The Whole

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Joe Mc

For me, Freedom from Suffering is different than freedom from pain. The word Suffering to me mean means imprisonment through psychological conditioning which is defining as well as confining to our human existence. So you may be in a painful situation, illness, other conditions although it impinges on you as a person and may completely preoccupy your life, it doesn't 'Define' your life or your existence in the last instance. Becoming overwhelmed by Worldly pain is a myopia or a blindness, perhaps a type of sleep walking which runs counter to awakening, To be awake, Buddha one who is awake for instance.

Here is the 'reading' I got from consulting an online version of the I-Ching (I heartily recommend the free to non-members one at https://ichingonline.net/index.php) after perusing the above series of posts, taking some 'diversionary' time, while contemplating what I might 'respond' to. In the 'Enter Question' box, I (had) simply typed "Today's Reading". It struck me as being quite pertinent to what you had writtn, Joe.

Obstacle

Ominous rolling in the Crater Lake atop the Volcano:
When meeting an impasse, the Superior Person turns his gaze within, and views the obstacle
from a new perspective.

Offer your opponent nothing to resist.
Let a sage guide you in this.
Good fortune lies along this course.

Situation Analysis: The Obstacle lies in obstinance, an insistence on only one way of proceeding has brought things to an impasse. You may either continue banging your head against this immovable object, or you might step back and survey this situation from a fresh perspective. Which is immobile here – the obstruction or your attitude?

Of course, stopping being 'obstinate' isn't always something one can do by dint of a simple decision or even 'strong' determination. Sometimes, a quite involuntary and unpleasant (to go through) process may be involved. And the greater (i.e. the more intense) the experienced 'pain' one feels, the more gut-wrenching the process. Those experiencing chronic, i.e. unrelenting!, physical pain and empaths (for similar reasons) 'suffer' the most in this regard, I think!

This excerpt from from Ch.6 of the book called Godspeak 2000 (which I have quoted from before) describes 'the process' I speak of:

Whether such eventuality is welcomed or not, sooner or later, particularly after repeated or lengthy trial and tribulation, when their strength is depleted, beleaguered individuals experience a state of psychospiritual ‘bankruptcy’, in which the hope of attaining idealization-fantasy fulfillment dies, and they starkly see that even seeking to compensate themselves for such unfulfillment by means of substitute desire-gratification dooms them to endless effort, if not utter frustration and futility.

They enter a phase, poetically alluded to as ‘the dark night of the soul’, characterized initially by feelings of upset and anger, then despair, followed by sadness, depression and, ultimately, resignation, in which yearning and striving for what they desire, because satisfaction continually eludes them, finally cease. Sense of purpose is lost. What they do or don’t do then matters little to them, if at all. Life seems a cruel joke, if not meaningless. The process continues, generally in waves and spurts, till they fully accept the fact that they cannot have things be the way them want them to be (or not be the way they want them not to be). In the end, truly humbled,a they reach the point where they stop being egocentrically willful and demanding, whatever their personal predilection and preference may have been or yet be.

Then, because no longer preoccupied with dreams of idealization-fantasy fulfillment and schemes aimed at attaining the same, they begin to be open to truly savoring and appreciating actualities and possibilities that are inherent in, and so embrace and act to creatively enhance, their and others present condition and circumstance, whatever this happens to be. As a result of becoming disillusioned regarding the possibility of actualizing and enjoying what, because of comparison-based sensation and logic, they previously mentally and emotionally fixated on as ‘ideal’, by default as it were, without specifically intending to, they organically rediscover and reexperience the beauty and bounteousness of Life as is.

In due course, such rediscovery and reexperience sparks a conversion in one’s outlook and mode of operation. Because one then experientially knows disappointment and dissatisfaction to be idealization-associated blights, one be*comes more wary of and less likely to be lured by fantasy-based temptations and, if and when one gets ‘snared’ by them, more quickly frees oneself from such entanglement by reestablishing wholesome relationship with what is in truth. Gradually, more and more often, and each time more fully, recognizing the bounteousness of experience and ongoing opportunity for discovery, development and joyful expression afforded by Life as It is to be a phenomenal boon, one proceeds with an attitude of greater and greater appreciation and [u]consequently/u] love. As the quest for ‘more’ desire-satisfaction then becomes superfluous, one increasingly enjoys and, so, more and more ‘naturally’ acts to enhance developments in Life’s garden, whatever one’s situation and whoever one may be with. Such progression ‘naturally’ culminates in one’s actualizing totally positive modality and flourishing in complete psychospiritual communion with Life processes one is part and parcel of, as all one’s giving and receiving becomes geared to this.