Chapter 9: The Art of Suffering
This chapter is probably the hardest one to write and to accept. Yet it is one of the most important things that needs to be discussed. It is for this reason that I titled it The Art of Suffering.
As I researched, I found that Jesus, Buddha and many Native people taught on it. And what I found was a common thread that binds all of humanity together. And that is that we all suffer and much of it is brought on by our own egos. Yes, you heard me right. We are the cause of our own suffering. And it causes a ripple affect throughout.
Think about it. When we are born, we suffer having to be thrust out of the womb into the cold hands of a doctor or midwife. Throughout our lives we suffer through illness, old age and then death. These are all natural occurrences. For the most part. Buddha, Yeshua and Natives like Black Elk all saw this. We all are born, get sick, get old and die.
But what about the suffering that occurs in between these four stages? How do we contribute to the additional suffering that we all have? The answer to this is that we contribute highly. The decisions that we make in our lives can both heal and hurt, not just ourselves, but others as well. It all starts with our thoughts.
An example of this is our choice of partner. When I chose to get married again, I had already gone through a ten year failed marriage, that should’ve ended long before it actually did. It was my choice to stay as long as I did. And it brought a ton of suffering along with it. It caused me to have trust issues when it comes to my current wife, arguments of whether I did the right thing by remarrying being that I am very stubborn when it comes to certain things and still attempt to live an “I do it how I want, what I want and when I want” mentality, even though I now have another human being whom I live with and love. Needless to say, I am the cause of much suffering in my life and that of my wife’s. Honestly, I don’t choose my battles and don’t know when to shut up and make decisions that will benefit both of us.
Buddha, Yeshua and many Medicine Men or Shamans spend years trying to find ways for us to lessen and even eliminate the cause of suffering. Buddha went many years searching in the different beliefs of India, until he realized that the answer came from within each and every one of us. Yeshua spent his three year ministry showing the Jews that God was not in their temple but inside all of us. And that the way to end the suffering brought on by our ceaseless sinning was to look within and find God in each of us. The Medicine Men or Shamans would search within the sick for the causes that were brought on by their own way of living, and would help them end the illness by showing them how to change that way of life.
Having seen this, I have come to the conclusion that we lack this way of being. What if we were able to deal with mental illness by recognizing that much of our suffering was brought upon our own actions? Or that, instead of over medicating a person, one just has to look within in order to find the cause? What type of world would we live in?
What about other illnesses? Can some of them be caused by our actions and thoughts? I believe so. How many of us go on WebMD when we aren’t feeling good and self diagnose ourselves with something that never was? In turn causing the our thoughts to manifest the illness that was never there in the first place?
I am not saying that modern medicine or physicians are useless. In fact, they have become the modern day medicine men and women, when they stay true to their oaths. Unfortunately there are those that would keep you suffering for a profit aka the pharma companies.
But, do we have to keep suffering? Absolutely not. Suffering is just a by product of our actions, thoughts and words. And we can end the suffering caused by ourselves by changing how we live, think and talk.
Sure, you may have heard this before in the movie and book “The Secret”. They called it the Law of Attraction. This has become a huge industry where you can get all that you want by thinking it. And it sounds all great, BUT.…is this all we have to do? Is this all that is required to become rich, buy the house of our dreams or the car that we want? Absolutely not. It is a huge portion, I am not saying that it is invalid. It is just a part of the wheel that needs to be turned. We need to change our thoughts, our words, our actions in order to end the suffering that we cause.
An example of this can be taken from current events. Look at how racism, sexism, rapes, hate crimes, anti-LGBT has risen from the depths of our mentality. Then look at how much suffering is caused around this country. Many in this country blame President Trump for the uprising. But is it only his fault? Or is it that we have let our own thoughts, actions, and words create such suffering? I am not in any way saying that he didn’t have a hand in it, but one man isn’t the cause of millions of people going out into the street and beating others or causing such mental anguish on others. That would be like blaming Marilyn Manson for Columbine or the Devil for the downward spiral that this country is going.
This is a large reason why I am advocating the thought of becoming Unlabled. Yeshua, Buddha and the many Natives around the world became unlabled from the normal way of thinking and being. They were the original revolutionaries, the original punk band, because they believed that if we looked from within and not outside of ourselves, eliminated our divisive ways of being, that we can become what God, Yucahu, or the number of deities wanted us to become: HUMAN, SPIRITUAL BEINGS!
I ask that if you believe as I do, to go onto social media and write #unlabled. Show the world that we want to end our suffering and that of the world.