You haven’t been taking care of yourself; you’ve been taking care of your money. You think, I’ll take care of myself after I have enough money, after I get it secured. I’ll be happy then. And “then” never comes. All suffering is mental. It has nothing to do with the body or with a person’s circumstances. You can be in great pain without any suffering at all. How do you know you’re supposed to be in pain? Because that’s what’s happening. To live without a stressful story, to be a lover of what is, even in pain—that’s heaven. To be in pain and believe that you shouldn’t be in pain—that’s hell. Pain is actually a friend. It’s nothing I want to get rid of, if I can’t. It’s a sweet visitor; it can stay as long as it wants to. (And that doesn’t mean I won’t take a Tylenol.) The Buddhists say that it’s important to recognize the suffering in the world, and that’s true, of course. But if you look more deeply, even that is a story. It’s a story to say that there is any suffering in the world. Suffering is imagined, because we haven’t adequately questioned our thoughts. I am able to be present with people in extreme states of torment without seeing their suffering as real. I’m in the position of being totally available to help them see what I see, if that’s what they want. They’re the only ones who can change, but I can be present, with kind words and the power of inquiry. The only time you suffer is when you believe a thought that argues with reality. You are the cause of your own suffering—but only all of it. There is no suffering in the world; there’s only an un-investigated story that leads you to believe it. There is no suffering in the world that’s real. Isn’t that amazing!” -Katie
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 16:40:31 +0000
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