What Is the Origin of Suffering?

••••Suffering originates from the desire for personal happiness, the desire to bring happiness to oneself. But we need to understand this sense of a self that feels “I, this is me, this is mine.” The fundamental orientation focused on the “I” and “my” mentality is grasping. Once we allow our mind to have this concept of the self, everything about oneself becomes the central axis, and everything surrounding one’s self becomes the object of our mental fixation: “This is me and this is mine my work, my actions, my intentions, what I want, what I don’t want, what I think, and what I don’t know.” The focal point is always the “I.” The subject is always the self.

When grasping at the self becomes a central reference point, we entangle ourselves in all sorts of phenomena that otherwise may not have any direct relation to us. In the phenomena of happiness and suffering, the relation to us comes from attaching or projecting oneself onto an experience and getting engulfed by it.

Excerpt From
Loving Life As It Is
Chakung Jigme Wangdrak
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