Everyone wants to be happy, so we try to find happiness in a number of different ways, but when we fail to find the joy we seek, then we tend to think that it is our fault, or that we are doing something wrong. According to the author, however, this is not the case. Suffering and happiness are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and the art of being happy often goes hand in hand with the art suffering. If we are able to recognise, understand, and accept our suffering, not only will we suffer less, but we will also be able to transform that pain into understanding, compassion, and joy for ourselves and others. There can be no happiness without suffering, just as there can be no suffering without happiness.
When we are suffering, we tend to think that we will never feel joy again, that all our happiness has disappeared and now belongs to another time and space. We complain when something causes us to suffer, but it is completely unrealistic to expect nothing but happiness from life. Left could not exist without right, its opposite, and the same is true with happiness and suffering. According to the author, things that cause us suffering are also subjective. The rain that ruins our plans for the day, for example, is a blessing to the farmer whose crops need water.
We can all be happy, but only if we also accept suffering, without which joy could not exist. Although many people dislike the rain, it is what allows beautiful, fragrant flowers to grow. We often get caught up in this rain, and it stops us from seeing any of the beauty that surrounds us, but we have to learn to use it wisely, in order for the flowers to grow. If we learn how to make good use of our suffering, then we will also be able to create our own happiness.
Suffering can affect both the body and the mind. In the body, it is expressed through pain, sickness, hunger, or injury. In the mind, suffering manifests through anxiety, jealousy, despair, fear, anger, and so on. We cannot avoid all the suffering in the world, but we can at least try to suffer a little less, by not watering the seeds of pain within ourselves. We might, for instance, ask ourselves whether we love our body, whether we are comfortable with it, or whether we reject it, neglect it, or punish it. Many of us use drugs or other kinds of distractions, in order to alleviate our physical or mental suffering, but these methods are often counterproductive. We do not need to resort to drugs or distractions when we learn to truly rest our body and mind, to release all our tension, and to make peace with our suffering.
The best way to do this is to practise mindfulness, which is the ability to be present and aware in the here and now. Mindfulness is the energy that is released when we are truly aware of what is happening in the present moment, when we are aware of the context, of our body, of our emotions, and of our feelings. This practice helps us coexist with our suffering, without feeling overwhelmed by it, and is a kind of medicine that heals us by creating a deep connection between our body and mind.
