No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Being able to enjoy happiness doesn’t require that we have zero suffering. In fact, the art of happiness is also the art of suffering well.

One of the most difficult things for us to accept is that there is no realm where there’s only happiness and there’s no suffering. This doesn’t mean that we should despair. Suffering can be transformed. As soon as we open our mouth to say “suffering,” we know that the opposite of suffering is already there as well. Where there is suffering, there is happiness.

Usually we think that other people, such as our parents, our partner, or people at work, are to blame for our hurt. But looking more deeply, we can see the true sources of our own suffering, and we also can see that the person who we think is out to get us is a victim of his or her own suffering. Understanding our own hurt allows us to see and understand the suffering of others. Looking without judgment, we can understand, and compassion is born.

When there is no more blame or criticism in your eyes, when you are able to look at others with compassion, you see things very differently. You speak differently. The other person can sense you are truly seeing her and understanding her, and that already eases her pain significantly.

“Listening like this, my sole aim is to help the other person to suffer less. She may be full of wrong perceptions, but I won’t interrupt her. If I jump in with my perspective on things or correct her, it will become a debate, not a practice of deep listening. Another time, there may be a chance for me to offer her a little information so that she can correct her wrong perception. But not now.” That kind of mindfulness helps you to keep your compassion alive and protects you from having the seed of anger in you touched off.

“It’s not my intention to make you suffer. I didn’t understand your suffering. I’m sorry. Please help me by telling me about your struggles and your difficulties. I need help in understanding you.”

There is a Buddhist teaching found in the Sallatha Sutta, known as The Arrow. It says if an arrow hits you, you will feel pain in that part of your body where the arrow hit; and then if a second arrow comes and strikes exactly at the same spot, the pain will not be only double, it will become at least ten times more intense. The unwelcome things that sometimes happen in life—being rejected, losing a valuable object, failing a test, getting injured in an accident—are analogous to the first arrow. They cause some pain. The second arrow, fired by our own selves, is our reaction, our storyline, and our anxiety. All these things magnify the suffering. Many times, the ultimate disaster we’re ruminating upon hasn’t even happened. We may worry, for example, that we have cancer and that we’re going to die soon. We don’t know, and our fear of the unknown makes the pain grow even bigger.

I can live happily in the present moment simply by remembering that I already have more than enough conditions to be happy.