The Psychology of Suffering (And How to Get Unstuck)

 

08.19.2022 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUFFERING (AND HOW TO GET UNSTUCK) Suffering is a normal response to being human, but it’s not our suffering — it’s how we respond to it— that really matters. There’s a psychology of suffering, that if harnessed, can help you get unstuck when difficulties arise. The problems in our lives can offer the very solutions we need for solving them. This is contrary to the advice we often hear, which would have us pursue the positive and oppose the “negative.” But if leveraged correctly, our suffering can become a great source of growth. So much of what happens to us is outside our immediate control, yet we tend to develop coping strategies that involve trying to control the uncontrollable — that is, external circumstances. This is a sure way to perpetuate one’s suffering. Responding to our suffering in a healthier manner is a skill, and like any skill, it can be cultivated. The following Lion’s Roar and Buddhadharma articles can help you understand how your suffering keeps you stuck, while providing strategies to help you get unstuck. —Chris Pacheco, Associate Editor, Lion’s Roar AV

No Self, No Suffering The Buddha made a big promise — that if we know the cause of suffering we can end it. Melvin McLeod breaks down the Buddha’s four noble truths — including his unique insight into the real cause of our suffering — and argues it’s not only the ultimate self-help formula, but the best guide to helping others and benefiting the world.. The basic logic of the noble truths — suffering, its cause, and how we can end it — is universal and true for all times. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be built on, deepened, and expanded as human thought and knowledge progress. Traditionally, Buddhists applied the four noble truths mostly to our personal lives — how we can work with our own mind and heart to end our suffering, and perhaps even attain enlightenment. Now, we can combine the Buddha’s profound analysis with modern thought in politics, economics, sociology, and psychology to understand better the societal causes of suffering and how they too can be eased.

How to Work with Anxiety on the Path of Liberation Anxiety is actually a necessary part of our path. Psychotherapist Bruce Tift gives an instruction in how to relate to it constructively. We can never solve our lives. Life is not a thing that can be broken and then fixed. Life is a process, and we can never solve a process. We can only participate in this process, either consciously or unconsciously. We aren’t going to find the perfect formula and then coast our way through life. We can’t make pain go away, although we can reduce unnecessary suffering significantly. The more deeply we investigate, the less we can grasp or even know this apparent self that Western psychology takes as its foundation. From the Buddhist perspective, the nature of life — and of our own mind — is basically open. There is no foundation; no ground to stand on. We can consciously participate in this open nature, but we can’t know it.

When Sadness Rages Like Fire Pema Khandro Rinpoche shares the life of the Tibetan yogi Shabkar, whose practice and teachings were inseparable from loss and grief.  Sometimes, we cannot give love to the one we wish to give it to. Maybe that person can’t receive it, or maybe they have passed away by the time we have the love to give. Other times we may try to give love and it falls on deaf ears. Sometimes it is not safe to love a person directly. But grief opens us to much tenderness and love, and we can give that love to someone else, even if it is only with our lost one’s memory in our heart. In doing so, we can also dedicate the merit of our altruism and compassion to the loved one we wish we could have given it to. There is satisfaction in this.

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