Spirituality: Understanding our Suffering

The Suffering this is passed on to us.

Parents, relatives, grandparents may have transmitted their unresolved suffering to us. If we can understand suffering and transform it, we heal our parents and ancestors as well. Some of this suffering is: discrimination, exploitation, poverty, and fear. Our suffering reflects the suffering of others. We might be motivated to relieve the suffering in the world. If we understand our own suffering, we can understand the suffering of others and of the world.

Listening to our Suffering

Our suffering can be overwhelming, and we avoid what is unpleasant. We therefore consume many things to keep us apart from our suffering.

Suffering is useful. We need suffering. Listening to and understanding our suffering brings about the birth of compassion and love. Until suffering has been transformed, we carry with us not just our own suffering, but that of our parents and ancestors.

Understanding suffering gives rise to compassion and from that, love is born, and we suffer less. If we understand the roots and nature of suffering, the path to its end will appear in front of us. Knowing there is a way out brings us relief, and we are no longer afraid.

Christ will stand in solidarity with us to help us understand our suffering. He will give us his insight into our memory of a situation, which is different from ours.

The Twins: Suffering Brings Happiness

Understanding suffering always brings compassion. If we don’t understand suffering, we don’t understand happiness. If we know how to take good care of suffering, we know how to take good care of happiness. We need suffering to grow happiness. They are twins.

When we suffer less, we have compassion for ourselves, and we can more easily understand the suffering of another person. Then our communication with others will be based on the desire to understand rather than the desire to prove ourselves right or to make ourselves feel better. Our intention will be “to help.”

Understanding our Suffering Helps us Understand Others

We develop wrong perceptions and nurtur a lot of anger. We think others are responsible for our anger, but we find that we are co-responsible for suffering. We can see the other person’s suffering, which is an achievement. When you see the suffering inside yourself, you can see suffering in the other person, and you can see the ways you contribute to your suffering and the suffering of others. The journey of reconciliation can begin.

Loving Yourself is the Basis for Compassion

We do not know our loved ones as well as we think we do. “Do I understand myself enough? Do I understand my suffering and its roots?” If not, we cannot understand others. Once you begin to understand, you begin to be better at understanding and communicating with someone else.

Self-understanding is crucial for understanding another person; self-love is crucial for helping others. When you can recognize how another’s suffering came about, compassion arises. You no longer have the desire to punish or blame. You can listen deeply, and when you speak there is compassion and understanding in your speech. The person with whom you are speaking feels more comfortable because of the love in your voice.

Our relationships depend on the capacity of each of us to understand our own difficulties and aspirations, and those of others. When you understand yourself, you can profit from every moment you live. You can enjoy every moment. When you are truly happy, we all profit from your happiness. We need happy people in the world.

A goal of compassionate communication is to help others suffer less because we all have misperceptions and suffering.

Two Keys to Compassionate Communication

We communicate to be understood and to understand. The first key is: deep listening. The second key is: loving speech.

When we have not practiced mindfulness, we are anxious for others to understand us right away. We express ourselves but talking first like that doesn’t work. Deep listening precedes it. Recognizing and embracing the suffering in oneself and in the other person will gives rise to the understanding needed for good communication. When we listen with compassion, we don’t get caught in judgment. Deep listening has the power to help us create a moment of joy.

Now is the Time to Listen Only

If you don’t practice mindful compassion, you cannot listen for long. You have one goal – to help the person suffer less.

The other person may say things that are full of wrong perceptions, bitterness, accusation, and blaming. If we are not mindful, their words will set off in us: irritation, judgment, and anger, and we lose our capacity to listen. When compassion is kept alive, the seeds of anger and judgment in our hearts do not get fed.

You may not be at a point to continue listening. Say, “I want to listen to you when I’m at my best. Would it be alright if we continued tomorrow?”

We listen without interruption or correcting the other person. You have to take the time to look and see the suffering in the other person.

Be aware of the value of time. The person may say things based on prejudices and misunderstandings. You will later have the opportunity to offer some information that may alter his or her perceptions, but not now. Now is the time to listen only.

When we don’t know how to handle the suffering within us, we continue to suffer, and we make other people suffer. When others cannot handle their suffering, they become a victim of it. If we get enrolled in their suffering and its associated fear, anger, and judgment, we become the second victim.

Love is Born from Understanding

Listening deeply and compassionately, we begin to understand the other person more fully, and love is nourished. The foundation of love is to understand someone’s suffering. If you really want to love someone and make the person happy, you have to understand the person’s suffering. With understanding, your love will deepen and become true love.

Happiness is the capacity to understand and to love.

Do I Understand You Enough?

If you want to make someone happy, ask, “Do I understand you enough?” Typically, we are afraid of speaking because we fear what we say will be misunderstood. People who suffer a lot are not able to tell us about their suffering inside.

Waiting has consequences. It may alienate or isolate. A person may end a friendship or death comes. One you see a block of suffering in another person, your anger towards them disappears.

Say, “I want to understand you more. I want to understand your difficulties. I want to listen to you because I want to love you.”

You may want to check to see if you’ve understood the other person. If communication and harmony exist, happiness and mutual understanding is there. Ask these questions routinely when there is no anger. It prevents anger from growing darker.

You might think you know a lot about a person because you see her every day. You don’t until you ask. We may not even know ourselves very well until we practice compassionate listening, with curiosity, and without judgment. With mindful breathing and compassionate listening, we expand our capacity to listen and we find greater connection with those we love.