There's this person who really annoys or even angers me sometimes.
What bothers me about this is to know that it's not him, but I who is causing myself to suffer.
But why can't I let it go?
Why am I attached to suffering?
That's the question, right?
That's the curious truth.
It's a profound question.
It's not something that... Normally people ask, why do I suffer?
And they say, well, you're making me suffer.
And that's the problem.
The curious thing about suffering is there are
there are different levels to our understanding of it, which I've talked about before.
I can go into it here.
I think talking about suffering would probably give you some better background to answer this question.
I think briefly I can say, before I explain the means,
The simple answer to your question is because that's not the practice.
The practice is not to let go of suffering.
The practice is to observe reality.
The result of observing reality closely, objectively, clearly is to understand reality for what it is.
The result of understanding reality for what it is, is letting go.
So it's a progress.
So most people understand suffering to be a feeling that you get from time to time.
And so they try to find a way to avoid the feeling.
Their understanding of suffering is that it's specific.
This or that experience causes suffering.
And so their means of escaping suffering is to run away from the experience, to chase it away,
to blame other people, blame external events and circumstances and entities outside of themselves or of course in their own bodies, even in their own minds.
Blame those things and try their best to avoid them.
This is how ordinary people deal with suffering.
You have a back, you have a headache, take a pill.
You have a backache, get a massage.
You have a stomachache, take some antacid.
Eventually, a spiritual person, a person with a little bit of wisdom at least, will see that this isn't effective, this isn't
a viable solution to the problem.
Eventually there are certain sufferings that you can't run away from, you can't avoid, you can't be free from simply by chasing away.
Old age, sickness, death, even extreme trauma, the loss of a loved one, loss of wealth, loss of health,
loss of
loss or sadness or any kind of great suffering will make a person realize that this isn't a viable solution that these these states of suffering you can't avoid so there has to be a better way to be able to actually deal with the suffering this is what often leads people to the spiritual life and for us this is what leads us to come and meditate so the the third
This leads to the third understanding of suffering as a quality inherent in reality.
In the same way that fire is hot, experience is
a cause for suffering.
I can't think of a word for it, but it's like static electricity or potential energy.
There's no energy in it, but it has the potential.
So a rock that's up high doesn't seem to have any energy, it's not moving, but it has potential energy because if you push it, it exhibits extreme amounts of energy as it falls to the earth below.
so reality has this kind of static electricity or this potential for causing suffering so if we say fire is hot but it's not burning you so when we say that that experience is suffering we don't mean that it hurts you and that it has the potential to hurt you and that which causes that suffering is craving so the cause of
all of our suffering is craving.
So the third is this realization, this observation that leads you to see that the reason that you suffer is not really because you experience this or that, but it's because
Well, the third stage is it's because nothing can satisfy you.
It's because, or it's the realization that all of reality is contributing to your suffering because you're partial to certain things and partial against certain things.
It's the realization that that's not correct, that's due simply to ignorance.
And it's the realization that all
really all experience is the same.
That pain is really the same as pleasure.
Good memories are the same as bad memories.
They're still just memories.
It's really only our judgment and our incorrect judgment that points to certain things as being stable, as being pleasant, as being controllable and therefore leading to expectations and ultimately disappointment when we don't get what we want.
That's the third, which leads ultimately to a realization of the truth of suffering.
And that's what leads you to let go.
So the third and the fourth are kind of like one and the same.
It's the path and then the goal.
When you finally get it, the fourth one is this moment, this sort of gestalt, I guess, or this epiphany that you have,
when you realize that nothing is worth clinging to when you realize that everything is like this so the third is the practice of observing and investigating and seeing that the things that you thought were pleasant and the cause for
happiness and contentment are actually making you more discontent, more unhappy, more unpleasant, more bitter and mean as a person.
And the fourth one is this final realization that absolutely everything is not worth clinging to.
And so that's the moment where the mind lets go and that's the realization of the freedom, the freedom from suffering, which we call Nirvana.
So why you can't let go, I would say, if I was going to be kind of smarmy about it, I would say because you haven't done the work.
You haven't done what is required to let go.
Letting go is not something you do.
In fact, the irony there is that you're talking about forcing yourself to let go.
which are opposites.
Letting go is, it means letting come actually.
Letting go means really stopping to force things.
Once you can do that, you'll be free from suffering.
So the question is really a paradox or something like a paradox where you're asking, why can't I force myself to let go?
When you say, right?
Why can't I let go?
You don't let go.
The letting go occurs because you see things clearly.
There's just no clinging because you would have no reason to cling.
The question as to why we're attached to suffering is more interesting.
And this is what's curious about this.
Why the heck are we attached to that which is suffering?
And this is the key to the essence of Buddhism is that it's ignorance.
we aren't always attached to suffering.
It's more like we are being tossed about in the ocean.
And so sometimes we go this way, sometimes we go that way, sometimes we can be really good.
Sometimes people are just naturally
good they're going in that direction sometimes people are naturally horrible evil mean creatures we go up and down back and forth but randomly so um but it's all based on ignorance once you know then you be you still you become steered in a specific direction and that's towards peace happiness and freedom from suffering so knowledge is something that directs
the mind just like the captain directs the ship without a captain without mindfulness the boat just is tossed to the waves tossed by the waves to the current um so so the the
It's just, you could say kind of by chance, it's where you find yourself, or it's one of the currents is attachment to suffering, based on ignorance.