The Buddha recognized long ago the universality of suffering. His study of human discontent highlighted the types and causes of distress. The Pali word dukkha, which is usually translated to ‘suffering,’ is said to be more properly rendered as ‘unsatisfactoriness.’ This refers to the fundamental angst of being alive, where nothing ever quite feels right, or at least not for very long. One does not need to be deeply depressed or explosively agitated to suffer; one can just look around, see a disappointing world, and feel that fundamental lack of contentment we all know too well.

The Buddha’s prescription is to meditate, observe the mind’s turbulence, and release desire. But most fundamentally, the solution to suffering seems to be acceptance. One heals by adopting a spirit of neutrality toward events in both the outer and inner world. Most spiritual disciplines, not just Buddhism, recognize the necessity for embracing life in all its misery, ecstasy, and boredom.

I used to find such concepts difficult to believe. They sounded good in theory, but seemed impossible in practice. I could not imagine actually attaining a place of sufficient equanimity that suffering would seem as valuable, even magnificent, as joy. I might have seen disappointment and despair as things I could learn to endure if doing so would lead to happiness, but embracing sorrow and heartache for their own sake sounded like a dangerous step.

Funny how the mind can change. The idea that suffering is the necessary partner to joy now strikes me as obvious. I feel it. I know it. I have experienced the intricate, mysterious interplay between the two on many occasions.

Not only is suffering necessary and important to accept, I can even see how cruelty is forgivable. The truth is, every act that injures another is an act that injures the self. If you see a person cutting their own flesh with a razor, the natural response is compassion, not outrage (although a parent or loved one might feel fury along with concern). You must try to divert a person from harming themselves, but you don’t approach them with the righteous anger we feel when the strong attack the weak.

Every act of cruelty is exactly like this. If you believe, as I do, that we are all One, then harming another is harming the self. As a result of this perspective, I now can see how even the most sadistic people are deserving of love; they may need to be locked away from society so others aren’t injured, but they should not be hated. One reason for this is a close corollary to the above: if we hate others, we hate ourselves.

My apologies for this poorly organized post. Much of this is still evolving in my mind, so my thinking about it is still a bit inchoate. The encouraging thing is that I know there are many who are catching onto these deep truths these days. We may be on the verge of a true phase shift in consciousness. I hope so, because the world desperately needs it.

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