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suffering

Life is suffering said the Buddha, and it is through chronic or acute suffering that we at last say ‘enough’ and begin the search for an alternate path, a way out of our humanness. Suffering is perhaps the greatest and most obvious portal into spirituality.

ending suffering

Ending Suffering, Part 4: Ending Me

Some years ago I had a remarkable dream. In it I was a raindrop tumbling from a great, gray cloud and I felt ecstatically free the way one can in flying dreams. Then, suddenly, the clouds parted and below me stretched a vast and…

January 21, 2010

Ending Suffering, Part 3 – Liberation Through Truth

In the spring of 1999 I and another member of the American Red Cross boarded a flight bound for the Balkan conflict in Kosovo. A veteran of many humanitarian assignments, I felt no particular concern about the trip. But on the evening of my…

January 15, 2010

Ending Suffering, Part 2: Conscious Suffering

During the holidays my wife received word that a favorite cousin had been hospitalized with advanced brain cancer. He is young, handsome, charismatic, a business owner, a newly minted husband and father of a child not yet one. Family and friends are stunned, praying…

January 15, 2010

Ending Suffering – When Enough is Enough: Part 1

His name is Gene Sprague. He paces the Golden Gate’s walkway at its highest point, occasionally stopping to gaze down at the water more than 200 feet below. Immersed in their picture-taking, nearby tourists fail to notice him. His pacing stops, he brushes his…

December 16, 2009