Suffering is an old friend that we must welcome

A few days ago, my friend and I went to a bar to enjoy a few beers. I just accompanied my friend who was upset and a little frustrated, because he had just divorced his wife. I don't know how many bottles of beer he drank. My friend looked so exhausted from drinking too much.

Whether conscious or not, my friend said to me “don't grieve, everything that disappears will come back in another form. The moon will shine brightly when it doesn't escape the night. Just like the moon, we will shine when we embrace the darkness.”

We've been at the bar for over three hours. Seen a bartender cleaning, and the bar is about to close. My friend is still chugging the beer bottle into his mouth. The separation will indeed cause tremendous pain. He is 40 years old, but he must be separated from his wife and children. Then I asked "is there no other way?" he also replied, "the separation that I experienced today can not be avoided anymore". At the beginning of marriage, the seeds of hatred have emerged, then develop over time. The hatred has poisoned all the love that has existed before.

Hearing this, I was reminded of the words of Gautama Buddha, "Whatever we build and care for with passion, it can disappear in a matter of seconds". Life is like a dream, like shadows and illusions that keep trying to ensnare us. Life is so fragile. In human life, separation is the most severe suffering. There are various forms of separation experienced by humans. From divorce to death, it is an inseparable part of human life. We must realize that this is unavoidable.

Everything that appears will pass away, everything that is born will die, and everything that is brought together will separate. We will all experience this, it's just a matter of time and turn. Although it sounds trivial, it takes a hard struggle to live it. Maybe we can forget about it for a while, but many events will remind us, that all this is only temporary. We are stupid, thinking that our love story will last forever. We assume the possessions we have today will make us rich forever. In fact, with just a little shift, what we have can just disappear. Including our lives too.

We may ask, why does separation feel so painful?

Because separation leaves memories. We will remember the happiness that we want to repeat, but can't. When the memory of happiness comes with the memory of parting, the feeling that comes is really painful like a stab in the chest. It must be realized that memory can be the most painful prison and torture. People who experience happy memories in the past but are aware that they cannot be repeated will become inner torment within themselves.

People who experience separation will feel lost themselves. It was like he was being torn in two and half of him was leaving him. Finally lived a half-life. No wonder separation can create extraordinary suffering. Of the few people I've met when going through a breakup, they seem dazed. People who are alienated from the world, feel lonely, upset, sad, and frustrated.

So, how do we recover from separation?

The most important thing to realize is that memory is garbage in life. Memory is the futility of past experiences. With this understanding, we must put some distance into memory. Do you want to live in a pile of garbage? Living with garbage only makes us feel smelly. Memories only make us feel claustrophobic. The days we run will feel so heavy and we will be lost in memories. Once we realize it, we will wake up from the garbage that pollutes our lives.

The next thing to be aware of is emotions. It is only a temporary state. When separation occurs, sometimes feelings of sadness arise, then we become angry, over time there is also a sense of disappointment, then become happy, happy, maybe back again sad. It's just a temporary state that comes to us. Therefore, we should not get caught up in the emotional state that comes.

For me, recovering is not the right word. Since no self is sick, there is nothing to restore. For me, self-concept is a narrative of the creation of our minds that do not understand life. If the self does not exist, then separation also does not exist. Then what separates if the self does not exist? We are all a network that is connected to everything that exists. No human being is complete, separate, and permanent.

Everything we feel and think is only a temporary event that will surely pass. The pain that comes from separation must be seen as an old friend. The suffering we feel must have time to go and a time to come back. When suffering returns, welcome it as our old friend. Maybe what my friend said is right. We will surely shine when we embrace the darkness. Darkness is our old friend. So he told me not to grieve. Because in this universe, everything is connected and bound by a huge network.

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