Overcome Pain: RsH"-G3

The Paradox of Strength

As explained, the mantras of self-control that lead to strength inherently generate pain and fear. The use of strength commonly leads to division, stress, difficulty, or disruption—either for you or for someone else. Accepting the reality of pain and mastering suffering is the highest demand of personal maturity.

More on Pain and Suffering

As Buddha noticed, pain-and-suffering is simply the human condition. It should be obvious, but just in case any reader is leading a charmed life, I refer to physical, emotional and mental pain of all sorts that arises in association with frustration, irritation, disappointment, resentment, envy, bitterness, disgust, misery and so on. It flows from accidents, neglect, maltreatment, illness, and natural events. At the slightly deeper level of awareness considered here, any breach in your experience of unity with goodness generates pain. That is probably why pain is often, mistakenly, described as evil. It is not. It is simply a feature of life, and beneficial in that it keeps you grounded in reality.

The next step in producing goodness is therefore about overcoming pain in an appropriate way. This is made possible by adding a third adjacent vehicle of goodness to create techniques of healing. Each is a Triad. The function of these techniques is to repair the inevitable disruptions to goodness in human existence.

While it is not possible to remove suffering entirely or permanently from human life, it is possible to repair that breach in unity between a person and the presumed cause. The cause might be attributed to another person, a group, society, the environment, or God. That breach spoils the sense that «life is good».

It is likely that most people reflexly do the right thing because, at the moment it is required, healing often seems just common sense. However, all too often, healing is not so easy: suffering persists, pain is not overcome and a sense that «life is not good» persists.

When this is the case, you must develop habits so that use of the technique becomes instinctive. You will then act spontaneously, improving your life and benefiting those about you. The quality of the third level is described as spontaneous.

The 5 techniques of healing are:

■ Purify Yourself-R"G3⁵
■ Make Sacrifices-R"G3⁴
■ Be Generous-R"G3³
■ Be Forgiving-R"G3²
■ Be Grateful-R"G3¹

The Social Significance of Suffering

Peace is an eternally sought-after state in social life. Pain and suffering are primary disrupters of peace and harmony amongst people. Interpersonal hostility can escalate into violence that destroys experience and precludes goodness. So the techniques of healing are vital in dealing with interpersonal disruption/distress and restoring peace.

Interpersonal pain is based on:

• suffering intrinsic to human existence and directly ameliorated interpersonally via goodness: the present focus.
• deliberate infliction associated with a lust for power, a naked ambition to dominate, and a flagrant disregard for goodness: see discussion in the review section.

Explore via these Topics

1: Overview of the Ability to Heal

For each of the 5 techniques of healing, the function is proposed, the etymology is explained, and related concepts that might cause confusion are briefly noted.

2: The Importance of Self-Purification

Purifying yourself-R"3⁵ is currently poorly appreciated and possibly even unfashionable, presumably because of its demands for reflection. Perhaps it runs counter to current materialistic values.

3: The 5 Techniques of Healing

For each technique of healing, there is a detailed examination of the internal structure and the many ways that failure can occur at each internal level.

4: Relationship to the Planes of Interpersonal Interaction

Pain must be overcome primarily within interpersonal interactions to reduce the potential for discord which can escalate to hostility and end up as violence. There are 5 Planes of Interpersonal Interaction that appear to correspond to the 5 techniques of healing. as explained here.

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• Start with the overview.

Originally posted: 26-Apr-2013