It would be a mistake to attempt to block out suffering or create mental distance from suffering. In fact this is the opposite of what I have experienced and come to understand. Trying to do so will most likely simply cause more suffering. What I’ve come to understand quite simply amounts to an embracing of the totality of existence. Opening up to all things.
I’ve been listening to a talk given by Eckhart Tolle and thinking about the nature of conditioning. The question is - how can a human being enjoy personal freedom and really live life instead of stumbling through life asleep at the wheel? In the general conditioned state of human beings the weight of the past largely dictates the perception of available choices in the present moment. Or even worse, the individual is almost completely supplanted as the past continues to repeat in the robotic continuation of patterns.
