Stress

I got interested in this teaching because I was stressed, and distressed.

I appreciated all the comforts, privileges and pleasures I had in my life, but I could never shake the underlying sensation of dissatisfaction.  (I also felt guilty for feeling dissatisfied, because I had the comforts and privileges.)  I tried to talk myself out of the dissatisfaction.  I worked jobs in social services.  Nothing seemed to help.  I have a serious case of The Dreaded Gom-Boo.

Some may say that stress is just a part of life, that it is wise to just accept it and treat the symptoms – with humor, philosophy, religion, alcohol, etc.  For me, ignoring the haunting dissatisfaction (or temporarily covering it up) has never worked.  I want to get to the bottom of it.

When I discovered this teaching, I learned that I do not have to continue living with stress.

I learned that it is extremely important to focus my attention precisely on the sensation of dissatisfaction, not to avoid it.  It was important to get serious about examining it.

I learned that there are people, even people living now, in modern times and situations, who are free of suffering.  And they are not sitting around enjoying their own personal contentment.  Pain continues to arise in others, so they are busy teaching.  It’s like in action movies, when the heroes fall in love – they do not, will not, stop to enjoy the honeymoon.  They have more people to save, more villains to defeat, and they just keep going, hardly missing a beat, in love and fighting the good fight.

This is a great talk, recently posted on James Wood’s website, that addresses the importance of witnessing the stressful self-contraction without judgment.