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Sunday, January 24, 2010

suffering: about it, not having it.

fair warning... indiscriminate dashes ahead-- oh yes.

i'm definitely a suffer in silence person, until i reach the point where i can't handle that anymore and then i'm NOT silent, and things are very messy at that point.

(and, by the by, i'm immensely private and so the real stuff doesn't even make it here. the mostly real, the day to day, but not the most real, most scary .... are you the same way ?)

right now things are not messy mostly and i think any suffering that I am doing is just everyday situational anomaly stuff.

but i've been thinking a lot about suffering and about buddhism and this byron katie stuff that i have to talk to chakra carol about this THURSDAY morning... cripes.

i can't seem to get my mind/heart/walnut around the idea that suffering is all in your mind...byron katie says so and lots of buddhist teaching seems to point that way, if i'm not mistaken. you know, the idea that if you accept what is, you will not struggle against what is, making your suffering dissipate. ya dig?
so. i can't get my body wrapped around that because it is somehow incomplete. its like those people who 'seem' to have charmed lives, when they finally encounter something difficult or even horrible, just can't handle it the things and it blows their world apart because they'd assumed that their charmed lives were somehow their own doing...
i'm trying not to throw my judgements all around here. but still,- looks like a tornado passed through.- I am NOT saying that my life has been so tough. there is a lot of tough that has passed me by and I am fine with that. but i didn't DO anything to make that happen. its just luck of the bloody draw.
if my kid gets leukemia, how is that in my head? How does acceptance make it easier? I don't mean to be glib, but even papercuts ACTUALLY hurt. If I Want to have faith, but don't most of the time, what then? Do i just -sit back and wait ? accepting that I don't have it? If everything is meant to be as it is, what does this say for all those emotions we try to teach our kids about? fear, disappointment, anger, aggression, joy, patience, etc. How does this work? How does acceptance make it easier? What do we do with resentment? when that one passes, it leaves a smear... whats the suffering for? if i think it is NOT all in my head, some fabrication of my overly active ego intellect, then what is suffering's role? do we learn? figure out our directions? get led? just, feel something?

this is timely in the whole priviledge of time and space that enables me to debate in my head with the jackass preacher who somehow thinks that a natural disaster is punishment. Isn't he so lucky that he's never been in one? hm, must be a really good man... i mean, REALLY good. maybe he's jesus? hm. maybe? could be. hm.
i'm not a hellfire and brimstone sort of girl but that man is going DOWN. no question. who the hell is he to judge?
yes, i see the irony in my type. yes, i do.
***EDIT: I went to youtube to see the pat robertson statements for myself. there is a lot of 'interpretation' out there and some of it, mine. i think he is less 'the devil' and more a confused person who believes that haiti's problems stem from a pact they made with the devil. true story.
sorry.


Maybe the rub is that nothing makes these things easier.
all part of the grocery store of life, you pick what you want to eat and what you pass by.
and sometimes you read a trashy mag on your way out...

4 comments:

Viv said...

Oh, but, he thought they asked him about, "Hades," not Haiti. I'm just going out on a limb here and assuming you're talking about Pat Robertson. *bleh*

Jen said...

Hi. I too am immensely private. So why do we have blogs? I tend to speak in code on the blog and figure those who know what's going on in my life will "get" it. So often they don't. I've got to stop hanging out with stupid people or just give them a handbook.

Regarding the oxycodone, ibuprofen. I had a hysterectomy because they found cervical cancer after an abnormal Pap. While I am private I do feel that sharing this info could help other women in my age group find something they wouldn't expect. I'm just not sure how to share it yet, it's a bit fresh. Make sure you have your annual exams. I am religious about them (just about the only religious thing in my life) and this hit me like a ton of bricks.

Eeeew. Will you still read my blog now that you know so much or is this just TMI?

Jen said...

I have added my email to my profile, you are welcome to email me anytime. I'm still figuring this whole technology thing out. It's just like parenting the minute I get it, it totally changes.

Mama Mama Quite Contrary said...

I don't usually think of bloggers as immensely private people. Why not keep a personal handwritten diary instead of putting stuff out into cyberspace? I mean even if a person blogs about the most basic events, it is still his or her life out there for anyone to read. Does the blogging help to manage the suffering? Do the blog comments make it all less isolating? That's what I wonder.

If your kid gets cancer, it is of course not in your head but whether you accept the situation and live in each present moment with your stricken child is different than dwelling on how it could have happened and what the outcome might be. That's where the suffering is.

I found that once I was able to accept that the vast majority of people are suffering in some way, it really did ease my own suffering. Of course, it took a lot of years of therapy to get to this point and I still get angry but it has made me more forgiving and more present in my life.