Tiny Buddha, Simple Wisdom for Life's Hard Questions - Lori Deschene

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arthritis that made every stroke torture. In response to the question of why he carried on, Renoir said, “Pain passes but beauty remains.” I can't help but wonder if he didn't merely push through the pain but somehow appreciated that it endowed his last pieces with a whole new sense of meaning. Pain has a way of doing that when we realize what we get through the experience of enduring it.

      LET PAIN REMIND YOU OF WHAT YOU ENJOY AND APPRECIATE.

      If you're hurting and it seems like you'll never feel joy again:

      Identify what this pain reminds you to appreciate. If you're hurting because you lost someone, this pain reminds you to enjoy every moment with the people you love because life is fragile. If you're hurting because of shame or regret, this pain reminds you to live with honor, authenticity, and integrity to create feelings of self-respect and pride.

      Make a proactive decision to enjoy those things at least a little today. Don't worry about completely releasing your pain forever—that's a huge goal to demand of yourself. Instead, focus on doing something for just a short while that will create the emotions you want to feel. Call an old friend and get together for a spontaneous adventure instead of dwelling on the adventure that never happened. Do something that makes you feel proud and passionate instead of feeling ashamed of the decision that didn't pan out.

      Schedule blocks of healing. When we're hurting, it's easy to isolate ourselves until we feel better or more in control. But I've noticed that simple pleasures—like a massage or a hug—can feel so much more gratifying when I am deeply in need of release or connection. So schedule it in, even if you think you may get emotional. According to William Frey II, a biochemist who researches tears at Ramsey Medical Center, crying releases toxins and stress hormones—meaning, it often feels good to cry.

      DESIRES AND ATTACHMENT CAUSE PAIN

      Because there is desire, there is suffering. ∼@jazzmann91

      Suffering happens when people become attached to material possessions and each other. Understanding loss and death will free us. ∼@lindsay1657

      People identify with every thought they have. They don't see the world as it is. They just see their opinions about it. ∼@mullet3000

      Because we're human and have intelligence, we can imagine having a better experience than the present and suffer over the difference. ∼@sarabronfman

      The day people start lowering their expectations from work, life, and relationships, suffering will disappear. ∼@supriyaagarwal

      There is little in life that's more stressful than clinging to something you want to last forever while knowing full well that nothing does. Only slightly more painful is identifying something you think you need and feeling powerless to get it. There's this dream I used to have over and over again. I'd want to get somewhere, but my body wouldn't move. I'd start running, but I would essentially be jogging in place, like Wile E. Coyote, legs still moving even after he'd been pushed off the cliff and was suspended in midair. No matter how much energy I expelled, I was immobile, but I always kept fighting, sweating, and screaming, hoping something or someone would save me from the pain of my paralysis.

      That's how I lived my waking life, too. There was always something I visualized as the end-all-be-all in terms of happiness, and it was always something that evaded me—a relationship, a job, an adventure, and usually underneath it all, a feeling. What I desperately wanted was always something just out of reach—and then I got it, and my internal supervisor immediately assigned me another aching, endless want. There was no reward for achieving—only a new demand to cower before. I suspect a lot of us live this way: desperate to be in that place where everything appears to be better. Whether it's come and gone, or it lives in a dream, we all have an idea of the way things should be. We've all formed opinions and expectations of how things look when they work well—or how we feel when things are going well. And then we attach to those situations, places, people, and feelings, imagining everything would be perfect if we could get and keep them. The irony is that we don't only attach to things that appear to be positive. Sometimes familiarly bearable is far less scary than the unknown.

      Back in my adolescent group-therapy-hopping days, I met an overeater who had formed a long-term intimate relationship with a razor. She weighed more than three hundred pounds, yet even on the hottest days she wore full-length shirts—and it had nothing to do with concealing her obviously large arms. One day the therapist let us know she'd be coming to the group wearing a short-sleeved shirt. I immediately felt appalled that a professional would feel the need to prepare us for seeing an arm far fleshier than our own. Malnourished though we were, I highly doubted any of us would have gasped at the sight of her exposed obese limbs.

      What I learned when I stopped thinking and tuned in to the rest of her forewarning was that our group member had cut literally hundreds of crisscrossed gashes across every inch of exposed skin she could reach. Even after years of counseling, she remained attached to this dangerous habit for numbing her emotional pain.

      Months later, I learned that even our therapist felt attached to her pain. She was going through a messy divorce that she vehemently opposed even though her husband had a history of beating her. Attachment is an equal-opportunity instinct and often ignores all reason.

      The moment we decide things don't have to be a certain way, we create the possibility that they could be better than we know to imagine them.

      Another interesting thing about attachment is that even when our target appears to be positive, sometimes it's a detrimental and limiting choice. We often attach to things we think we need without realizing the feelings it evokes aren't specific to that thing. Love doesn't exist only in one relationship. Fulfillment doesn't require a specific job. Happiness doesn't depend on re-creating a past condition. Security doesn't hinge upon controlling the future and shaping it exactly as we visualize. Our grandmothers may also have advised that, often, the best things in life take us completely by surprise. As the Dalai Lama said, “Sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” One of the most popular posts on TinyBuddha.com is fewer than one hundred words but has received more than eleven thousand Stumbles. It reads:

       Opportunity often hides in the most unlikely places, but it isn't easy to see it when you're disappointed life didn't meet your expectations. Michael Jordan's high school coach cut him from the basketball team, which may have pushed him to work harder and become an NBA superstar. Soichiro Honda wanted to be an engineer at Toyota until he was rejected, inspiring him to start his own company. You never know when a disappointment might pave the path for something great. What wonderful stroke of luck have you had lately, and what can you do to benefit from it?

      I suspect this one struck a nerve with people because it rarely feels safe to detach from a want, and yet some of the best things in life come from choosing to let go. The moment we decide things don't have to be a certain way, we create the possibility that they could be better than we know to imagine them. That doesn't mean we shouldn't want things; it just means we can experience a lot more joy if we learn to want without fearing. It is possible to visualize a goal and work toward it, and simultaneously know that even if it doesn't pan out, we can still experience happiness. Attachment is assuming we know precisely what has to happen for life to become and stay good. Detachment is a commitment to strive and then accept that whatever happens, we can make it good. One resists the undeniable reality that life is uncontrollable and everything within it impermanent; the other gives us the permission to flourish even as we know those things are true.

      TURN THE PAIN OF WANTING INTO THE JOY OF DOING.

      If you're hurting over something you think you need and can't have:

      Identify what it is you're grasping at. Is it a job that you think will make you feel passionate about your work? Is it a relationship that you feel you need in order to know love? Now ask yourself: are you assuming happiness exists in achieving or getting this specific

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