We often seek happiness and try to avoid suffering.
While we easily accept the idea of happiness, we usually deny the reality of suffering.
However, to truly pursue happiness, we must first acknowledge that suffering exists.
When suffering comes, we tend to reject it, finding it unbearable and feeling it shouldn’t happen to us.
This reaction can lead us to feel overwhelmed by suffering or even to increase our own distress.
Suffering can arise regardless of our intentions, and it can fade on its own as situations change.
Here is where we can help ourselves.
Instead of waiting for suffering to disappear, we can simply notice it, observing it calmly as we would observe our breath—without
judgment or effort.
This gentle awareness allows us to acknowledge suffering without getting entangled in it.
This approach doesn’t require us to force anything; simply recognizing and observing that there is suffering.
By doing this, we stop the cycle of adding to our suffering and making it worse.
Over time, this practice allows us to see suffering more objectively, gradually creating a sense of distance from it.
This shift—from identifying with suffering to observing it—leads us toward happiness.
In this way, by cultivating a sense of detachment from suffering, we create a path toward genuine happiness, naturally prompting an
introspective exploration of our inner selves.
By focusing on the cessation of suffering in this way, it becomes the approach to happiness itself.