How Can I Help Part I

Ram Dass speaks in his work How Can I Help about the nature and differences between pain and suffering, and the way we treat the two within ourselves and with others. At first, the contention between these two words escaped me completely: they were synonyms, not separate concepts. However, I came to realize he meant that while pain was an experience, suffering was a decision. This subtle difference was especially important in how we treated our own inner pain. As human beings, and I would say even more so as Americans, we have a tendency to resist or push away pain, whether physical or emotional. We are conditioned to carry unpleasant experiences inside of us without release, to bottle up our reactions and shove them downward. In doing so, we supposedly are acting with strength and maturity. But never dealing with painful experiences or physical ailments only makes them both worse as time goes on. In fact, Ram Dass states that according to the Buddha, “if we could break that link between painful conditions and the reactiveness of mind there was hope of liberating ourselves from the continuous experience of suffering. . . pain alone is not the enemy; the real enemy is fear and resistance.” (Dass 79) I was very taken with this notion, and as is wont to happen, suddenly became aware of this very habit within myself. The thought of simply allowing pain to envelop me seemed counterintuitive, but I hope to “recondition” myself to do so.

What I found most disconcerting, however, was not that we tend to bottle up our own emotions due to fear, but that this selfsame fear can keep us from helping others to the full measure of our potential. “Will we look within? Can we see that to be of most service to others we must face our own doubts, needs, and resistances?” (Dass 14) Reading this, it was as if someone lifted blinders from my eyes, leaving me altogether naked. Is that really why I blind myself to others’ needs? I’m unwilling to help people because I’m afraid of them and myself? Absolutely. Confronting the pain of others is terrifying, because in doing so we must also confront our own fears, our own pain. When we are near someone who is suffering, our immediate reaction is to help them, to do something, when in reality what they need is compassion and companionship. They notice that while we help, we never really look them in the eye, afraid of what we might see there. Therefore what we must strive for is a true connection with those in pain: to realize that we are all connected and all equal. “Unity, not separateness, is our starting point.” (Dass 40) In doing so, our fear is diminished, replaced by compassion.  If we can force ourselves to confront our own suffering and the suffering of others, we will still feel the pain, but also true empathy, acceptance, and contentment. 

 

I apologize if the image disturbs anyone, but this is true compassion.