Pain of life

When we experience pain we think: "this is not normal", we want to get rid of the pain. We think that happiness is "normal". In fact pain is what is NORMAL. When we feel something pleasant, it is only a diminishing pain.

When we are born we experience pain and when we'll die there will be pain. In ordinary life there is pain, both physical and mental. Also we are aging and that causes pain.

We are looking for pleasures to make the pain less. But pleasures often causes more pain. We enjoy good food, but if we eat too much there is pain. We escape the pain by drinking alcohol, and the next day we feel even worse.

So then we also come to contentment. We are never content. We always want more. This is what the Western materialistic world have taught us.

"If you buy this, you will be happy". When you are down, you treat yourself by shopping to make the pain go away. If you'd learn how to be content there would be a lot less pain. You can't buy happiness.

There are also feelings which turn against themselves, such as lust and hatred.

How can we learn to accept the pain and not mind it?

Learning to meditate and staying in the present will help us to do the right choices. Avoiding doing things that are not good for us. Both physically and mentally. If we increase doing things that make us feel good we do not feel so much pain.

When we show compassion and love for others, help other people, we don't feel our own pain. That is the easiest way of helping ourselves. Then we don't mind our own pain.

A small lightening at the end: Joni had some problems with his computer last week. He struggled with it for a couple of days and he was very frustrated. I said to him that maybe he has been hitting his head enough towards the wall. He said: "If you hit your head enough towards the wall your head might finally be detached".

P.S. I changed the image, sorry :)