Stephen Levine: Such Relief

Such Relief

Pain becomes suffering as we harden to it. Softening is such a relief, such grace to just sit lovingly with a modicum of discomfort, remembering all those others at this moment with this same pain in this same body of pain and compassion.

Some, such as one old monk who thought that people, like a dying horse, should suffer to the end, think suffering is somehow noble, that pain is holy. I have seen all too many Judgment Day-fearing people dying in great pain because of this hopeful, tortured self-negation.

This is nothing holy about pain. We need to stop deifying our suffering.

Pain, though, does have its benefits. As the Dalai Lama has pointed out, if it were not for pain, there would be no compassion. Pain draws compassion like its opposite, stillness, draws wisdom.

- Stephen Levine, Turning Toward the Mystery: A Seeker's Journey

Also excerpted from The Buddha Is Still Teaching