GRIEF AND PAIN

The experience of loss or change…No one is free. There is no idol of immunity. Pain and “suffering” (we call it suffering because there is emotional hurting) is an experience in which we all share, regardless of age, race, religion or spiritual awareness, and we can experience doses of grief daily. Some pain is fleeting and some lingers… stubbing a toe, feeling sad at seeing an animal by the side of the road, missing out on the winning baseball run, pain from cancers and diseases, back injuries, arthritis and general ill health, bee stings, hurt feelings from acts of unkindness, acting in unkindness, sufferers of emotional distress, childhood abuse survivors and the pain that comes when a loved one dies.

Shades of grief and pain remind us of our reality, our humanity.

What we name as grief and suffering, we also name light.

Loss and change gives us opportunity. In life, suffering gifts us onto the path of enlightenment.

The first is sweet and sour, yin and yang, joy and pain. Without pain and suffering I cannot know fleeting pleasures or happiness within…we are not able to say that the sunset is beautiful this evening without times of storms or even tornadoes and hurricanes. A beautiful sunset has no meaning without its juxtaposition of rain. Do you see? We must have the side by side comparison to appreciate the sweet of the now…we must have the sweat of the brow.

Compassion is the second gift of suffering. It is through one’s own experiences of loss, of grief, which opens the door of opportunity- opportunity to be more than sympathetic, even more than empathetic. Suffering provides the light of compassion…for all of creation. Without exception. Suffering opens the door of compassion and love’s all encompassing heart of complete inclusion.

Opening into spirituality is the third gift of suffering. While religion is the process and the practice of spirituality- like language (speaking English, Spanish or Chinese) is the practice of communication, spirituality is living in the One.

There is not a fine line of distinction, nor a faint hint of this or that. There is only the present moment and interweaving of the gifts of change. In the light there is darkness and in the darkness there is light. In spirituality is the beautiful sunset and the winds of hurricane, the lesson of the stubbed toe, the plight of killed animals and the automobile reminding us to slow down/wear a safety belt/encroach not upon woodlands and fields, oceans and mountains but rather live peacefully together. In the agony of defeat there is the joy of the other team winning- each player is somebody’s child, husband/wife, mother/father…friend, neighbor. Ill health is a reminder of prevention and sometimes leaning into the grace of allowing others the gift of helping. Feeling lowly and nervous and alone…the fact is—no one is alone. The feeling alone only exists in imagination; it is impossible to be alone in the experience we all share and call life. In the darkness of abuse survivors, the light of healing begins the moment the incident has stopped. In dying we are born to eternal life. I don’t suppose the debate really matters: whether one believes we are reborn again and again, or whether we die once and meet the Maker, nor even if one’s belief is that when we die, we die. That’s it. Finis!

There is no line of distinction, just opportunity knocking in the shades of grief and pain…courage and strength.

Namaste in the Compassionate Heart,

~Mina

New article: Life After Death. Published on June 3, 2021.