Self Torture

[Guest guest]

"OK, let me see if I understand you. What you seem to be saying is

that we have a choice between hissing and blissing. We actually have

that absolute freedom. But that we unconsciously choose to suffer

because we feel compelled to make others suffer. So called

'enlightenment' is when it becomes crystal clear to us that when we

feel compelled to cause suffering, what we're really doing is

compelling ourselves to suffer. It's as simple as that. You're

saying that we're under the delusion that others need to be made to

suffer so that we may be protected. But that the truth is, we're only

subverting ourselves when we subvert others.

 

"Well, I guess I've heard that all my life, and yet I still find

myself suffering, so what's the deal? In response, you say, that it's

so obvious that we just don't see it and that our blindness is so

insidious that we don't even know when we're making both ourselves and

each other suffer. What some call pleasure, you say, is really pain;

and what others call pain is really pleasure.

 

"So, you add, it takes a so called 'enlightened' person to clue us in

to what is actually self-torture and what is actually self-nurture or

liberation. You say that the difference between these two seemingly

vast differences is clouded by our incomparable blindness. So much

so, that it takes a tremendous and miraculous transformation for one

to drop this self abuse you refer to.

 

"Is that right? And, you say, that all it takes for one to quite

simply liberate oneself, is for one to just simply 'let go' of any and

all self-torture. And, you hasten to say, everything but, what you

call the ineffable, that which is beyond language, beyond naming, is

self-torture, or delusion. You say that any thing, any action, any

doing, that can be named, is, in the very naming, self-torture. But

that in the not doing, in a sense, there is the not engaging in

self-torture.

 

"And, lastly, when I ask you if I've understood, you answer with no

answer, thus implying, to me, in any case, that even this question is

itself a form of self-torture."