' Seeking pleasure and avoiding pain '...

The ego’s objective is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. But pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin. They arise mutually and simultaneously as dualistic opposites in the world of form. The concept of pleasure would be unrecognizable without pain, its opposite. The trap within the world of dualistic opposites is that the more you seek pleasure, the more you set yourself up for suffering when the other shoe drops. And the other shoe will drop. Pain will have to be faced at one point or another. Pain and pleasure simply do not exist without each other.

Emotional and psychological pain is a portal to presence. It is telling you exactly where you are identified with some story of past, future, or resistance to this moment. It is telling you what you are trying to avoid. Pain does not truly go away when you try to avoid or escape it by chasing after its dualistic opposite—pleasure (or the absence of pain). It simply goes dormant. This is the other shoe waiting to drop.

In the recognition of awareness, it is seen that awareness is naturally open to emotional and psychological pain in the very moment it arises. Awareness has no agenda to escape pain. In no longer escaping pain, the dualistic cycle of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain loses its strength. Non-dual presence allows all duality to arise naturally. This is radical non-resistance, the denial of nothing.



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