, we want to do good, by stopping it. But it can be terribly difficult to relieve someone else's suffering. First, there is so much delusion flying around that your attempt at charity is worse than the blind leading the blind. It's like the hallucinating leading the hallucinating. Second, suffering is BUILT - INTO - THE - SYSTEM. A male bee is having great sex with a future Queen, and just on the verge of orgasm his penis explodes. Are we going to end that suffering? With bee implants or bee penis braces? No. But if instead we accept the bees’ suffering, and we meditate like a maniac, maybe ultimate Bodhicitta will shine it's light on us and the bees..
Happiness is not achieved by grasping for happiness. Suffering is not extinguished by stamping out suffering. Bliss (a different animal from happiness) is achieved by patiently and carefully examining the true nature of … of damn near anything: the world, the mind, the self, the Universe, your toe, a coffee cup, your breath… but especially, by examining suffering.
11/4/24