Find Inner Peace through the Mahayana Instructions
When we experience suffering, is our only option to feel defeated and to become frustrated? There are two methods in Mahayana teachings that can help us cope with suffering.
People usually think that life is happy or that, at the least, that they want to pursue happiness. But there are so many unhappy moments in our life. When an unhappy situation occurs, we can use two methods to deal with it according to the Mahayana teaching. One method is to observe where such suffering comes from. Suppose you are looking for the mind that is suffering: Does it have a color or shape? What does it really look like? Scientists believe that the mind is based in the brain, but that has been hard to prove. When I watch my own mind, I can’t find suffering at all. This is a kind of sophisticated and abstract method.
The second method is to realize that stresses will naturally arise in our life, and that this is part of life. It’s nothing to do with inequality. Nowadays suicide is quite common among young people. But, in life there are so many possibilities. If we just focus on one thing, such as relationship stress or work stress and become strongly attached to it, then we will only end up with suffering. So, in this sense, recognizing the nature of suffering is very essential to us.
If you have a high-level perspective, when you are looking for your painful heart, you will find that it doesn’t exist anywhere. If your perspective hasn’t yet reached this level, it’s important to understand that your suffering is not necessarily worthy of suffering. We shouldn’t try to escape from suffering when we experience it or to solve it in some extreme way. Instead, we should accept suffering as a fact and face it with wisdom.
