In my post, “The Distinction Between Pain and Suffering,” I make the important point that while we all experience pain … that is reality and inescapable … we experience mental suffering because the way our ego-mind reacts to the pain, to our life experience. Thus the way to end our suffering is to, as it says in the Serenity Prayer, change the things we can, which is how we relate to ourselves and the world around us. We cannot change the past, we cannot change what was done to us, but we can change how we relate to those facts. This was the basic lesson the Buddha imparted when he started turning the wheel of the dharma.
However, it is also important in ending our suffering, in healing ourselves, to acknowledge what we have experienced, especially abuse of any kind. As I said in my post, “Healing Your Inner Child - Healing Your Wounded Heart,” it is important to acknowledge how we were wounded as children, to speak the truth to ourselves and not be in denial. To place responsibility where it should be placed … usually with our parents. To allow our inner child to say what it is feeling and what it needs. And to love our inner child unconditionally.
It is important, however, while realizing this truth to not get into the blame game. Our parents, or whoever did us harm, were people like all others who were programmed by their life experiences to act and react in certain ways. No one is a free agent with free will that covers the full gamut of options. What free will we have lies in a very narrow range within our programming.
And they, like all people, suffered. A monk once taught me that whatever pushes your buttons, whatever harm has been done to you, is a reflection of someone’s suffering. One can’t hate someone who suffers; one can only have compassion.
This is not to forgive. This is not to absolve responsibility. Each person is responsible for his actions, even though they are the actions of his ego-mind over which he has little control.
Thus we can be forthright, speak the truth about the harm that was done us, but not be consumed with hatred.
However, it is also important in ending our suffering, in healing ourselves, to acknowledge what we have experienced, especially abuse of any kind. As I said in my post, “Healing Your Inner Child - Healing Your Wounded Heart,” it is important to acknowledge how we were wounded as children, to speak the truth to ourselves and not be in denial. To place responsibility where it should be placed … usually with our parents. To allow our inner child to say what it is feeling and what it needs. And to love our inner child unconditionally.
It is important, however, while realizing this truth to not get into the blame game. Our parents, or whoever did us harm, were people like all others who were programmed by their life experiences to act and react in certain ways. No one is a free agent with free will that covers the full gamut of options. What free will we have lies in a very narrow range within our programming.
And they, like all people, suffered. A monk once taught me that whatever pushes your buttons, whatever harm has been done to you, is a reflection of someone’s suffering. One can’t hate someone who suffers; one can only have compassion.
This is not to forgive. This is not to absolve responsibility. Each person is responsible for his actions, even though they are the actions of his ego-mind over which he has little control.
Thus we can be forthright, speak the truth about the harm that was done us, but not be consumed with hatred.
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