It came to me to repost this article again today, essentially about mastering suffering by mastering the self. I especially loved this story about Master Tozan...

In the old days in China there was a priest called Master Tozan. A monk asked him "how can we escape from this severe heat and cold?" This is not just a question about severe heat and cold. It is a question about the reality we are always facing - a melancholy and difficult reality, a reality that is full of suffering. People are sick and in pain: people have lost their homes in disasters and wars and have nothing in which to believe any longer and are suffering in their despair. For those whose belongings have all been destroyed, their refuge in the material world has been shown to be empty and meaningless. This kind of pain is always occurring all around us.

Master Tozan answered the monk, "You have to go where there is no hot and no cold!" The monk continued, "Where is that place where there is no hot or cold? Where is that true place of refuge for the mind?" The priest answered, "When it is hot, become that heat completely! When it is cold, become one with that cold completely and totally! When it is painful, become that pain completely and totally, and when you are miserable, become that misery totally and completely!

In the very midst of that, go beyond all the thoughts you hold in your mind, let go of all the ideas of good or bad or gain or loss - let go of all of these thoughts - and from there grasp that place of your very own vivid life energy! That which directly experienes that 'ouch' - feel that life energy directly, grasp that life energy that feels that pain and sorrow." More important than finding a place out of pain and suffering, or trying to find a place where there is no pain or suffering, is to go directly to that place where the pain and suffering are being experienced, to go where you feel that pain and sadness directly and totally. Touch that life energy directly and with your own experience. Use that actual direct experience which you have grasped as your base, and stand up strong and firm. This is how the master answered the monk.

For those who know Openhand, will recognise the Breakthrough Approach in it...
Discover more: The Openhand Breakthrough Approach

Namaste

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