317. Our Identity Is Suffering

We want to be free of suffering and we will try anything to escape it. We try to hide from it, burying ourselves in work and obligations. We try to ignore it, convincing ourselves that we aren’t actually experiencing it. We try to distract ourselves from it, shifting our attention to anything that makes us feel better.

Sometimes these interventions work, at least insofar as our suffering seems to disappear for a while. But with time, suffering inevitably returns. It must return, because any attempt to escape from suffering can only guarantee its continued existence.

The only way to overcome suffering is to see it for what it really is. This means we cannot ignore it, we cannot hide from it, and we cannot allow ourselves to be distracted. We do these things not only out of the desire to escape, but also because we fear what we’ll find when we examine our suffering. We’re worried that the suffering we feel is the result of something we are, and in a way, we’re right. It is because we identify with our desires, aversions, and beliefs that we suffer.

When we first encounter this truth, we don’t know how to handle it. It seems to ask for something impossible, namely that we find a way to exist without having intentions. But fortunately the root of suffering is not the mere existence of intentions but our attachment to them. We are so profoundly attached that we form our entire identity out of the things we want, the things we hate, and the things we believe are true.

If we can see that we are able to live without this kind of identity and without attachment to our intentions, then we can break free of suffering. But we will never get there if we stop ourselves from investigating the problem. It is the very act of looking attentively at ourselves and the world around us that provides the opportunity to end the cycle of suffering.