Suffering

I watched the film Blood Diamonds the other evening and like many films depicting a realistic image of conflict in African nations it stirred a deep need to help people in the world. I then experienced, while trying to fall asleep after the movie, a brief insight. For almost 2 minutes, while softly chanting in my mind Om mani padme hum, my ego slowly slipped away and I began to experience what could be described as the suffering of all beings in it's continuous nature. No longer an affliction of 'myself' or 'others', contemplating the history of suffering as a result of the human condition led me to enter this slip stream of consciousness. A slight sense of oneness arose from this experience, however the feelings I had that evening were not what I would describe as intense, or even deep. They seemed quite ordinary, as if for the first time I have viewed human suffering through the most objective lens yet.

Directly after the experience I began a series of mental conversations that left me asking questions such as, "Everyone is suffering, how do I help?" and "Who should I help?". At that point a quote from an Indian spiritual poet rang in my mind. When asked through all his spiritual experiences in his spiritual life, "What is the heart of the spiritual practice?", he responded, first, that he was quite embarrassed at this but, "Simply being kinder to everyone and everything" was his response.

The continuous nature of human suffering on this planet leaves this to be the only answer. How can you help? Who should you help? Nobody is asking for you to become a saint and change the world in seemingly tangible ways. You can help simply by remembering to be kinder to everyone and everything, including yourself! The sense of importance that comes when I contemplate leaving my life to help people all over the world is revealed as a false sense of self. Somehow pride and desire ravage even the purest of motives. One need not leave their life to help others, nor look to far lands to find suffering beings. The suffering of humanity is and always has been one energy field. Each time you create suffering you add to this collective energy, and every time you help dissolve suffering, mine or your own, you use your mind, actions and speech to purify this energy and bring it to a higher vibrational frequency. Simply living more present, dissolving your own tendencies to create and cause suffering, and taking full responsibility for your own life and actions will help you live at a higher vibrational frequency and help dissolve the suffering of others. Easier said than done.