Monday, December 27, 2021
Anything that’s temporary is not real. Pain and pleasure are temporary, so take a closer look. We seek to chase pleasure and we seek to avoid pain, but is this what being human actually is? Suffering comes from wanting, but so does pleasure. They are both the result of a fixation on the outer condition. Suffering comes from wanting what you cannot have, and from having what you think you do not want. The source of pleasure, is kind of the same. It comes from getting what you want, or getting rid of what you don’t want. But both pain and pleasure lose their “result” over time. In other words, pain and pleasure wear off – they are temporal.
The highs eventually come down. The lows eventually come up. You are not on a search to remain on the mountain peak, anyway. That’s addictive behavior. But nor are you sentenced to perpetual suffering, either. That’s also addictive. Remember, if it’s temporary, it’s not real. But what is real is that part of you which knows the difference, your inner being that traverses both pain and pleasure.
There is a peaceful, eternal, and mindful being that is you. Knowing yourself is what helps you when the highs come back down, and when the lows seem to be too much to bear. Knowing yourself as a balanced being is what helps awaken you to that which knows the difference between pain and pleasure, and that which knows the temporal nature of both. You are not your emotions, nor your experiences. You are the omniscience that sees both sides of a contrasting, physical universe. That homeostasis of the universe exists with you, and the world is yours, so to speak. But it’s not to seek thrills nor is it to perpetually suffer. It’s to know who you really are, and what it actually means to be a creature of sustainable peace.