Freedom from past suffering...

Many come to the spiritual search with intense emotional suffering revolving around past events.

No matter what the content of the story, the structure of suffering is the same: identification with thought and emotion. In other words, regardless of whether the content of the suffering centers on being abused by a parent during childhood, repeatedly being rejected in romantic relationships or some other reason, the suffering is caused by identification with stories about the past and the negative emotions that arise in conjunction with those stories.

When the thought of the past arises, simply notice it. In noticing the thought, you see that awareness is what is noticing. This present awareness is who you really are. You are not the thought of past occurring in awareness. Thought comes and goes. You—awareness—do not come and go.

Once you notice the thought, allow awareness to notice the painful emotion arising in conjunction with the thought. Awareness has no agenda to escape emotional suffering. Only thought tries to escape emotion. The movement to escape suffering only prolongs it, as it remains unfaced.

If a thought arises about how you can escape the pain somehow, allow that thought to come and go in awareness too. In resting in awareness, the mental and emotional suffering is allowed to be exactly as it is. When suffering is made conscious in this way, without a desire to be free of it,it transmutes into awareness.



Scott Kiloby, Reflections of the One Life: