One Arrow

Transcript

I was thinking the other day after I did that interview with my monk friend I was thinking about this quote, pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

I was trying to find the source of the quote, you’ve likely heard it.

As it turns out it was probably unknown origin, perhaps it comes out of alcoholics anonymous. Being anonymous we will never know who said it first but it showed up on this site fakebuddhaquotes.com.

This fella researches where these quotes come from that are attributed to Buddha. He said it’s certainly a fake Buddha quote but it’s certainly in alignment with the teachings.

We have the quote from the Sallatha Sutta what it says is: “when touched with the feeling of pain, the uninstructed run of the mill person sorrows and grieves and laments. Beats his breasts and becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical and mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and right after shoot him with another so he could feel the pain of two arrows in the same way when touched with the feeling of pain the uninstructed person sorrows and grieves and laments and beats his breast and becomes distraught. So he feels two pains.”

In the quote its saying someone else is shooting you with the second arrow. Really it’s ourselves. When we experience that grief, when we turn ourselves into a victim. Create a story and other pain.

That’s ourselves causing the extra pain. What if we could, as my friend discussed when we did the interview, we talked about children sitting in meditation.

When their legs begin to hurt he asks them why they interpret it at pain. When something is painful in a sense it’s just information and we don’t need to take it to heart and create this story around it and ask “why me” or “why is the world being so cruel to me”.

Why is the table so cruel to me that it would offer itself so I would stub my toe?

Instead we can simply accept the pain. Not always easy to do, but if we can take a deep breath and move our awareness into that part of our body that is uncomfortable. Often we will find that it’s not as bad as we think, as we tell ourselves.

Just like when taking a cold shower I think it’s going to be bad. And then as I turn on the water it splashes me and there’s that moment of discomfort and I realize it’s not so bad.

Once in Mexico City my friend said we must go eat Prehispanic cuisine.

They brought out tlacoyo de escamoles it’s a kind of fat tortilla with beans inside and on top were ant eggs. The kind of ants that only exist in Mexico that produce large eggs that have been harvested for thousands of years to eat.

Of course looking at the ant eggs this concept, what is it like to eat insects?

Not something popular in my culture.

The act of eating them itself there’s nothing wrong with it. But the story around it makes it much more difficult. The thought of it, so how can we endeavor to feel that one pain. Experience that one arrow and leave the second arrow behind. The pain or the suffering that we impose on ourselves.

Not an easy task but as my monk friend demonstrated it is possible so lets try.

Thanks for listening and have a wonderful day.