Joe/ Suffering

[Guest guest]

> It's easy to just pick up a book and look for some teacher's words

of

> comfort and hope someday that I will be like them, rather than

> sitting with direct experience of the tension and suffering as it

is

> right now, and the world of worry being spun by the mind revolving

> around " my life " .

 

Yes, indeed.

 

And when I try to navigate out of that, create an island to

escape, I get very pissed at anyone who offers a pin to

burst that bubble.

 

And thus, what I am doing, is what the world is doing,

creating suffering by trying to escape to my refuge

where I can deny any suffering.

 

I am the world. I am not separate, nor living somewhere

else apart.

 

> All of these " problems " -- pure imagination. Yet the suffering is

> real.

 

Sure -- I can't escape the suffering that I am.

 

What's imaginary is all the ways I explain the suffering

to myself, so as to avoid being it.

 

-- Dan

 

> Joe

>

> PS: I remember that time I wrote:

> I want to wake up from the story of my life.

>

> You asked a great question:

> Then where will you be?

>

> It was/is a good koan.