Monday, 19 December 2011

Suffering





The effect of

suffering, upon us,

depends on what we

love

                                             Thomas Merton


*****



22 comments:

  1. Good morning, thank you and 'onya' for all your efforts with your studies!!!

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  2. As a husband and father, I can understand this one!

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  3. Can't quite connect with that one Keith, could you explain further?
    I would think it doesn't depend on Love but on attachment and judgment...

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  4. To suffer alone without love is a desolate thing, to love makes pain more endurable

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  5. we can love atachments too - The effect of the suffering from grief of the loss of a loved one would be very different say the effect of losing somethig related to our pride or attachments.

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  6. We are not talking real Love then, but
    ego love....

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  7. do you think there is suffering in empathy - to feel the pain of another?? If so then is empathy ego or Love??

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  8. Suffering comes from not accepting things just how they are, but wishing them to be different. It's our identification with our bodies and thinking those are what we are that leads to suffering.

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  9. Joining in suffering is not Love. Love is pointing the way out of suffering...

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  10. Good morning Keith. Good quote, something to ponder.

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  11. And to what degree we love it...

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  12. Interesting quote, Keith. Quite subjective, will depend on an individual's viewpoint.


    Got some new photos posted, if you fancy a look:

    http://mitchylr.multiply.com/photos/album/279/Dorset_Weekend_2011_Vol.2

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  13. I can't remember the phrase someone once told me, but this is close enough...it was after a funeral, someone said, "The amount of grief you experience is in direct relation to the amount of love between the two people." It seems to be a good phrase to comfort others -- if you are in much grief/pain (suffering) it is a reflection of how deep the love between the two separated. That's what the phrase above reminded me of. Suffering often comes from the loss of what we love.

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  14. john 16:20 I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.

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  15. Hi Mitch - indeed!! - have looked already at the album but not yet commented - some beauties I saw in amongst them p one in particular I liked - smoking joanne?

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  16. This is true what you say - it is how I felt when I have felt deep loss of the bond as with with my mother and father but my Love for them I think was more than a bond. Love strips away the sense of loss over time and leaves a warmth - the residue resistance or suffering perhaps but still to me it is a nice feeling to know I have Loved and shared a Love - perhaps measures the degree or difference between Love and love. The effect from losing my parents is very different from the attachment to the money lost in the last financial crisis - I did not love my money but felt very cheated. I lost the security and that effect was akin to anger not grief. I was not devistated, my world did not crumble, when my parents died but man I can tell you I felt devistated by the loss of my security. I have no warmth in my heart for that money but sure still some anger at the many dynamics that brought about that loss. So in this respect the effects were very different, as the quote states, although as you said previously - Love showed me the way out! It also shows me that I Loved my parents and that the effects from loss of money had noting to do with Love!

    Just to add something here I once heard - that it is through suffering that gives God (Love) the way in. It is through the suffering of things born of attachment and judgement that God is able to reach us. Until we suffer we cannot find Love perhaps???

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  17. Hi Trammie - yes - I went and read the passages around this and thank you. This is what stood out for me in this quote - "in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation" from 16:33 Or to paraphrase for those who do not believe - in Love you may have peace. From your ego you will have tribulation.

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  18. Look at your own sufferer first, look at it, look at it! Is it really there?

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