Suffering by Choice is Optional
by Michele Nappi
copyright May 2010
Pain is inevitable. Choosing to cling to the thoughts around the event, is a choice. There is no such thing as suffering. It is a choice to suffer or not. In other words, suffering is a choice we make. All that one experiences is relative to that individual and their way of thinking. It is by perspective that we conceive the world. All is past. Each moment of now is an opportunity which may be missed if one fills the moment with the non-existant past. Filling the now moment with some prior history assists one in living rotely. As if each one was a robot that was downloaded with information. To live outside the documented past, is to live. Freedom exists in each new moment.
There is great freedom to be found. Peacefulness. By allowing the past to not define who, where, what, why, or how we live each moment. Imagine that, if you will. Each moment a new discovery like an infant. The possibilities of choosing to live this way instead of choosing to live in the past. Letting go of struggle, emotional pain, suffering. What keeps us from living like this? Fear. Abandonment. Labeling. Ridicule. Sentimentality. What would life be like? What would others think? Would I be labeled as crazy? What would I need to give up? Could I live without the very things and ideas that create suffering? Would there be a reason to exist? Am I brave enough to experience this new way of living?
Like a page in a book, each one read and turned to the new, we learn and move forward. We fill out databanks with new information and validate the old. We see others and mirror back to ourselves what we have come to know and understand. Like the French mime, we go through life performing the act. Some may say, "If I had to suffer, so should you." "Should" is a word one can live without. "Should" usually has a negative meaning. "Should" denies reality in the sense that what is happening is thrown out for a judgement of someone elses perception of reality. We fish into our databank to find someone elses perspective or opinion, which we automatically deem more meaningful and valuable than our own. Why? Who would be the judge, of the judge, of the judge, and so on? Since when has one persons idea of individuality not been good enough? Why would someone expect something out of another that they themselves would not do? Where did we each get these ideas of what is right, wrong, good, bad, evil, pure, too this or too that?
All is "what it is." Next comes the judgement. The perception relative to each. Just about everyone has an opinion. When one person chooses to believe their opinion is not worthy because of choosing to believe what they were taught in the past, we feel suffering. We feel separate from all others when we choose their reflection in the mirror of life over our own. We struggle in this self-made suffering. There is no wrong, right, good or bad. Only perspective. Merely relative to each individual. Each individuals thoughts and feelings are not collectively "the" truth but their truth. When did we decide as an individual and as a society that another persons truth may be more valuable than our own or anothers, so much so that we would get rid of that other individual or ourselves, in order to maintain that truth we have decided upon? Each is as valuable as the other, as each has yet to meet their full potential beyond what we and/or they experience.
No one sees the larger picture. We are not allowing ourselves to out of choice. By agreement, whether it be an individual choice or a collective choice. Think a thought, create a feeling. Take a side, create an equal and opposite side. Do you see how that works in the duality thoughtform? Any thought you have in your head was put there long before you had any knowledge of it. Any thought you choose to keep in your head is one that you decide is there. No one can make you keep a thought in your head but you. No matter what. So this is where you create and manifest from. Do you want a blackboard full of lettering, symbols, labels, other and past-conceived? Do you want a clear beginning from each moment of now? Your choice. You choose. You have it in you to grow into a beautiful new existance. It is within your grasp, within your own mind.
What thought are you putting in your head at this moment of now? This is your diving board into the pool you call life. You are in charge. Change your mind or not. It is up to you. Suffering arises when we resist the law of impermanence; renunciation. We can choose to let go with compassion, accept impermanence and touch the stillness within.
When we choose 'whatever' to stand before us as a mirror of who we are in the moment we choose this. We choose the thoughts in our heads. We choose what thoughts to keep there. What ever we choose; relationship of any kind, we choose to see ourselves through. We see ourselves clearly through the mirrors of our choice. We may experience permanence and suffering in this way. That would be a choice of those who do choose to see themselves in this image. Suffering is a choice.
In my life I have learned this intellectually. I am working on bringing this into my heart-self; my soul more and more often, as a choice to be made. It has not been an instantaineous awakening. It is something I do know and bring this knowledge to myself when I have chosen a mirror that is reflecting something that I have chosen to see myself through. Especially when I choose suffering. I then choose to realize once again what I have chosen; what image of self I am choosing to experience, and I am able to come back to the place of peace deep within. I have created this by choice, also and so can anyone else.
The ego says, “I should not have to suffer,” and the thought makes you suffer more. It is a distortion of the truth which is always paradoxical. The truth is you need to say yes to suffering before you can transcend it. (Eckhart Tolle)
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