Part of You Doesn't Want the Pain to Stop: Here's Why

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Episode description

I stood up in the council chamber in Truro, tried to tell everyone about a film I loved, and called an albatross a pterodactyl.

That was years ago. I still go over it. I still feel a bit sick before I speak in that room.

The mistake took two seconds. The suffering has taken years, and I have been the one supplying it.

That is what this episode is about. The Buddha called it the two arrows. Life fires the first one, and you cannot dodge it. The email lands, the relationship ends, the body starts aching in the morning. That pain is real and it is not optional. Then we pick up the bow ourselves and fire the second one, every time we replay it, every time we go over what we should have said, every time we lie there at night and cannot put it down.

Life sometimes misses with the first arrow. We never miss with the second. We are far too good a shot.

But there is a part of this I did not expect to end up talking about, and it is the bit people push back on hardest when I say it out loud. I think we hold on to the suffering because it feeds something in us. When we are struggling, we get to be the hero of our own story. Battling through. Still here. Doing all right, considering. And if life goes easy for a while, that hero has nothing to do.

I am not offering you a way to stop feeling pain. I do not think there is one, and I think the people selling one are lying. Getting better at this usually means feeling more, not less. It just does not have to last as long.

No adverts, no sponsors, and it stays that way.

What is in this one

(00:00) The albatross, the pterodactyl, and a veteran councillor who made it worse
(05:00) The email you reread in your head hours later, and why that is the second arrow
(07:00) Why the first arrow sometimes misses and the second one never does
(08:00) Pain is not proof your practice has failed
(09:00) Where I think the spiritual world gets this wrong
(11:00) The suffering loop, and the hero it keeps fed
(12:00) Five hundred miles round Cornwall, and why the sunny days near St Ives were the hardest to fundraise on
(15:00) Why we evolved to replay the bad things, and when that stops serving you
(18:00) Your homework

Your homework this week

Sit with the meditation that goes with this episode, linked below.

Then just count. For one week, notice how many times you replay something somebody said to you, as if this time you are going to solve it, or win it, or make it fair. You do not have to stop doing it. Just catch yourself doing it and name it quietly. There is the second arrow.

Sometimes you will catch it. Sometimes you will not. Both are fine.

Notable quotes from this episode

“Sometimes life misses with the first arrow. But the second arrow, because we’re the one firing it internally, it never misses. We’re a damn good aim with that.” (07:00)

“The mind cannot think its way out of a problem it did not cause.” (17:00)

“When we’re suffering, when we’re going through a really bad time, we have this mechanism that makes us feel like the hero that’s battling through. But if life is really easy, then what’s that hero got to do?” (11:30)

“Just because you have pain, it doesn’t mean your practice isn’t working.” (08:00)

“One of the veteran councillors came over and said, I think you meant albatross. I said, did I say pterodactyl? He said, you did.” (02:30)

Thank you

Adam, Alison, Anna, Diana, Dominique, Dova, Ellen, Fran, Jenna and Mia, Jennifer, Jude, Kellee, Kylin, Marcie, Rita, Simon, Stefan, Stephen and Sue. This podcast does not exist without you.