When we look, what do we find?
I read the question, and I found, in myself, the need to explain⌠Then, the need/ demand to express.
What exactly is psychological suffering? What does it mean to look? Who is doing the looking?
Suffering, the feel of it.
Yes, the first response is very often to do something, to move to a better or a stronger position.
We know physical suffering when we are ill or have an accident because the body registers pain. But what is a psychological pain? Does the pain exist as something separate from all the rest of the psychological structure, including pleasure? And what is it that says, âI sufferâ? At the moment we are looking at this together, dispassionately, as though somewhat removed, but this may just be a trick being played.
Which is where? Where are we looking?
Into the past. We are looking into the past. We find suffering in the past, donât we?. And we are looking into the future and find suffering that is projected into the future.
We are looking within.
Which is looking backward and forward
Am I looking for, or looking at?
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Looking at? Or just looking?
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When one looks, what is it that speaks?
Memory is doing the âlooking for, or the looking atâ; the âforâ & the âatâ suggest direction towards an experience I already experienced. This looking is recognition.
What is âjust lookingâ without direction so memory doesnât recognize the suffering, hence is not participating in the act of looking ?
Are we all saying, then, that actually we are looking away? Looking for, looking at, looking within, there is a distance between me and the suffering. When there is this distance, then Iâll look at it. Is this what we do?
When I look âfor â Suffering Memory lands me on a path - a reminiscence of my interpretation of past Suffering.
Memory is a land of separated paths.
In Memory there is division ( my path, his path, this path, not this path, etc)
Is the looking away not seeing Suffering in an Undivided way (from an undivided mind) ?
Where there is division there is distance from the Actual, no contact with the Actual/the whole of Suffering.
No. On the contrary. When I look within there is no distance, there is just suffering.
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Psychological pain is generally an idea, image(s), thoughts.
Does psychological pain, pleasure, etc., exist at all?
It is thought who says âI sufferâ and also ties itself with the notion of âI thinkâ.
Thatâs not what it feels like. It feels timeless, wide open.
We are keeping it at a distance? The distance between me and the suffering?
âIt feels timeless and wide openâ
? Does this equate to:
I experience the field (the stream as K calls it ) of Suffering but not its content.
The distance appears when I try to relate to itâs content (or get lost in it).
Why look within? They are killing people in Syria. Next week it will be somewhere else, a different place for the same horror. Looking within may just be an escape from this. Why should looking within make any difference at all except to my own peace of mind?
Which means that suffering is usually approached as a personal problem, which then triggers the search through thought for a personal solution.
When we look at Syria we see ourselves in relationship.