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‘The wound is the place where the Light enters you.’ ~ Sufi mystic, Rumi

Buddha professed, ‘Life is a suffering’ and at least at some stage in life, most of us do experience it that way. In some situations, particularly those related to a significant loss – of a loved one, a precious relationship, or a job – our suffering seems irreparable.

However, suffering and peace are two sides of the same coin and there’s merely a thin line separating the two. With greater awareness, understanding, and compassion, it is indeed possible to transform our agony into solace; our restlessness into stillness; and our adversity into a blessing. Suffering provides an exceptional gateway for deeper learning and growth to occur…towards discovering enduring happiness in our life.

In this post, I would like to share three key elements towards transforming our suffering into peacefulness. To better appreciate these, it maybe useful to first identify the central cause of our suffering.

The underlying cause

The single biggest cause of our suffering in life is our attachments. Whenever we feel any kind of emotional pain, we are invariably attached to something that makes the experience stressful. Pain is physical, but suffering is mental – it’s often not the event by itself, but our inner relationship with it that causes the suffering.

Disappointment with any setbacks at work is a result of our attachment to the expectations of specific gains from our efforts; the constant anxiety about our children’s future is an outcome of our attachment with an idealized version of ourselves that we wish our children to grow up into; fear of illness emanates from our attachment with our physical body.

We get attached to pleasurable experiences and worry about the risk of experiencing unpleasant ones; attached to material possessions, we spend inordinate emotional energy either craving for more or being fearful of losing any; our subconscious attempts to honor our attachment to our status, image and identity are a frequent source of mental anguish.

Three elements for transforming suffering

1. Realizing that happiness is a conscious choice

While bouts of suffering can be paralyzing, we need to recognize that we have the seeds of both, suffering and happiness, within us and although the cause of suffering may appear outside of us, we always have the choice within us to transform it, based on how we respond to it.

As Buddhist teacher Thích Nhất Hạnh says, ‘The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don’t wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.’

A job loss is unfortunate, but how we relate to the situation determines the extent of agony we undergo. Many of us identify strongly with our work and job title. A job loss can then be perceived as a significant personal failure and a justified reason to be distressed. Alternately, we can relate to it as an integral part of corporate life and consider it as an opportunity to reflect, retool, and potentially engage in something even more meaningful.

Research suggests that most people regain their original level of happiness after one year of job loss (incidentally, research highlights similar results for people after one year of losing a loved one); in many cases, at some point in the future, they even regard the job loss to be the best thing that ever happened to them.

Not only does building a healthier relationship with our reality supports us to be happier, but it also allows us to pay attention to the actions we need to take in the given situation.

2. Developing higher awareness

Higher awareness is the real gateway to this transformation. An insightful understanding of the situation can shift our perspective – being able to relate to the same circumstances in a meaningful way lifts the veil of burden and disappointment and allows us to connect with our happier, higher self.

For a four-year old child, the incident of one of her toys breaking is woeful; while a seventeen-year old recognizes that it’s just a toy and very replaceable. For that seventeen-year old, however, falling out of favor of his girlfriend can be devastating – while the parents can clearly relate to it as just a passing phase. The seventeen year old is more aware than the four-year old and the parents are more aware than the seventeen-year old.

As we grow in our level of consciousness and overcome our ignorant beliefs, we can relate to the same events from a higher ground and find greater peace. Higher awareness of our spiritual being aids us in dealing with our physical suffering; grasping the meaning of death facilitates living a meaningful life; and understanding the laws of nature helps us not take every untoward event personally.

Such awareness promotes a sense of equanimity within us – every setback then is not a new source of suffering, but merely a reminder of the lessons we need to learn in our eternal journey of evolution. Such equanimity helps us better normalize our tendency to continually hope and fear – pleasure and pain, praise and blame, gain and loss, fame and disgrace.

3. Cultivating compassion

Besides developing a higher self-awareness, cultivating compassion for both, others and ourselves, dulls the sharpness of the painful experience. Such compassion necessitates being less judgmental, more empathetic, more forgiving and less of a perfectionist.

During moments of distress, we are quick to judge and blame ourselves or others. If we can avoid judging ourselves (for being unintelligent, insensitive, careless or unfortunate) and instead learn to be more accepting of ourselves as we are, we feel less anxious; being compassionate towards others, and empathizing with their unique context, reduces our levels of frustration, blame, and anger. Instead of perceiving ourselves and others as imperfect, relating to everyone as unique outputs of a perfect universe allows us to be more at peace with our reality.

As Pema Chödrön, another accomplished Buddhist teacher, writes, ‘If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.’

Likewise, learning to forgive ourselves for the mistakes of the past opens us up to relate to the present with a new positive energy; forgiving others allows us to connect with our deeper, loving, higher self. Forgiveness, coupled with gratitude, releases the burden of all the stored negative emotions of the past.

Many a time, we also suffer because of our inability to accept a less than perfect outcome. Letting go of our attachment with a specific outcome and accepting the reality as is – and not ruminating over how it should have been or could have been – frees us from the slippery slope of regrets and discontent.

Finally, keeping the focus away from our self-centered self and on the suffering of others alleviates our personal pain. The seeds of blessing and happiness are hidden within the seeds of suffering – suffering thaws our attachment to greed and aversion, and opens our hearts to better empathize with the suffering of others. Choosing to help others who may be suffering from similar circumstances as us, paves the way for our inner transformation towards greater contentment and peace.

(This is an expanded version of the article I had recently written for the Speaking Tree column of The Times of India)