Liberation from suffering, not from pain ...

Liberation, as that word is used in these reflections, means freedom from suffering, not from pain itself. Suffering is the psychological accumulation of mental and emotional energy over time in the form of a story of “me.” Pain is a natural, dualistic occurrence in life that can arise in the present moment.

For example, you are suffering from chronic physical pain in the leg. Liberation will not free you from physical pain. Liberation is freedom from attachment to the psychological story of suffering surrounding the pain.

If made completely conscious, the story might appear as “My life is so hard because of this pain.”

Identification with the mental story, and the emotions that accompany it, creates an overlay placed over the actual physical pain experienced in this moment. The mind is adding time to the pain. The result is psychological and emotional suffering in the form of the story of “me”—the one who is suffering.

Likewise, liberation may not completely free you of anger, sadness, and other emotions and states. These emotions can be natural responses to particular life situations. Liberation frees you from attachment to these emotions and states.

In liberation, anger, sadness, elation, frustration, and other emotions and states arise and fall spontaneously in awareness (but with no attachment). Feelings are directly seen and felt and then they naturally die. Stated another way, these states and emotions arise to no one.



Scott Kiloby, . Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment