An Insufferably Good Time
The person that desires to have only pleasure and refuses pain expends an
enormous amount of energy resisting life--and at the same time misses out
enormously. He or she is on a self-defeating mission in any case, for just as we
evade certain forms of suffering we inevitably fall victim to others. Underlying
our glitzy modern consumer culture there is a deep spiritual undernourishment and
malaise that manifests all kinds of symptoms: nervous disorders, loneliness,
alienation, purposelessness. . . So blanking out, running away, burying our heads
in sand or videotape will take us nowhere in the long run. If we really want to
solve our problems--and the world's problems, for they stem from the same
roots--we must open up and accept the reality of suffering with full awareness,
as it strikes us, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, in the
here-now. Then, strange as it may seem, we reap vast rewards. For suffering has
its positive side. From it we derive the experience of depth, of the fullness of
our humanity. This puts us fully in touch with other people and the rest of the
Universe.
--John Snelling, in Elements of Buddhism
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book
