The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [27]
To answer these questions we have to realize, first of all, that pain is not the same as suffering. Left to itself, the body discharges pain spontaneously, letting go of it the moment that the underlying cause is healed. Suffering is pain that we hold on to. It comes from the mind’s mysterious instinct to believe that pain is good, or that it cannot be escaped, or that the person deserves it. If none of these were present, suffering would not exist. It takes force of mind to create suffering, a blend of belief and perception that the person thinks he or she has no control over. But as inescapable as suffering may appear to be, what brings escape is not attacking the suffering itself but getting at the unreality that makes us cling to pain.
The secret cause of suffering is unreality itself. Recently I saw dramatic evidence of this in a very ordinary way. I chanced on one of those television programs where people who were born with physical deformities are given a free makeover using the full powers of plastic surgery, dentistry, and the beautician’s art. On this particular episode, the people who desperately wanted makeovers were identical twins. Only one twin wanted to change her looks; the other didn’t. As adults, the twins no longer looked exactly alike. The “ugly one” in a given pair had suffered a broken nose or damaged teeth or had put on extra weight. The dramatic thing for me was how minor these cosmetic defects were compared to the intense belief, shared by both twins, that one was extremely beautiful and the other distressingly ugly. The “ugly ones” admitted that not a day went by without comparing themselves to their “beautiful” sisters. In this TV program one could witness all the steps that lead to suffering:
Overlooking actual facts
Adopting a negative perception
Reinforcing that perception by obsessive thinking
Getting lost in the pain without looking for a way out
Comparing yourself to others
Cementing the suffering through relationships
The handbook on how to suffer would include all these steps, which build up a sense of unreality until it seems totally real. And by implication, the directions for putting an end to suffering would reverse these steps and bring the person back to reality.
Overlooking the facts: The beginning of suffering is often a refusal to look at how the situation really is. Several years ago some researchers conducted a study to find out how people deal with crisis when it unexpectedly arises. The study was sponsored by therapists hoping to learn where people turn for help when they find themselves in trouble. When the worst misfortune occurs—when someone gets fired, has a spouse walk out, hears a diagnosis of cancer—about 15 percent seek some kind of help from a counselor, therapist, or pastor. The rest watch TV. They refuse to even consider looking at the problem or opening it up to discussion with someone who might help.
The therapists behind the study were appalled by this deep denial, but I couldn’t help thinking: Isn’t watching TV a natural reaction? People instinctively try to blot out pain with pleasure. Buddha faced the same situation many centuries ago. People at the time of Buddha were also trying to blot out pain because the monsoons didn’t come and all their crops died, or their whole family perished in a cholera epidemic. Without TV they had to find other escapes, but the assumption was the same: Pleasure is better than pain; therefore, it must be the answer to suffering.
Replacing pleasure with pain may work in the short run. Both are sensations, and if one is strong enough it can cancel out the other. But Buddha didn’t teach that life hurts because of pain; it hurts because the cause of suffering hasn’t been examined. Someone can be sitting by the pool in Miami Beach, watching a favorite sitcom, eating chocolate, and being tickled with a feather at the same time. The person won’t feel much pain, but she could be suffering very deeply anyway. And the only lasting way out is to take steps that will confront the source of the suffering, the first