Once upon a time in ancient China, there was a sage who taught a group of disciples at a remote monastery. They studied teachings from many sources of wisdom, even some that originated from distant lands.
One important topic they delved into was human suffering. The disciples were taken by the concept and could not stop talking about it. “Suffering is unavoidable.” one of them declared while others nodded in agreement. “Birth, aging, sickness and death… we suffer through all of them, not to mention the setbacks, heartaches, annoyances and so many other causes of misery.”
This talk had an effect on all of them. They no longer went about their daily activities with good cheer. There was a sense of growing dissatisfaction, and some began to complain about everything.
The sage observed this and decided it was time for a Tao lesson. He gathered the disciples together and said: “I see quite a few moody expressions among you recently. Perhaps we can brighten the mood by taking a break. The nearby lake is particularly beautiful this time of the year. Let us go there.”
The lake was indeed beautiful, filled with pure and pristine water from streams of melted snow. The disciples paid little attention to this natural beauty, for their minds were still preoccupied. The sage knew this would be the case, so he was not surprised when one them finally broke the silence: “Master, what is the Tao perspective on suffering?”
The sage brought out a cup he had prepared, and showed it to all the disciples. They could see that it was half filled with salt. He handed it to the disciple who asked the question and said: “Fill this cup with water from the lake, and stir it well to dissolve all the salt.”
The disciple did as the sage ordered. It took a while, but eventually he was able to get all the salt dissolved. “Good.” the sage approved. “Now take a sip and tell us how it tastes.”
The disciple took a sip and immediately spit it out. “Master, it is much too salty. It tastes horrible!”
“Of course.” the sage smiled. “The salt is just like the suffering we experience in life. It can be extremely difficult to swallow. Even a little sip is horrible.”
“So that is the Tao perspective, Master? That suffering is horrible?” The disciple was puzzled.
Instead of answering, the sage brought out another cup. The disciple looked at it and was startled. The second cup was filled to the brim with salt. As bad as the first cup was, this could only be worse. Would he have to drink it too? He did not know what to think.
“Pour the salt in this cup into the lake.” the sage instructed. “Then use the empty cup to scoop up water from the lake and drink. Drink it all.”
The disciple did as he was told while the other disciples watched him. When he was done, everyone wanted to know: “Well? How was it?”
“Refreshing!” The disciple smiled. “I was a bit thirsty from sipping the first cup. Now my thirst is completely quenched and I feel great!”
“Do you see the difference?” The sage could tell the disciples were beginning to get it. “The ordinary mind is like the first cup. To such a mind, suffering can be almost unbearable. Even a sip of it is horrible, just like you saw for yourselves. This is why the natural response to suffering, for most people, is moodiness and complaints.”
“The Tao mind is like this beautiful lake.” the sage waved his arms at everything around them. “If you can expand your mind into the great dimensions of the Tao, then suffering for you will be like salt poured into the lake. The salt is still the same, but your experience of it will be quite different. Even if you end up with more suffering in your life than other people, it will have no power over you, just as more salt has no effect on the lake. The water remains as pure, pristine and refreshing as ever. Now that is the Tao perspective on suffering!”
Unknown Taoist, Unknown Blog, 2010s
We are okay with the thought of facing mild discomfort. But just as it’s easy to remain calm and defused from feelings of anger as long as there isn’t anything strongly upsetting going on, on some level we will tend to experience cognitive fusion with the “pain is death” Alief more and more strongly the worse we expect the pain to be.
The general way by which incorrect Aliefs are changed is by giving the part of your brain holding them, experiences about what the world is really like. If you have a dog phobia, you might do desensitization therapy, gradually exposing yourself to dogs in controlled circumstances. Eventually, seeing that you have encountered dogs many times and that it’s safe, your brain updates and ceases to have the phobia.
Similarly, if you look at the process of yourself flinching away from thoughts of painful experiences, you will come to directly experience the fact that it’s the flinching away from them that actually produces suffering, and that the thoughts would be harmless by themselves.
The dog doesn’t hurt you: it’s your own fear that hurts you. Similarly, pain isn’t bad by itself, but turns into suffering when we come to believe that we need to avoid it. Seeing this, the parts of your mind that have been doing the flinching away, will gradually start updating towards not habitually flinching away.
When I say that it is the automatic flinching away that actually produces suffering, I don’t mean that just in the sense of “putting off painful experiences causes us to experience more pain in the long run”. I mean that the processes involved with the flinching away are literally what turns pain into suffering: if you can get the flinching away to stop, pain (whether physical or emotional) will still be present as an attention signal that flags important things into your awareness. But neither the experience of pain, nor the thought of experiencing pain in the future, will be experienced as aversive anymore. The alief / belief of “pain is death” will not be active.
Kaj_Sotala, 2018, My attempt to explain Looking, insight meditation, and enlightenment in non-mysterious terms
…the Buddhist definition of human suffering applies perfectly: “clinging to that which changes.”
Gavin J. Becker, The Gift of Fear