Daily Meditation: Sunday, May 23, 2010

Suffering - an opportunity for working on oneself

05/23/2010

Don't try systematically to escape from suffering; think rather of drawing strength from it, so that the sublime life may awaken within you. The role of suffering is precisely to make qualities emerge that would never appear under other conditions. When you find yourself undergoing physical or mental suffering, bless heaven with the thought that you have been given the opportunity to do a great work on yourself because of this suffering. Obviously, I am not speaking here of the kind of suffering that is intolerable: that kind requires medical help. I am speaking in a general way of all the unpleasant, painful circumstances that are bound to occur in daily life. Rather than groaning, weeping and cursing, it is better to try to take advantage of these inconveniences to set to work and to grow. How? By not remaining focused on your suffering but attempting to harmonize everything within you. Once this work is done, your suffering will disappear, because you will have succeeded in solving the problem you were set.