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this in abusive families where the victims don’t speak up or walk out. (Some states have passed laws forcing the police to arrest domestic abusers over the protest of the spouses they beat up and torment. Without such laws, the victim sides with the abuser more than half the time.) A healing relationship is based on awareness; in it both partners work to break old habits that promote suffering. They have to walk a fine line, just as my friend did, because compassion means that you appreciate the suffering someone else is experiencing, as well as your own. Yet at the same time there has to be detachment, making sure that suffering, no matter how real, isn’t the dominant reality. The attitudes that make for a healing relationship become part of a vision you hold for yourself and the other person.

A VISION WITHOUT SUFFERING

How to Relate When Someone Else Is in Pain

I have sympathy for you. I know what you’re going through.

You don’t have to feel a certain way just to make me happy.

I will help you get through this.

You don’t have to be afraid that you are driving me away.

I don’t expect you to be perfect. You aren’t letting me down.

This pain you are going through isn’t the real you.

You can have the space you need, but I won’t let you be alone.

I will be as real with you as I can be.

I won’t be afraid of you, even though you may be afraid of your pain.

I will do all I can to show you that life is still good and joy still possible.

I can’t take your pain on as my responsibility.

I won’t let you hold on to your pain—we are here to get through this.

I will take your healing as seriously as my own well-being.

As you can see, there are subtle pitfalls in these attitudes. When relating to someone in pain, you have to extend yourself and yet remain within boundaries at the same time. “I feel your pain, and yet it’s not mine” is a tricky stance; it can tip either way. You can become so involved in the pain that you turn into an enabler. Or you can hide behind your own boundaries and shut out the person who is suffering. A healing relationship maintains the proper balance. You both must remain alert and attentive; you must keep your eye on the spiritual vision ahead; you must be willing to have new responses every day. Most of all, you share a path that leads, step by step, out of unreality.

The ultimate goal, if you really want to be real, is to experience existence itself. “I am” is such an experience. It is both common and rare because everyone knows how to be, yet few people extract the full promise of their own being. “I am” gets lost when you start identifying instead with “I do this, I own that, I like A but not B.” These identifications become more important than the reality of your own pure being.

So let’s go deeper into the link between suffering and unreality. The way we forget the peace and clarity of “I am” can be broken down into five aspects. In Sanskrit these are called the five kleshas, the root causes of every form of suffering.

1. Not knowing what is real

2. Grasping and clinging to the unreal

3. Being afraid of the unreal and recoiling from it

4. Identifying with an imaginary self

5. Fear of death

Right now you and I are doing one of these five things, although we began so long ago that now the process is ingrained. The five kleshas are arranged in a cascade. Once you stop knowing what is real (first klesha), the others fall into place automatically. This means that for most people only the end of the line—fear of death—is a conscious experience; therefore, we must begin there and go back up the ladder.

Being afraid of death is a source of anxiety that reaches into many areas. The way our society worships youth and shuns the elderly, our desperate need for distraction, the promotion of cosmetics and beauty treatments, flourishing gyms with full-length mirrors on all sides, and the craze for celebrity are all symptoms of wanting to deny death. Theology tries to convince us that there is life after death, but since that claim has to be taken on faith, religion exacts obedience by