Reducing Suffering

Suryacitta (the Happy Buddha), in his walking into wisdom WhatsApp group this morning, said 95% of suffering is caused by ourselves.  That’s a bold statement, but one, I think, that might just be true.

The Sutra of the Two Arrows is a key Buddhist teaching.  The first arrow represents the unavoidable pain or misfortune that life brings (including old age, sickness and death).  We can’t avoid the first arrow hitting us – bereavement, illness, physical pain.  Then a second arrow hits us in the same place as the open wound of the first arrow.  This arrow symbolises our mental and emotional reactions to that pain, which often include negative thoughts, self-blame, and resistance to what is happening.  Ruminating, worrying, trying to predict events, wishing that things were different to how they are.  The key teaching is that while we can't always control the first arrow (the initial event), we can choose how we react and thus avoid the unnecessary suffering caused by the second arrow.

Which is all very well and good, but how do we avoid that unnecessary suffering? 

For me, Suryacitta’s teaching this morning was a lightbulb moment.  I’m worrying about some stuff at the moment.  There’s some real mental anguish going on – I’m genuinely in a bit of pain mentally with coping with all the unknowns, which I find difficult.  But lots of my thoughts are around “what if?” and creating problems that aren’t actually real yet.  So if I can reduce my “what if?” thinking, and ruminating on things that haven’t happened, I might actually be able to deal with the concrete problems.  And those concrete problems that are causing the pain might end up being much smaller than I think they are.  Indeed, don’t we all find that what we thought would happen often doesn’t actually come to fruition?  For me, it’s definitely worth a try anyway.

The big question is how I can put this into practice.  The first step, I think, is noticing what is happening.  With kind and gentle curiosity, notice that I am ruminating.  Notice that I am thinking “what if?”.  Noticing that I am planning for something that will probably never happen.  The kindness and gentleness is key – to get annoyed with myself for thinking like this is defeating the object – there’s another layer of suffering right there, waiting to happen!  Instead I can kindly say to myself “Jen, you are ruminating again. Isn’t that interesting?” and see what happens.  No doubt I’ll shortly start with the “what if?” thinking again – so again I can notice “Jen, you are "what if?" thinking again. Isn’t that interesting?” and see what happens. 

I might have to notice my thinking a thousand times and certainly won’t even remember to do it most of the time. But surely that noticing, even if it is only a handful of times, and being kind and gentle about bringing my attention out of that unhelpful thinking, is better than being stuck in an endless cycle of thoughts that are causing me suffering.

How can you reduce the impact of your second arrow a little? 

Love, Jen