Suffering cannot exist without separation.
What is suffering? I went to tricycle.org, a Buddhism for Beginners website, to see how Buddhist define it. In Buddhism, there are three kinds of suffering, or dukkha.
1. Physical and mental pain from the inevitable stresses of life
2. The distress we feel as the result of impermanence and change
3. A kind of existential suffering; the angst of being human
That sums it up nicely. I myself often associate only the first kind with the word suffering, but I see that the second kind of suffering is what I most often inflict on myself.
But back to the idea I got a clear glimpse of: suffering cannot exist without separation.
When we are Whole, when we are One, there is no suffering. Everything is Complete. This Oneness or Wholeness is All There Is. It’s unconditional and infinite love, knowing, compassion, appreciation, grace, joy. It’s consciousness and it’s life.
So how does anger, judgement, hatred, impatience, sorrow and the like fit in to this? It doesn’t. And yet it must because Wholeness/Oneness is All There Is.
Separation is how these things come to be. As Oneness is separated into parts, into layers, into planes and dimensions of existence, we lose sight of the Whole.
Without the infinite Knowing we start to believe in “other”. That other can be a friend, a family member, but it also leaves space for the other to be a competitor, a rival, an enemy.
With separation I forget that my neighbour is me, the bus driver is me, my coworker is me.
With separation our own bodies are things to be judged, manipulated, beautified. Separation makes statements like, “I hate my legs” possible. Because without separation I would know that my body is me. My heart is me incarnated as a heart. My skin is me. My toes are me.
And it can go even further than that. We can reach such a state of separation, such a state of fragmentation from the Whole, that we can be impatient with ourselves, angry at ourselves, hate ourselves.
But all of that is illusion and shadow. Suffering can only be without Wholeness. Because with Wholeness comes Knowing and clear seeing. A return to Oneness.
Idea during a Hold With Love Meditation