Self-created suffering can feel like “hell”. It is a place deep within that is bereft of understanding and compassion for our journey. I am pretty sure we have all been there at one time or another. This place can feel frightening when we find ourselves in the dark recesses of our minds with no perceived way out. It is usually because we are stuck in the past and we cannot figure out what is keeping us there. The first thing to do when we are stuck in this dark space is to ask the following question, “What are you holding onto?” Remember it does not have to be one specific thing it could be many different things that are related. Whatever it is we need to shine some light on the darkness to let it dissipate. This means getting in touch with the thoughts and the emotions that accompany those thoughts which somehow contribute to the gathering of evidence that we think supports the stories we tell ourselves. What if we re-framed these thoughts/ruminations/monkey mind/elephant mind and labeled them “information”?  Wouldn’t labeling our thoughts as “information” give us a different way of looking at the thoughts?  Instead of thinking about how scary the thoughts are we could make a commitment to look at the thought and ask if the thought gives me further information about me, my relationship with self/other, or just about anything in between.

Hell is held in place not only by our thoughts but also by our fears of those THOUGHTS somehow being true. Change is another part of what’s woven into life’s fears. Change can be seen as positive or negative. Whichever you choose, change is woven into the very fabric of who we are. We cannot escape change, nothing in this world, life that we live in remains the same. There is a positive part of change, and that is where personal growth happens. Whether you look at change with fear or with promise, it is unavoidable. If you find yourself fighting change and want things to remain unequivocally the same, be prepared for fears companion, suffering. Remember that saying, “whatever we resist persists?’ Fear and change do not go together like coffee and cream. When you fear change you try to create a world around you that is predictable, controllable, and definable. Good luck with that! This defies the very nature of humanity, where changes in our lives happens all the time. When we try to create a world free from fear, we are virtually running away from a paper tiger. Did you know fear fears itself? If we are literally trying to allay our fears by manipulating the thoughts in our mind, how will we ever outrun it? Aren’t we just playing a mind game?  

We have talked about fear many times before, right? But we all seem to have a really difficult time with this word, fear. If fear is part of our universe, why can’t we learn to just experience it? There are two options here, we can recognize the fear and learn to accept it and work with it, or we can runaway from it. Most of us just end up keeping our fears because we are always trying to prevent something from happening that might activate the fear. Can you imagine going through life constantly implementing safety and control measures to prevent fears occurrence? Let me spell out what this looks like, it looks like controlling all the variables in our lives so that we can define the way we want life, “so I can feel okay”.

At first glance the above may appear non-fearful and safe. However, if this is what we are doing defining every aspect of our lives just to feel safe, we are most likely going to be in a world of pain trying to manage every variable that comes up. This becomes what is known as, me against the situation or the fear. There will be no peace of mind if we go around defining this is okay and that is not okay, or this is good and this is bad. This is known as black and what thinking or all and nothing thinking. These thought distortions that we create in our minds and then fabricate stories are what we think work to allay our fears of the unknown but once they come around again and they will we feel like we must do the same thing all over again. We cannot have life without change and we cannot control life’s variables it is impossible to predict all variables in life, life is an unknown. Life by its very nature is an unknown and there is no way to predict what the next moment will bring, pain and suffering or happiness and joy the choice is yours. The only way to stop the suffering is to stop the struggle.

Non-duality will stop the war inside us all. Non-duality is a difficult term for the mind to accept because it does not accept the concept that the world is a creation of the mind and the five senses. Furthermore, to understand what non-duality is, the mind must be in a state of beyond words and thinking. This requires us to be able to silence the mind to be in the reign of beyond thoughts. It is only in the silence that we can recognize the meaning of non-duality. This is not referred to as an altered state of consciousness. It simply requires us to be in the present moment. Because in the present moment all is still and there is nothing, we can do about changing the past and the future hasn’t happened yet.  Tich Nhat Hanh contends that through diligence in our practice we can water the seeds of loving kindness or the seeds of anger or likewise a seed of despair or a seed of hope we are all born with the full complement of seeds to choose from. Just like the seed of hell or the seed of heaven it is there inside as well. This means that heaven and hell is not something outside of us but within our own consciousness. As my mentor would say we all come fully loaded with the ability to choose what we want to experience in the moment and if you don’t like what you see change the channel or the DVD.

 There are four practices of diligence. The first practice is to be careful not to water the negative seeds within self or others. The second practice of diligence is to recognize if you have watered the negative seed and observe if it has already manifested. If the seed of negativity has already been watered do not do battle with it or deny that it is there you will not be able to suppress it once it is present. Instead, you invite the thought in mindfully and concentrate on it. The energy of mindfulness will through mindful breathing will be able to recognize and embrace both the anger and the mindfulness. Breathe in the anger and breathe out peacefulness. This does take practice but is not impossible. Compassion is another way of dealing with anger by neutralizing the anger. Through compassionate understanding we can melt away our anger and suffering. The third practice of diligence is knowing how to invite good things in. Give yourself permission to be in a good place where you will be able to experience good things. Like going to the park or walking on the beach or going to a retreat where you are among like minded beings. The fourth practice of diligence is to encourage positive mental formations as often and as possible. Remember that when you practice compassion keep it around for as long as possible this allows compassion to take deeper roots in our consciousness and gives it permission to continue to grow. According to Tich Nhat Hanh, “the practice of diligence is the practice of happiness, because it can help us deal with suffering and it can help us create happiness.”