A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, ‘Why is there so much suffering?’
Suzuki Roshi replied “No reason.”
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53 comments:
That's it. What is, is. Until it changes. No reason.
Harsh, but the reality of it.
Such a shame. It always breaks my heart to see and hear about such tragedies. So much suffering. It makes me feel helpless.
xoxoxo
Angela
Zen wisdom.
Is this a photo from the recent Tsunami in Samoa?
So many tears have spilled over the loss but the water just covers them over.
There's no time to cry right now. They have so much work to do, but we know the tears will come later and cause another flood.
xoxo
love,
Lolo
My father told me I have been asking "Why" every since I could talk. I can't always know the reason for things that happen but I believe there is one. We just don't see what it is.
I dont think it's all just a bad cosmic joke. We are all supposed to know only later. Afterall, the answers to all the tough questions are always on the last page of any book, isn't it?
~Silver
I dont understand why people still dont understand the tsunami and how it works. Why were people still standing by the beach taking pictures of the waves?
People with such a short memory are asking for trouble. Most human suffering is preventable. It is caused by humans.
you've nailed it renee. thank you for choosing words so perfectly.
xox k
So sad to see it all happening again. It's hard to accept that the universe is so random, but maybe that's because we all experience it from our own, limited point of view. It seems like we should be able to make sense of things in our own little heads. And God knows, we try. But I think you're right. No reason we can undertand. Maybe more shall be revealed. xoxo Barbara
Ah, yet another reason why I am glad that God is God and I am not. All my love to you and Jacquie.
Deb
How can one explain to someone so young the "reason"? It is one of those things that happens and we aren't aware of the big picture nor can we ever begin to explain that picture. Time will give the reason, but at the present moment, it is totally elusive.
Alicia ((xo))
Renee,maybe it's my mood today but this is a time I hope you don't get some intellectual comment void of empathy.
This is one of your most powerful posts ever. And most of your friends and followers stand with you in asking why.
And most of us, on our own way, do what we can.
Xoxo
this is so hard to accept. it makes my heart nearly burst. I spent a month living with families in Samoa ten years ago. I wish I knew how to get help directly to those families.
I think that probably the worst suffering of all is man's inhumanity to man. These violent acts of nature are, in some ways, more understandable, perhaps?
Thank you moon sister
No there is no reason.
Simple.
Love.
These natural disasters and calamaties I can accept. If it does not happen to one, it will happen to another. What is intolerable and unacceptable is an inhuman act against another human or animal and yet some people would find such act reasonable and acceptable. If anything else it tells us that we are temporary visitors here on earth.
I hope you are doing well my dear. I have been missing you.
I am so sorry to visit and hear of your news. My heart breaks for you and for your family. Please know I am saying a prayer for you. There is no explaining away suffering. All we can do is love. I am sending that your way.
I struggle with this. Why do bad things happen to good people? On different days, I still tell myself different answers.
These tragedies shake us in our core. We are just dust in the wind, dust with consciousness.
Very deep, both the waters and the concept. No reason. I wonder, does that mean that we had best not waste energy asking, or that we can ask, but don't expect an answer?
The only response I can think of is rest, and then act in love, however it reveals itself. XO
It is so difficult to understand. I wish there was a reason ... perhaps it would make some sort of sense.
Thanks for your nice comments.
I have been reading here for a while, but I usually dont comment. At most I just leave a :)
There may not be a reason and we may not be able to stop disasters and suffering, but we can open our hearts, share of ourselves with compassion and love to do whatever we can to help. Even if it's just sending up a prayer.
Blessings to you and yours. Love and Light, Nina P
Nope. There is no reasoning with the chaos of events.
There are only solutions to be made.
The minute we believe there is no reason, we fall danger to hopelessness and helplessness. Though my heart breaks at such suffering, and I feel impotent and guilty for enjoying good weather, I must believe there is a reason, even if it's just to learn from a tragedy.
A few months ago, my younger daughter told me she planned on becoming a paleontologist, and my older daughter chided her, saying it's no use planning anything because life never goes the way you plan anyway. Why bother with anything at all. Renee, it shattered my heart into a million pieces. And I was so angry.
So we carry on, and we bolster each other up, even when we think there's no point anymore. And hopefully, we come out a little bit stronger and with more human compassion.
Yes. Life.........there may be a myriad of explanations, but
really "no reason" says it all.
xoxoxo
I just finished listening to the audiobook 'Writing Down the Bones' by Natalie Goldberg. She studied under Suzuki Roshi and often repeats his simple but profound quotes.
I feel for you and yours. With love, Kate x
That is what drives us mad. The thought that there is no reason. We want it all to make sense, like pieces of a puzzle that we finally get to fit together. In the greater scheme (in the big cosmic she-bang picture of things) maybe it doesn't matter: we come from God, we go back to God. It's just that he leaves us out of the damn loop so much.
Much love to you, Renee - xoxox Pam
Oh....What can I say to this? Still, I believe there is always hope even in suffering.
It is sad and many times we ask why?? WHY??
I know someday the answers will be there for us, but they won't come to us here on earth (I believe).
Another another note, I've bestowed on you, yet another award sweet scribbler! Couldn't help myself :)
love, Darla
So all we can do in the face of this is try to be kind to one another.
And try very hard indeed.
the word verification is :truism
very strange.
Shit happens.
The joy in life is in the people who love you straight through it.
I hear you, dearest. I understand what you are saying. When tragedy strikes good people, never in a million years would I think that they had done something to deserve it. Some people need to think that way as a form of terror management -- to protect themselves from the fear that they, too, could get randomly struck down some day. But to say someone deserved to suffer because they didn't follow a particular brand of religion makes me so angry I could scream. That is an arrogant and disgusting way to think.
You are right. Crap happens, and it just doesn't make any sense at all. But I would like to believe that somewhere along the line, perhaps waaay down the line in a way mortals cannot quite grasp, there is a reason, that God or the fates or whatever are not just cruel jokesters. It doesn't necessarily take away the tears or the sorrow. But it keeps me from giving up.
I love you.
xoxoxo
PS I sounded a little cynical, for which I apologize. I'm not, really. :) xox
I am back Renee...only just and very jet-lagged!!!
I was so upset to hear about Sheldon. My heart goes with you and your family.
I will be posting shortly. Had a number of revelations whilst away.....growth is a great thing indeed xx
Love Yvonne
Having no "reason" for suffering - that is, just having the courage to know the suffering, really know it - is the first thing. I think that is the beginning of wisdom. Next comes the daily work of finding peace within the suffering, meaning within the loss, friendship in the face of the distance, love in spite of our mortality.
"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song"
~Maya Angelou
Now you know why. Love from here, you know why.
Amen. No reason. I cannot blame God for the pain in the world. I can only thank God for being with me in it.
We just can't know why things happen as they do. We must trust.
Love you.xoxo
Hi Renee,
I don't know why, so much suffering. My father used to say "There is so much sadness in the world". He was right, yet behind sadness and suffering there is joy and happiness. It is like riding a wave........holding on till we get to the smooth ride, the good part. It exists in our head. It is a challenge to make it our choice.
The mind is a powerful place. Think you have this one down darlin'!
Love you,
Constance
Because we do not care. We will when it knocks at our door. My heart goes out to these people each time they suffer like this.
We care more about ourselves than others.
the pictures looks like my family in my homeland. There was a big storm last monday and it made our area flooded. The second flood we had since the '80s. They don't have electricity until last night,and only this morning I received message from my other sister. Praise God they are safe...they're still out to help others....'have not slept for days....
regards
Of course there is always a reason! I know so. I was born in the ring of fire! People who are born in the ring of fire and the earthquake belt know that something is bound to happen so you pray that in your lifetime it won't. Bella is right about hopelessness and being complacent. It is exactly what happens in places like my birth country. Do you ever notice any of them getting mad? No, because they have come to accept it. Filipinos are fatalistic because of being struck by so many disasters. They leave it to their fate and faith. Now, this may be okay because when one lives there it will be one natural disaster after another. So we had this expression "Come what may" or "Balaha Na!" The problem with this attitude is it gives people in power and those who can make a change and improve the lives of the general public, reason to take advantage of others. I remember, natural calamities like floods and typhoons was always an opportunity for a government official to enrich themselves with kickbacks from foreign aid. I remember one time my mother went to the market to buy "relief" clothes after a massive city fire. Those clothes that are being donated to countries for relief disasters are "sold" by merchants. I also remember queuing for butter and bulgur wheat (it had weevils) during the month of October when we were struck with one typhoon after another. They were being distributed by the US military from Clark Airfield directly to the people. If some government official was in-charge of it, the goods would have never reached us. Yet we grew up being resilient and hopeful because those of us who think that things can be better refused to accept the mantra that "that's the way things have been for centuries". Things have to get better. We have to learn from our mistakes and learn to stop merely existing but live. There is always a reason, it may not be what we want to hear, but there is, but our human nature refuses to dwell on the reasons and just trod on. Why do we think those of us are in research, imagine if we just learn to accept things? Our lives would have never improved. Imagine if the Dutch did not develop polders and dikes, they would have been buried under water.
Oh and one more thing, this is not about "deserving" but about finding a reason. Some of us don't deserve the bad things that happen to us but there is a reason even if it is so painful to accept.
I like this. And the photo, too. Beautiful and true to my own heart...
It's one of the better answers I have come across and yet there's a reason. Humans. we're capable of loving in the same way we're capable of inflicting harm on people. Humans.
Greetings from London.
I like that. It doesn't work, it does work, it's half true, it's all there is, it's arguable, and it's final....
Human on human suffering, I believe, stems from the ego.
Nature on human suffering,we have no recourse, other than ensuring we don't mess up the planet any further than we already have.
I think humans are the only species that looks the other way at the same time killing each other.
in some ways too, to mirror the opposite
why is there so much love
why is there so much beauty.
no reason.
it is.
but we hope needless cruelty evolves... we evolve; do we choose a side to live on? I choose love.
And there isn't. The world just works as it works, without regard to fairness and reason. And yet, we still want to know why, still want the world to be fair. All we can do is hold on to our love for others and theirs for us.
No reason indeed, or none that we understand.
No reason, cool answer just like a child acceptance.
On the sad side, people do suffer. Is it to be for our experiences? Sometimes I wonder.
To see suffering or hear of it or read of it...it can make me wonder the very same question. I would never have thought to answer with "no reason"...but maybe because I am only human, I can not understand such an answer. Maybe it has to do with the fact that most of how we view this life is just an illusion anyways. I believe that we go through hard times and become better people for it, and that someday we will live in heaven and we will feel so at home and full of love and peace and there will be no more suffering. Maybe the answer "no reason" was interupted...and he meant to say "no reason that a regular human being can understand right now" :)
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