We have been brought up to believe that pain is bad, and pleasure is good, but the two are inseparable like night and day, birth and death, back and front. Pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin that flips, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly And so calling one good and other bad makes no sense.
Here are some truths that should be taught at treatment centers and high schools:
• Pain and pleasure are vibrations; energy — nothing more, nothing less — a way to experience this wild ride called life.
• Life is about the experience, and there can be no experience of pleasure without the involvement of pain. In other words, we cannot have pleasure without pain (vice-versa).
• If we want a life that is 100 percent painless, then we will have to live a life that is 100 percent pleasure less as well, and that is an impossibility.
• Pain is a road sign trying to point us in a different direction, back to LOVE.
• Neither pain nor pleasure is permanent; more importantly, they are not who we are. We attach our identity to pain and pleasure, the more we will suffer. As the Second Noble Truth indicates - the origin of suffering is attachment.
However, we must respect our pain. Those scars are our stripes and badges of honour. Those injuries are a part of our sacred story. Hiding from pain will only make it worse.
Had I not learned to stop the running and seat with my pain and be OK. I would not have made it. I still would be dying in my addiction as a way to deal with the pain.
Thank God I had an awakening of consciousness and came to realize:
"Pain is our Friend, Not our Enemy." ~Paul Noiles
Comments