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Question: Are you saying that knowing all pain suffering is universal, frees one from it? Doesn't pain suffering continue to exist whether it be seen as that of the microcosm or the macrocosm? Is it God's toothache? Answer: At the relative level of the game, life is experienced through the polar opposites such as pleasure/pain, good/evil, high/low, on/of and so on. These contrasting poles are known from and - generated by - the perspective of an apparent separate character. All apparent free will of this illusory character is aimed to get away from the minus pole and move towards the plus or pleasure pole. The end of suffering is not found in the eradication of one pole while maintaining the other, but suffering's true nature might become clear by asking who it is that suffers. Liberation can come through the realization that there is in fact no separation anywhere and that there is no individual that does the suffering. In this recognition, fire still burns, the wind still blows, the rain comes down and the sun shines, for all..... and for no one. It is not so much that one is freed from suffering as that it is realized that there is no one to be freed. This perspective is pointed to in the following quote, which has been assigned to Buddha: The deed there is, but
no doer there of. Suffering is content. Awareness is context. Awareness is the source in which all arises and dissolves. Awareness remains unaffected, just like the mirror remains empty, regardless of what seems to appear in it. Recognize that you are the unaffected Awareness/Witness to which the person and its experiences -good and bad- is a witnessed object. HERE the point of gravity shifts from content to context. This context is empty and marvelous, it does not suffer. It is the peace prior to the mind generated divisions of good/bad, pain/pleasure, yin/yang. You are that Peace. |