The Experience of Suffering

Tomo, I think that's a great question. Man, the kind of suffering associated with having young kids is the worst.

(oh, just to be clear, for me, every year after my kids turned about nine or ten it got increasingly easier and less stressful. Some parents may have a different experience, but, with my kids the more mature they got the less stressful it became to parent them. Sure, awful things can happen, and yes there is stress, but it just isn't as intense or as painful. I could be very lucky in some ways because I've seen some real asshole teenagers and, in spite of their challenges, my kids never behave like those kids.)

Try it as an experiment. As you begin to get stressed and angry at home, feel it, experience it as COMPLETELY as possible with complete acceptance of youself and of your kids. Complete acceptance of everything they are doing and complete acceptance of everything you are doing and feeling no matter how awful or hateful. Just let go and let it all happen.

I believe your suffering will be reduce to the degree you are able to do this. I could be wrong, or, also, you may not be able to do it. But try it, at least for a very small period of time at first.

Great question, I agree, Tomo. I have a few semi-random observations to add.

When my kids were young, the thing that leavened [sometimes-- definitely NOT always] the ordinary, lowgrade suffering of trying to guide their ingenious naughtiness, was that sometimes they were being such melodramatic, comic-opera little twits that I couldn't take any of it seriously: not them [for example: the middle one writing a to-do list for herself and little sidekick that included 'steel Ros candy'] or my role as parent-cop. One of the things I've not seen in all the talk about 'disembedding' is the way in which humor does this for us, in natural, uncontrived ways.

My own experience is that pain and difficulty have had very little to do with the age of my kids-- the form of the threats to their wellbeing and of their clueless misbehavior changed as they got older, but its presence did not decrease. The determinative factor has always been my own clarity and ability to exceed expectations when faced with challenges; and my willingness to persist and 'fall down seven times; get up eight times.' And, when it's your kids, what else are you going to do?

Tomo:

Any resolution(s) for you on this question?

So the question is it resolvable means:
"So what is the point of practice if I still get drawn into trivial
(relatively) junk like this? Can I ever expect this kind of
suffering to go away? Is this even practice-related?"

It is resolvable, imo, and somehow practice eventually leads to that resolution (see my other thread about effort and awakening...). Not that pain or anger or other feelings go away, but that clinging to them that we are calling suffering in the context of this discussion: I think that can go away pretty much. I find now I feel those things, but they have in a strange way no substance, no stickiness. There's an in-the-momentness that means when I burn my hand or have a feeling of frustration or sorrow or anger there is just the sensation or feeling - in some ways more pure and intense than ever before, but also so just what it is - sensations arising and passing away - without that baggage of beating myself up or clinging to it. I've had many strange moments of being angry or stricken with grief and just laughing at the same time, which I have found very odd, but perfectly true. That's my experience anyway.

A friend of mine who is awakened once scolded her child while on the phone with me. I said "you still get angry at your kid?" She said, "Sometimes she needs to think I'm angry, or she'll make a bad decision and come to harm."

Resolution? No, I don't think so. But is this resolvable?
I think that immersing myself in the anger, fully, is pretty much happening, and that is the problem. I guess I need to try and catch myself and make sure I let it go when it is no longer in the present, not stew over it an hour later. But it is so damn hard not to reflect on...suffer over...being a "bad parent" when it seems like all you do is yell at your kids.

-tomo

This is probably annoying and a nit-picky distinction, but, are you "accepting," fully, what is going on inside and out? I feel like "immersing" is one kind of mind movement while acceptance is something else entirely. It's not even "letting go." It's a huge leap, really, to a place in which one has no problem with anything that is happening, in which the mind has emptied itself out of all preferences, all choices, all judgments. Things can be as horrible as imaginable and one does nothing about it. Nothing at all.

Tom,

As someone who has not had the privilege of having children of my own (though, I probably will one of these days), I can't compare your parenting experience to anything I've gone through. It sounds like it can be pretty damned hard. I think it's great that you're exploring ways of dealing with the difficulty of it all in as skillful a way as possible.

There are different ways to look at the idea of what it means to alleviate suffering. One way that is helpful is to recognize that it's going to happen (which you already know), and then to utilize whatever skillful means you know of to move "through" it, rather than "away from" it. Passing through our difficulties seems to be the best way to deal with them.

The ironic thing is that moving through our difficulties isn't that much less painful than avoiding them. In fact, it can be more uncomfortable in the short term. Avoidance and unwise reaction, however, tend to build on each other through force of habit, and the effects get exponentially worse over time. Passing through stuff (recognizing, accepting, really "having" your experience) works out better in the long run.

I'm sure you know all of this, but I'm just sharing because it came to mind. The fact that you are conscious of how frustrated you get with parenting sometimes is a good indicator that you have the capacity to move through them, better and better over time, through practice. Who knows? I may seek advice from you someday when I have kids of my own. You are sure to have more experience than I will when that time comes around.

Jackson

I heard some therapist types refer to this as "shoulding yourself." It would be kind of funny, if it wasn't so distressing. OK... it's still kind of funny.

I keep starting to coment something here, because I MUST have something profound to say ... I'm a parent, I have a 15 year old and an 18 year old ... full custody after a divorce.... so I must have an opinion on what works and what doesn't ... right?

hmmm

Well .... my gut has always told me as a parent I should -

protect my kids

support my kids

show love to my kids

give guidelines and boundries to my kids

these are normal, agreed upon things, right?

I have diverged, I think, from common wisdom and from what I see others doing in that my gut has also always told me to spoil my kids as much as possible, to never hit them, to never yell at them (though I've fallen short on this once or twice), to let them eat whatever they wanted, to be very liberal on bed times, to be as unstructured and loose as possible in most matters. You get the idea.

Now, for my kids this has worked. At least I think so. They stay out of trouble, mostly, they get decent and often great grades, they are each very talented in their own ways and that talent is being developed, they are polite and kind to others most of the time, and they are nice to me. I have a very close and intimate relationship with both of them.

Now, they are both horrible slobs, and my daughter certainly has caused a few grey hairs to sprout this last year, but still, things are really good. And, we had an 80-year-old lady stay with us for a couple of weeks last year who told people behind my back "Those kids run that house." but, instead of being embarassed or angry or ashamed, hearing that didn't bother me at all.

Now, of course, I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop and for something awful to happen, either from my bad parenting or just from life itself. We'll see.

One of the needless difficulties of parenting was all the unsolicited input from all and sundry-- starting with being visibly pregnant, and picking up speed from there. Everyone has an opinion and feels that we need to hear it-- sometimes it is that we're 'spoiling them.' Or that we're too overprotective. We should or shouldn't breastfeed. We should or shouldn't deny the toddler candy or 'Happy Meals'. We are too out of the mainstream. Or too indulgent. Or too strict... endless ways to be 'wrong.' It's a weird thing, a pain in the butt, a great opportunity to practice...not being judged, not judging. Seeing what is, as it is, as it changes into something else again.

And what strange notions: that you can 'fail' at some aspect of living your life; and that a random collection of folks who happen to be in proximity can judge your success or failure.

Is it useful to ponder what's going on when we are judged by others or when we judge ourselves? It's usually fear, isn't it? When someone else lashes out at us in judgment, is it not because what we just did or said peeled back something and revealed something in themselves they are afraid of being with? Or when we lash out at ourselves, the same? I think it can be useful to try to find that fear that is triggering the anger, and try to be with it. Often fear comes down to really animal level fears: of being left alone, of dying, of not having any control over access to basic needs (food, water, sleep, safety), of coming to some kind of physical harm. Sometimes it's true, like if you fall out of your canoe in the rapids, yes, you might be in danger of drowning. But most of the fear responses we have are to subtle things that really do not threaten us as much as we think they do - the boss critiquing us, our neighbors gossiping about our lifestyle, our partner or friends frowning at the way we spoke or what we tried to cook (unsuccessfully) for dinner, or that our kid just broke grandma's nice china serving dish or acted obnoxiously in front of guests or woke us up at 3am...

I remember when during about a three to five year period my life went from being a person who was single or in a childless relationship(s) who lived in apartments in big cities with very little responsibility or debt or consequences in a lot of ways (not even a car!) to a person married, with two young children, living in a house in a surburban setting now spending my time with other parents at pre-school, elementary school, various kinds of parties and functions.

I became a suburban "family man" in my mid 30s and it was actually something I'd never intended to do and it was not the way I'd ever seen myself -- though since it was how I'd grown up I think I assumed I'd take to it with no problems.

Anyway, going from the single urban guy to the suburban family guy sucked in most ways (except for the kids, God I loved those kids -- they made me freaking giddy). As far as I could tell everyone else seemed to know exactly what they were doing, their opinions on keeping a house and raising children appeared to be something they just .... knew, while I felt completely clueless almost all of the time (I still do but I've mostly given up on the idea that I'll learn how to build or fix things or work on the yard or know my way around Home Depot -- it's just too late for me).

What I was most struck by was the .... fear. It was everywhere. Fear of strangers, fear of failure, fear of looking bad or wrong, fear of illness, fear of mental or emotional disabilities, fear of the wrong foods, fear of financial woes, fear of others' opinions (this was a big one and I had it as bad as anyone).

Second, was judgment. I sometimes think the most popular form of entertainment at social gatherings was identifying what segment of society (liberals, conservatives, religious people, non-religious people, people who didn't work, people who didn't take care of their kids, molesters, suspected molesters, pro-war people, anti-war people, etc. etc.) was "wrong," or "bad" or "dangerous" and then just reveling in criticisms of same. It was a passion, really. And, it could get quite awkward if the in group members and out group members accidentally got mixed together (say a "you better support our troops pro-lifer" with a planned parenthood vegan wiccan). Throw in too much Merlot -- watch out!

Ooops I didn't mean for this rant to happen, exactly. Oh well.

Anyway, yes, there is a lot of fear out there. I agree with Ona. I go through it all the time.

We have this tiny dog (a "teacup" chihuahua) that without our knowing it managed for weeks while we were all out at work or school to creep out through a gap in our side gate and then stand in our driveway just ... barking barking barking. And driving our neighbors crazy. When I found out about this I was mortified. The idea that something was happening at my house that made my neighbors angry and that made me look bad somehow -- oh my God. Talk about suffering.

http://www.ted.com/talks/rufus_griscom_alisa_volkman_let_s_talk_parenting_taboos.html

That seems to be par for kids, Tomo. I don't have any, but spend plenty of time around friends and relatives. Kids simply can't listen. They don't have the mental capacity or whatever. Heck, adults don't listen (ie do what you say) either mostly, unless you are paying them. Am I right?

Even people I know who had really awful (I mean breaking-chairs-over-your-head awful) childhoods are usually pretty capable - they have jobs, they may have some relationship dysfunction, etc but they do okay. But the ones who really can't manage - floundering around homeless etc - usually have mental illness, not just bad upbringings.

Just trying to be encouraging I guess. We tend to be so hard on ourselves - I think even more so than we are hard on others.

It's interesting: this issue (parenting) actually forced my hand with practice. In the run-up to our son's birth, I recognized that I would need a strong connection to my true nature in order to be a parent in a way that let me enjoy life despite being deprived of pleasurable and comfortable circumstances, as well as to be maximally skillful in regards to my parenting.

Prior to this I just honestly had no sincere desire to transform my way of being. "Death is far off; the few other circumstances capable of restricting my ability to procure what I desire and enjoy are equally unrealistic (i.e., difficult to imagine) right now..." Like that.

Immanent parenthood changed this completely! It forced me to put to the test the possibility that mind's proclivity to suffer-- and it's capacity to unlearn suffering and become free-- were independent of circumstances. Even that difficult circumstances were the best barometers of mind's proclivity to suffer or be free. Experiencing freedom while meditating or doing something else "enjoyable" could no longer suffice, since I couldn't count on manifesting those circumstances.

Practicing with his wails on long car drives when nothing would soothe him became an especially fruitful means of testing my actual capacity. I have gradually become less prone to guilt about "failure" behaviors and less need to feel a compensatory pride for "good" parenting, having learned that it's all these filters, superimposed on Life (in this unique, irreplaceable moment) that keeps me unfree.

Paradoxically, "being ANGRY" is closer to awakening and freedom that being angry + wishing to be free from anger (which latter can only be, in the moment of being in fact angry, a sort of guilt or resentment or resistance to or aversion towards the anger, creating two layers of superimposition rather than removing one through seeing its causality and ceasing to enact it).

So in this process I find I stay on track by authentically being how I'm being, feeling what I'm feeling. Yet authentic is as different from naivete as it is from self-judgment (guilt, pride, acceptance or rejection of what I am/feel). Authenticity takes the simplicity and directness of naivete (just being angry, say) and imbues it with a quality of clarity which is simply incapable of resisting the experience, and which penetrates the naive experience of anger completely, seeing it's genesis and function in greater detail as things unfold. Only through this authenticity of what i am and feel and like and dislike and want and wish for-- only in authenticity can I really encounter myself, learn about myself.

But to study the buddha way is not just to study the self, but to "forget the self" and be "illumined by all things". I study myself so that I may forget myself-- dissolve, here and there, and let natural activity live this life-- for glimpses, moments, until resistance, resentment, clinging arise again.

So this is my roundabout way of saying how I see "the experience of suffering" on the Path (that is, on the only path which "I" am actually "on"-- mine; thus disavowing any implication that I recommend this view to anyone else-- or not ). At first the emphasis was on coming into direct contact with the actual textures of my living experience, especially those aspects I didn't like-- aversion, suffering, resistance, pain. This led to seeing in greater detail how all suffering moments seem to share a common structure, defined always by my resistance to or clinging to a "past" "present" or "future" which all exist in my imagination. In contrast, non-suffering moments share a common element of complete relaxation, the completeness of here-and-now conditions utterly non-separate from unconditioned qualities of perfection, regardless of circumstances; sparkling purity of senses and mind free from tension and resistance, free from concentration and distraction.

Various kinds of circumstances correspond to latent reactions of various charges (of aversion and clinging), making different circumstances the occasion to work with different reactions each with different qualities and intensities.

But generally the process is now strategically oriented towards ceasing to enact the qualities of aversion and clinging (ceasing to suffer) while earlier it was more oriented towards encountering suffering (in order to see it clearly, in detail, as to its genesis and function).

On a tactical, moment to moment, day to day level, each attitude (encountering suffering to see it clearly, and ceasing to enact suffering via completely relaxing resistance) has its place. But the overall theme of my path has definitely shifted (or so it seems from my present vantage point) towards the explicit intention to cease suffering, as it becomes increasingly practical to do so. The increased practicality of this however has emerged entirely in dependence on having seen, and continuing to see, again and again, as often as I'm able, in small things and great, the actual genesis and function and nature of suffering.

Authenticity helps me shed the guilt and pride to see the universality, naturalness, and basic understand-ability of all my emotional sufferings (klesha). So no need to judge myself: for once the moment has passed, it is nothing but information. And in the very moment of "being" a reaction like anger, I am better served by dropping meta-resistance (shame, self-righteousness, whatever) and being "in" the primal resistance (anger), because only through being what I am in this moment do authentic possibilities of freedom emerge. I can't release resistance by resisting it: but by fully being it I reclaim the capacity to relax.