There is an interesting story about a guru who sets up a little shop selling pick axes and shovels to all the seekers who are trying to get to the top of the mountain to find whatever it is they believe is there. (I wish I remembered where I heard this story, but I don’t.) This guru happily, joyfully sells to every climber he can. He doesn’t care how much gear he sells and how many times he sells it to the same person. He simply knows that the suffering and pain of the journey(s) will eventually bring the climbers to that point when all desire to make the climb again dissolves, and his job will be done.
“The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.” Thomas Merton
Suffering is an interesting word. It implies hanging on to something or trying to let go of something that is present. What is it to suffer but to feel pain about something unpleasant or undesirable. If we are evolved enough to not suffer, it is most likely suffering that brought us to that point. We suffer enough that we can finally see the fallacy in holding on or holding back .. and then we begin to grow amidst gratitude and celebration of what is here, present right now. We love the journey and quit worrying about where it is taking us. We are here for the ride regardless of how messy and sloppy it gets. We are capable of being present to painful events and happenings, for we allow our hearts to open in gratitude, knowing there is nothing we cannot feel, and that feeling is loving. And then we remember that suffering brought us here and feel such amazing grace.
Feeling is life. It is how we love another, really love them. We open all that we are and let all of life in. It is delicious. It is mind-blowing. It drops you to your knees in adoration, regardless of whether you open to feel a crystal, a chicken, a loved one, or an inmate sentenced with 30 to life. It is healing and brings a Holy new meaning to an old concept called ‘sin eating’. It heals both us and those with whom we exchange this elixir of love, dissolving the burden of sin we have carried.
And… if our evolution has not taken us to the point of this magnificent letting go, there is suffering. We can either resist the suffering, thrashing about and gnashing our teeth, trying everything we can to stop the suffering. Or we can celebrate the suffering, knowing that it is taking us to the point where we no longer need to climb the mountain to find whatever it is we look for … be it self-respect, confidence, trust in our life’s experience, abundance, balance, harmony, joy or love.
You can choose to move forward, into and not away. Suffering is what is present. Taste your experience. Feel it in every cell. Lick your lips and fully savor whatever presents itself, for it is God calling your name, begging you to come live where you truly belong, in the Aliveness of Now.
I see people suffer and my heart opens in compassion ever more fully … I no longer try to fix the suffering or lesson its impact, unless asked, and then only to take you deeper into the experience. The experience is God. It is Path. It is the Unfolding. I have such gratitude for its gift and for the Divine Design. This earthly plane allows the experience of time, of evolution, and change. What a fabulous design … within the timeless, there exists the experience of time. Here in this 3-D world, evolution is evolving another dear soul. It is consciously. intelligently unfolding Itself. Such wonder and awe we are.
Amaya Gayle 
There’s a Zen saying, “First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is a mountain.” The mountain that reappears is completely different. This Celebrating the Suffering is the place of Home that welcomes all that Life Is. There is a different between pain and suffering, there is pain in life, in full spectrum human living. We experience a variety of pains, from bumping our shins, to heartbreaking loss. It’s a wide territory in human life that when we discover how to expand ultimately into the great expanse within which all IS held as is, we have a very different experience of Being Alive. I worked once with a group of teenagers who were in a Catholic teen group. We did a forgiveness process – at the end of which I invited them all to go outside and just experience how they felt now. One young man reported after we regrouped, “I looked across at the mountain … I am the mountain.” Love this sharing, thank you. ~Anrael
Anrael thank you for your comments and additional stories. They are perfect for the message. Jeannie Zandi posted a picture today with her words as well that is synchronistic to my post. The words on a most glorious woman dancing in the light … After the heart is broken a thousand times and all the contents emptied out, there’s just this shining left. Love it and you! Amaya
‘Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.’ (The Little Prince)
Abhaya … so wonderful to see your name and to hear your voice through these words. I adore you. Amaya
Sent from my iPhone
>
Good morning
Yes! Beautifully said. And the post was inspired by someone who was wallowing and wanting me to join. Yes there is a hurt in there that’s been contorted and masked and buried.
A different challenge to accompany another on that journey.
I would put this on your site but it won’t let me
Sent from my iPhone
>
Thank you Jude. Hurt that’s been contorted and masked and buried. So true. It is what we do with just about all of our life. I am unmasking heretofore unseen hurts, realizing that I have never really loved myself completely, unconditionally and feeling into that these last couple of days. It is an unending process. And until we see it, even if we are committed to the stripping away, it remains. Your friend is lucky to have you.