On Suffering and the End of Suffering

Photo by Anjali Mehta on Unsplash

Suffering in Buddha’s teaching does not necessarily mean grave physical pain, but rather the mental suffering we undergo when our tendency to hold onto pleasure encounters the fleeting nature of life, and our experiences become unsatisfying and ungovernable. ~ Sharon Salzberg

Introduction

Buddhism explains in its teaching that the five causes of suffering are:

• Not Knowing The True Nature of Reality: arises when we forget our true nature as spiritual beings. Our real identity is that of pure, unbounded consciousness. The tempestuous attribute of the material world has concealed this precious understanding of our conscious awareness. When we don’t grip this essential truth of who we are, we pave the way for the other four causes to arise.
• Identification With a False Sense of Self: a natural construct of the first cause. When we forget our true selves, the trivial unconscious action we do is to create a false identity as a substitute. The unhealthy ego keeps us trapped in uncontrolled selfishness. It is too resistant to any attempt to reconnect with the true self. A great deal of suffering is triggered by this false self unhealthy need for acceptance. It explains why most people choose to fit in, never challenge the status quo, and tend to rely on quick fixes to bear with their pain.
• Attachment to Objects of Desire: the act of grasping something delusional or temporary. Attachment causes suffering by inculcating in you a background stream of fear, anxiety, and dread of loss that is the inevitable byproduct of life.
• Aversion or Avoidance of Things You Don’t Want: it applies to anything that threatens our unhealthy ego — the false self we created and will cause us to back off. Aversion leads to suffering by pulling us into fear and worst-case scenario thinking, as we worry over what will happen if we find ourselves unable to avoid what we fear most.
• The Fear of Death: death is the great unknown, and it impends closer to each of us every day. The fear of death causes suffering by triggering all other fears, anxieties, doubts, and worries.
  

How can you set yourself free from those suffering causes?

According to Buddhists, the first thing to do so that to end suffering is accepting that it exists. All human beings, sooner or later, are touched by pain. Resisting it only worsens it.

Brilliant Buddhist teachings around stopping the suffering include:

Inviting people to forge noble purposes

It is a way to end suffering because noble motivations always lead to deep satisfaction that others can share. Feeling useful and purposeful gives more meaning to your efforts, in opposition to setting successful goals inspired by a desire for individual praise, which often leaves you empty in the end.

It is how my writing career started accidentally. The most enchanting accident of my whole existence! I have been writing during the last few months, among other topics, about one of the most dangerous diseases: Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I have been exploring its impact from different angles, either individually or on a global scale. It is the real cancer.

Being honest and an unapologetic truth-teller

Honesty is an awesome virtue. Nonetheless, it does not mean offending others within the process. Some people like to pretend to be authentic and speak their truth, while all that they are doing is judging, complaining, criticizing, stigmatizing, labeling — you name it!

Tell the truth while being cautious with your words.

Never hurting others or make them suffer while being aware of it

Sometimes, it can even be intentional for the evilest human beings. It is the abusers’ favorite game. By abusers, I mean the Cluster B classification disorders — Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, and Histrionic Personality Disorder.

As counterintuitive as it may sound to those individuals who are engaging in their abuse for the sake of feeling better about themselves, what such behavior is doing is to damage their well-being.

They are eternally tormented souls. When victims ask them about karma and how possibly it could be fair to harm so many people and not being held accountable for their darkness and actions, experts say:

They are punished daily since their karma is built-in!

Avoiding laziness and serving the world no matter the means

This piece of teaching makes me recall a brave man moving reflection. He’s a security guy:

That moment when you start doubting your choice and asking this question, “Why the hell am I doing this?” and that a little boy appears scared, crying, and saying, “Officer, can you please help me? I can’t find mommy?” That’s when you realize it has never been about you!

You need to pay attention to a significant detail in this context: many love to pretend and talk about being in service for the sake of selling the fake image, deceiving and exploiting you. It is crucial to use your critical thinking skills to observe their consistency and whether they are walking their talk. Should you be interested, I wrote this piece about the topic.

Being in a constant state of evolution and growth

It takes humility to admit to ourselves how little we know, and that we are willing to be a life-long learner. It implies challenging the belief system we have been taking for the absolute truth, “un-learning” them, and replacing them with new principle-based algorithms. This process is painful and requires tons of bravery!

Humility is the mother of all the virtues because humility acknowledges that some natural laws or principles govern the universe. They are in charge. We are not. Pride teaches us that we are in charge. Humility teaches us to understand and live by principles because they ultimately govern the consequences of our actions. If humility is the mother, courage is the father of wisdom. Because to truly live by these principles when they are contrary to social mores, norms and values takes enormous courage. ~ Stephen Covey

Practicing self-awareness

Self-awareness is the ability to think about your very thought process.

You are aware of the space between stimulus and response, you’re aware of your genetic, biological inheritance, your upbringing, and of the environmental forces around you. Unlike animals, you can make wise choices regarding these things. You sense you are or can become the creative force of your own life. This is your most fundamental decision. ~ Stephen Covey

The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds. ~ R.D. Laing

Interestingly, observing the signs and red flags your body sends to warn you of any imbalances is also a crucial step in moving toward your suffering-free arena!

Learning to tame our minds in times of anguish, confusion, or anxiety

In Buddhist teaching, they use what goes by the name of Shamatha or calm-abiding meditation practice.

In Buddhist terms, we say the mind is clear. Clarity here means the mind can understand itself. We can understand things because the mind’s true nature is self-understanding. Otherwise, we could not learn anything. To learn in the Buddhist sense means to gain self-understanding. The self-realized mind is free from the influence of phenomena. It is mind free from all need to occupy itself; it is now an independent mind. ~ Shamar Rinpoche

Summary of the Buddhism teaching

Simply put, all the brilliant Buddhism teachings summarized above revolve around one thing that I consider as the miraculous formula to all the problems in the world, no matter how big or small, which are merely manifestations of the unhealthy ego / false self.

This one thing is re-writing the distorted subconscious program — we never wrote in the first place — in alignment with the universal correct principles. More to the point, destroying all the limiting beliefs about ourselves and the world — where most of the subtle manipulation happens!

Let me give you an example to illustrate what I mean by the latter truth:

I once listened to a podcast discussing some familiar challenges observed at schools and how to guide teachers in understanding and managing them. One of the two guests was talking about a secure space for kids, and then about formal authority. Making use of this kind of authority or encouraging it is a Win-Lose paradigm. It is one of the most shared patterns between narcissistic personalities. Here is a rule to always keep in mind in such a context: Even when it comes to the most intelligent manipulators, they talk about what they believe deep inside despite doing their best to hide their ugly truth using numerous strategies. The person was promoting safety and then implicitly talking fear. 

Do you think people follow others because they are afraid of them? This limiting belief is the root cause of so many mental and psychological health problems.

People follow who they trust, and there is no trust with fear. We trust trustworthy people, those who are principle-centered and modeling their talk. Those who make consistent deposits to elevate the Emotional Bank Account as Stephen Covey liked to call the trust reserve. Those who can build healthy relationships, which are fueled by love instead of fear. Those servant leaders are genuinely inspiring people around them, but not through formal authority. Rather compassion and moral authority.

The major problem which could occur is that — without being able to pay attention to it before it is too late — we may sadly take many manipulators for kind-hearted leaders. How come? They are masters at psychological mirroring.

When someone mirrors us, they are doing a range of things. They may mimic us, emulate us, be interested in us, share our interest, point out our strengths, gently point out our weaknesses, and simply reflect us. Healthy mirroring involves a person who sees us accurately, and who allows us to see them as well. It is safe. It is reciprocal. It is honest. It is kind. Having this sort of holistic mirroring leaves us feeling safe. Narcissistic mirroring is a whole other game. The process is less about seeing you in some meaningful way than it is about data gathering. ~ Dr. Ramani Durvasula

What is that supposed to mean? Those narcissists can not only mirror real servant leaders and practice their outlook but also give anybody they are interacting with the impression of being seen and listened to through their fake empathy.

In other words, if we did not learn to question anything, including our thoughts, chances are high to be fooled by manipulative individuals.

To come back to the podcast, the person gave an example about an emergency happening in an airplane to support her idea about the students’ need for a strong teacher who does not have to be their friend. They need a savior in critical situations through formal authority.

It is the narcissists’ limiting belief you need to spot!

Appealingly, servant leaders are the most resilient individuals in the room. Consequently, they always have the right and quickest resolution in dangerous situations. People would follow them in any decision they make even when it sounds nonsense. Why? Because they know how much their leaders care.

Exploration of the 5 causes when we become principle-centered

Not Knowing The True Nature of Reality

Re-writing the subconscious program is first and foremost aiming to kill your false self so that you can unleash the True Self: the servant leader in you trapped under the life-time of conditioning layers and waiting for you to clean the dust.

A non-exhaustive list of this servant leader virtues is:

• A story we can easily relate to,
• What they are saying is resonating with our core principles even when we are not yet living them,
• Their authenticity and how easily they can speak their truth even when everybody is buying into lies or pretending,
• Their vulnerability and ability to expose themselves emotionally despite the risk to be ridiculed,
• Their kindness and generosity,
• Their humility: one of the most exquisite and captivating qualities of all,
• Being faithful to their principles no matter the price to pay,
• Their integrity, abundance mentality, and emotional maturity (balance between compassion and bravery to confront),
• How they treat everybody fairly and respectfully,
• Their contagious energy and lovable silliness,
• How much they can make you laugh without even downgrading a single person within the process; their secret weapon being self-deprecating. When doing so, those people are nurturing our inner kid,
• Their passion: the sparkling eyes, the excitement, the enthusiasm, how moved they could become when visualizing the outcomes of their life mission, and the vibes those people are vehiculating even through written words,
• Their gratitude: To the Universe, Divinity, God, Karma (whatever you believe in) for pretty much anything, even the fact of being able to breathe without machines,
• How easy and quick their apologies are whenever they figure out that they made a mistake.

When setting this servant leader free, you also reconnect with your purest gut giving you direct access to the truth. That’s how you become immune to manipulation, and that you use your experience and learning to educate as many people as possible.

Patanjali, an Indian physician turned sage, described four ways you know something: by (1) its physical appearance, (2) the associations you have with it, (3) the meaning it has for you, and (4) its spirit or essence. The way you know also determines how you experience intuition.

When your primary modes of knowing are based on (1) the physical or material world and (2) your associations with it, intuition is an occasional guest in your life. Intuition does function at this level, but it is more like a tool that you pick up, or something that is suddenly there or not. If you are working with intuition on these levels, it will seem unpredictable.

When you are leading a fulfilling life, one with meaning for you (level 3), intuition can be fully integrated into your life and an equal partner with your logic, if you commit to it. Remember: intuition thrives in meaning and travels on love. When you love your life and its purpose, intuition becomes a way of life. You understand how it functions and know that you can count on intuition’s wise and elegant input.

The fourth way-spiritual or essence level knowing allows you to be one with or resonant with that which you want to know. At this level, there is no separation between yourself and the other, so direct knowledge is available.

Identification With a False Sense of Self

A direct and trivial consequence of reconnecting with the true self is stopping identifying with your false self.

Exactly two years ago, I had an out-of-body experience. It was as if the servant leader in me dissociated to make me see all the lies of my unhealthy ego and realize this gigantic universe was not revolving around my small self.

Most importantly, and during this magic dissociation, I was able to visualize I was on this planet for a mission. From there, the reprogramming work started so that the true self could become the permanent resident!

Attachment to Objects of Desire

When you reconnect with the Principles original Center, the “attachment” concept loses its power and becomes meaningless. For instance, you will be only buying what you need to live a healthy & decent life. We will not consume blindly. Above all, you will not link your worth to a belonging.

For the quick story, my mother didn’t stop asking me during 2019 to change my car and buy a house. She was offering the money. I was declining every time. Eventually, she wanted to understand, and this was what she got as an answer:

“I love my small car. She (she’s a girl yes! 😁) never let me down. For the house, why shall I bother? I’m a universal citizen! I can be anywhere! As long as I can pay my rent, I’ll be tremendously satisfied!”

I believe all luxurious stuff is part of the unhealthy ego games to make people feel their worth extrinsically. Your intrinsic worth was harshly discriminated against by the grownups.

The troubled individuals, especially the most subtle ones — who are, by the way, the most dangerous manipulators, have been successful for thousands of years in vehiculating their venom to the global subconscious program.

Otherwise, why would it mean anything to own a luxurious house or car while the main functions of a house or a car are fulfilled with an average kind of belonging, given that roughly 734 million people remain in extreme poverty (2016)?

Call it common sense, principles, conscience, however you want to describe your measure of right and wrong! Fundamentally, it would tell you how unfair and superficial it is.

The universe’s wealth has always been distributed in such an imbalanced way, and the least you could do is to detach yourself from the luxury tool to prove your worth. The greedy luxury industries only took advantage of distorted centers.

Humankind history has always been cruel, and I believe the time has come for a real awakening.

I once saw a video where a guy was walking in the streets of New York city with money glued to his clothes and a poster saying “take what you NEED”. There were men wearing brand suits and women carrying luxurious accessories like a Louis Vuitton bag.

They were taking enormous quantities. When our guy asked one of them, “Do you need all of this?”, she responded confidently, “Yeah, I have an appointment in the beauty center in a while!”

Then, there was a homeless guy. He took a too small amount. The video maker asked him to take more. What was his answer? “I took what I need for today! Many people would need what I left…”

Even when remembering the scene now, it moves me and makes me cry my warm tears. The homeless guy was the most secure person whose integrity and abundance mentality didn’t fade away despite his financial situation.

I hope you can take a moment and ponder on this story!

Aversion or Avoidance of Things You Don’t Want

During the transformation, you learn to face with courage what everybody wants to avoid: pain. The pain can seem unbearable. You may doubt it, hate it, and want to give up many times. But there is a secret. You will persist because of your drive for transforming.

Every time you will feel like giving up, all that you need to do is to remember why you are doing it in the first place: a purpose that goes beyond you!

The Fear of Death

If you reconnect with the original being, you will most probably experience the following:

I don’t want to die, but I’m not afraid. The reason is straightforward: living by principles, being on a mission much bigger than my small self, and impacting even one person’s life is making every single lived moment matter, and that would be enough to welcome death with open arms! It was the last time for me to be frozen by my fear before having that epiphany:

From the author's YouTube channel

The Communists captured Pilecki in 1947, and they didn’t go easy on him. He was tortured for almost a year, so harshly and consistently, that he told his wife that “Auschwitz was just a trifle” by comparison. Still, he never cooperated with his interrogators. Eventually, realizing they could get no information from him, the Communists decided to make an example of him. In 1948, they held a show trial and charged Pilecki with everything from falsifying documents and violating curfew to engaging in espionage and treason. A month later, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. On the final day of the trial, Pilecki was allowed to speak. He stated that his allegiance had always been to Poland and its people, that he had never harmed or betrayed any Polish citizen, and that he regretted nothing. He concluded his statement with “I have tried to live my life such that in the hour of my death, I would feel joy rather than fear”. And if that’s not the most hardcore thing you’ve ever heard, then I want some of what you’re having. ~ Mark Manson

Takeaways

In this story, I shared Buddhism teaching around suffering and the end of it. Then, I explored their findings and linked them to re-writing the subconscious program.

Taking your responsibility to change what you were not responsible for creating in the first place — your subconscious program — is probably the highest level of strength and wisdom!

Are you still wondering what the outcomes would be apart from ending the suffering? It will make you whole if this work is performed collectively! For those of you who are curious, I went through the whole person concept in detail here.

Above all, you will contribute to such a noble mission: reversing the selfish, superficial, immoral, and cruel world we are living in and preparing a much better world for your kids and the generations unborn.

We would be living in the World of Pandora!