No Exit
When The Pain Is So Great Where Can We Go?
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
When we suffer so acutely, as with a cracked tooth or extreme migraine, all we want is relief. I remember as a little boy in Miami going to the beach one day I stepped on some hot charcoal that some people carelessly covered with a shallow layer of sand. My feet seemed to be on fire. Inside my head, just pain. Searing pain. Reason fled. It had no room. I ran and, but for the grasp of my father I would have run across very busy Highway A-1-A. I just wanted a way out of the pain.
Clearly the victims families of yesterday's shootings are suffering like that. I cannot imagine watching the sun come up this morning as I often do, knowing that yesterday someone in a fit of rage killed my children.These are people suffering incredibly deeply and our hearts reside with them this morning. Yet, for them, there is no exit from such suffering.
When I ask myself, as probably many of us are today, how could a young man, 19, take a weapon and shoot so many people at college, I reflect on that level of pain I experienced as a boy. Suffering clouds everything. When we suffer so deeply there is very little room for compassion and understanding. And so we suffer with the thoughts of this incident and our compassion for the perpetrator flees. In this, we become much like him. So, we must be very careful with our feelings. We must practice to see the suffering that exists everywhere and work to alleviate it.
Prisons and bullets only protect us so long and they do nothing to prevent the poison of fear and revenge from growing in our own hearts.
May we each be a blessing in this universe today.
Good Morning All,
When we suffer so acutely, as with a cracked tooth or extreme migraine, all we want is relief. I remember as a little boy in Miami going to the beach one day I stepped on some hot charcoal that some people carelessly covered with a shallow layer of sand. My feet seemed to be on fire. Inside my head, just pain. Searing pain. Reason fled. It had no room. I ran and, but for the grasp of my father I would have run across very busy Highway A-1-A. I just wanted a way out of the pain.
Clearly the victims families of yesterday's shootings are suffering like that. I cannot imagine watching the sun come up this morning as I often do, knowing that yesterday someone in a fit of rage killed my children.These are people suffering incredibly deeply and our hearts reside with them this morning. Yet, for them, there is no exit from such suffering.
When I ask myself, as probably many of us are today, how could a young man, 19, take a weapon and shoot so many people at college, I reflect on that level of pain I experienced as a boy. Suffering clouds everything. When we suffer so deeply there is very little room for compassion and understanding. And so we suffer with the thoughts of this incident and our compassion for the perpetrator flees. In this, we become much like him. So, we must be very careful with our feelings. We must practice to see the suffering that exists everywhere and work to alleviate it.
Prisons and bullets only protect us so long and they do nothing to prevent the poison of fear and revenge from growing in our own hearts.
May we each be a blessing in this universe today.