Taking Care of Suffering | Brother Phap Dung

Young people -

We were never taught
how to take care of our suffering.

That is the basic.

In school you don't know how to do that.

If you are lucky,
you learn it from your parents,

but actually, they were a model of
how not to take care of your suffering,

looking at my own growing up.

That is the root of it,

that people don't know
how to take care of their suffering,

and to look at it and find its cause.

That is very basic.

There is a source of where
those emotions are coming from.

Your emptiness, your loneliness,
your judgment, your trauma.

These things, through mindfulness,
and through stopping,

and embracing, and understanding it
is the way out.

So the way out is the way in.

The way out of suffering
is to touch suffering.

Don't be afraid of it.

Suffering can be a very good element
for our transformation and healing.

So, it's not like suffering has
nothing to do with our healing.

We need the suffering,
to hold it and to understand it.

And through that, our humanity,

our wholeness comes,
because there's a part of us we want -

And that is very discriminative,

Learning to how to suffer, we suffer less.

That is the magic. You don't need to
get rid of all suffering,

you don't need to get rid of all wounds,

you can be healthy with the wound,
you can be happy with a suffering.

That is what people cannot believe,

because they don't know how to do it.
There is the way to do it.

I'm suffering, but I am not reacting,
I'm not judging.

At that moment, I'm also at peace
and happy with my suffering.

At the same time.

You don't need to go, 'Okay, now
the suffering is done, I can be happy'.

In fact, the suffering can be
the greatest teacher.

Learning how to suffer,
learning how to be with your anger,

with your strong emotion,

is the first step. Stopping

and recognizing, embracing
like a mother with a child.

It's a very important step.

And from that,

healing is possible.

The restlessness, the discrimination,
the pushing, the denying,

is a way of picking at the wound,
at the suffering.

Or suppressing it, and boxing it,
and tying it into a knot.

And what does that produce?
More suffering.

You see it in the way you behave,
the way you carry yourself,

the way you react, the way you speak.

So only when you can stop, recognize,
embrace, calm, be gentle,

that the possibility of understanding,
of loosening of the knot,

of healing, of stop bleeding is possible.

So, not picking, not making more knots.

Stop,

and slowly you know how to untie the knot.
You know why the baby is crying.

You know what to do
not to pick your wounds,

and keep making it bleed.

Being calm is like
providing a healthy environment,

so that the healing will happen.

So suffering is
a very important element to play.

And we don't accept that.

We want to get rid of it we want -

I don't want the mud,
I just want the lotus.

You look at nature, you look at the world,
you look at anything.

Anything you find pure by itself? No.

Actually, they're all very related.

Interconnected.

The idea of something pure, and happy,
and absolutely without suffering

is just your mind.

So you have to
really have time to see that.

Because we are fueled by the media,
the movies and so on, our Facebook...

We think that
there's something like a world,

or a place, or state of being

where it's like happy,
joyful, or peaceful without suffering.

That is an illusion.

So we are no longer
afraid of suffering when it comes,

no longer afraid when our emotions come.

And slowly you'll find that the pattern,
slowly, it happens less.

It doesn't rise up. And
some suffering don't rise up anymore.

Because it's healed.
And the knot is untied.

And you're mindful not to tie it anymore.

Your anger towards someone,

once you understand the person,

you understand why this has happened,
you don't blame them.

You don't even have to forgive them.

Just because you're understanding

the common suffering that we're in,
that compassion is born.

So compassion.

There's no forgiveness, you don't need it.

Just pure, true, understanding,

and connecting to that...

There is peace. No more knots.

So, the suffering
is very needed for compassion.

In fact, compassion
is built on suffering.

Happiness? Peace? They can -

But compassion?

The stuff that makes it
juicy and rich is suffering.

I love you.

Yes, it's joyful, peaceful. I accept you.
You are a wonderful person. But like -

I feel for you. I am one with you.

I am compassioning with you.

That requires pain.

If you have time to
look into compassion, the source of it,

it is pain and suffering.

That feeling is a very wonderful feeling,
to feel very connected, and whole.

It's really healing for us too.

So Mother Earth, have time to sit
and feel her pain.

Then we can cultivate that kind of
way of being in our own lives,

and how we look at human beings,
how to look at the plants, the rocks.

It is hard for us
to throw a rock violently after that.

So people, young people

they need to know
how to take care of their suffering.

One aspect. The other is
to generate joy and happiness.