I play a vital role in his life. I can give him what he most wants. I can give him a more and more open heart and mind and a deep connection with himself, other beings, and the world.
I can help him deeply heal. I can help him deeply awaken. I can help him deeply embody whatever clarity, wisdom, and love is available to him.
A dialog with suffering.
Hello, am I speaking with suffering?
Yes, you are.
How do people treat you?
Most treat me as an outcast. As something to get rid of. They numb themselves from me. They distract themselves from me. They struggle with me. They try to get rid of me. They try to transcend me. They try to transform me. Some even try to define me out of existence.
How is that for you?
How would it be for you? I am not that different from you. It doesn’t feel good. I often feel unloved. Unappreciated. Misunderstood. Abandoned. Abused. Mistreated.
How does P. treat you? (P. is the person these voices are within.)
It’s mixed. He sometimes does all of the above. And sometimes he is much better with me and seeks to understand me and listen to me. I like that.
How can P. appreciate you more?
Thank you for asking. Not many ask that question.
He can listen to me. Hear what I have to say. Ask what I would like from him. And also feel the physical sensations of me. Allow them to be when they are here.
What would you like from him?
To take me seriously. Realize I am here to protect him. My purpose is to help him. He doesn’t have to run away. He doesn’t have to get rid of me or transcend or transform me. When he meets me, he may discover that I am not as scary as he sometimes assumes.
Let me be as I am. Listen to what I have to say. Feel my sensations. That’s really all I ask.
Do you suffer?
That’s a tricky question. No I don’t. I am suffering but I don’t suffer. But when P. ignores me and tries to make me go away, I do – in a sense – suffer. And that suffering gets his attention even more. That extra suffering his the sign for him to notice how he relates to me. That extra suffering comes from how he relates to me. It’s not inherent in who or how I am.
Do you need to go away?
No. I am here for him. I can help him in many ways. I have many gifts for him, if he just sees.
What gifts do you have for him?
He wrote about it in the previous article. He already knows the essence. He just needs to allow it to sink in and live more from it.
I help him take a closer look at the situation he is in and how he relates to his own thoughts and fears.
And if he is receptive, I help him…. become more deeply human. Find deeper empathy with himself and others and the world. Find deeper understanding with others. See that all beings are in the same boat. Motivate him to change the situation he is in. Motivate him to change the situation others are in. Motivate him for deep personal transformation. Motivate him for being a part of deep social and cultural transformation.
I play a vital role in his life. I can give him what he most wants. I can give him a more and more open heart and mind and a deep connection with himself, other beings, and the world.
I can help him deeply heal. I can help him deeply awaken. I can help him deeply embody whatever clarity, wisdom, and love is here for him.
That sounds amazing. I notice I love you now. Why don’t more people see this?
I don’t know. I suspect it’s part of the culture. People tell themselves and others that I am terrible. They tell themselves and others I need to be avoided or gotten rid of. They hypnotize themselves with these stories.
A few do understand some or all of this. Often people who have suffered a lot and used it to grow, heal, mature, and perhaps used me for creating beautiful art or as an engine for social change.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for being part of humans’ lives. Thank you for being part of P.’s life. I love you. And I am sorry for how you have been treated by so many.
Thank you. That means a lot to me. I love you too. I have always loved you and all beings. I am here because of that love.
I love you.
I love you too. Always have. Always will. Whether you see it or not.
When I initially wrote this dialog, I focused on the human side of suffering. That’s fine. But I did leave out something in the bigger picture. And although I have written about it in other articles, I thought I would include it here too.
For all its value, suffering has an exit door. And suffering functions as an exit door for us taking ourselves to be a separate self or something particular within our content of experience.
Can I speak with Big Mind?
Yes, I am here.
How do you see suffering?
What suffering said is accurate although a bit limited. Yes, suffering can help humans in many ways. It’s often a part of being human and if they have a somewhat open heart and mind, it can help them deepen into their humanity and their compassion for all life.
And yet, there is another crucial way suffering can help humans.
Suffering shows them their struggle. Suffering comes when the mind struggles with what is. When it is caught up in a ”should“ saying what is should be different than it is.
Suffering shows them that they struggle and where they struggle, and motivates them to examine this struggle.
It shows them where their mind is still caught in beliefs and identifications, and where they are blind to a thought being a thought.
Suffering invites them to recognize and get to know this dynamic, and question their thoughts and find what’s already more true for them.
It invites them to awaken out of the trance of holding thoughts as true and for what they are – me – to awaken to itself.
I said this from the perspective of humans being somewhat distinct from me, since that’s how most humans perceive it and may help them understand it a little better. But it’s not completely accurate.
Said more accurately, I temporarily and locally take myself to be a human being and holding thoughts as true. This creates suffering. The suffering invites me – while taking myself to be a suffering separate self – to examine suffering and the causes of suffering. And this helps me wake up out of the temporary trance of taking thoughts as true and to myself as what I am.