Statue of Buddha
The Buddha said that suffering is inevitable. Our experience seems to confirm that. In the course of an average week, most of us experience some emotional suffering as the result of feeling at least some unhappiness, upset, fear, or anger.
To what do we almost always attribute the source of these unpleasant and painful emotions? Almost always we say the cause is something or someone outside ourselves: Losing a job or a loved one, being betrayed by a friend, lack of money, etc.
We think: If only the people responsible for my upset would act differently, or treat me differently, or change their behavior, etc. my life would be fine. I only I had more money, or someone to love me, or a nicer house, or more friends, etc., I would be happy. Especially in America, happiness is usually seen as being dependent on financial factors: “When I get a lot of money, then I’ll really be happy.”
In other words, we frequently experience ourselves as a victim of other people and outside circumstances. It seems very real to us that the only way to overcome this sense of victimization is for something outside of ourselves to change.
Trying to take responsibility
There is an alternative that sometimes occurs to a few of us from time to time: What if I were to change? What if I could change something in me? Would that make me happier?
So we try to accept responsibility: ”Okay, it’s my fault. Nobody did it to me. I did it to myself.” But when nothing changes we end up just adding the feeling of guilt to our unhappiness. Then we try to change our feelings, but either nothing happens or we are able to temporarily suppress our feelings for the moment, but in the long run the unpleasant feeling remains. So then we try to act differently, but that takes a lot of will power and at best only lasts for a short time before the old behavior re-asserts itself.
Is there nothing we can do? Are we doomed to swing endlessly between feeling a victim of life and a fruitless attempt to stop being a victim?
The Buddhist approach
Buddhism has been addressing this situation for thousands of years. It contends that life is filled with suffering, which is nothing more than frequent upsets of one kind or another. The upsets usually entail negative emotions like anger, anxiety, jealousy, envy, etc. These negative feelings—and the emotional suffering they cause—come from the meaning we give meaningless events. This is an unconscious and automatic process that seems to be wired into human beings.
Buddhism offers an answer to this “inevitability” of human suffering. The Noble Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Thinking, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Diligence, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.
Unfortunately, one can spend years meditating and attempting to follow the Eightfold Path and still experience a great deal of suffering. You may bypass the suffering while you are in an altered state of consciousness induced by meditating, but as soon as you stop meditating and return to a natural state of consciousness, the suffering usually seems to reappear.
A modern approach
It is difficult for most people to use the Eightfold Path to overcome suffering because the brain has been wired to assign meaning (usually negative) to meaningless events, which is the ultimate source of suffering. The Lefkoe Freedom Process (LFP) acts like a “software” that enables you to “override” that wiring. As I’ve explained in earlier posts, you can use the LFP to help the brain make new neural connections that bypasses the meaning-making part meaning of the brain.
When you stop giving meaning to meaningless events—and I have a lot of evidence that you can learn to do this—the experience of being a victim will stop. Moreover, virtually all of your negative feelings will cease, leading to a life virtually without stress and emotional suffering.
Learning to dissolve the meaning we unconsciously and automatically attribute to meaningless events—and more: getting to the point where we rarely give meaning to begin with and where we usually automatically dissolve the meaning we do give—is a 21st century way to achieve the non-attachment and release from suffering that Buddhism suggests is possible.
How the Lefkoe Freedom Process
enables you to stop suffering
I’ve written several posts on how the LFP works and how it can help you stop giving the meaning that leads to suffering. See specifically https://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/. I also delivered a TEDx talk on the topic that walks you through the LFP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMdVM-t5kFs
Frequent negative feelings are not necessary. Suffering is not necessary. Experiencing yourself as a victim is not necessary. I have been told this by many people who have learned how to use the LFP. And I know this from personal experience (I never gave any meaning to my diagnosis of fourth stage metastatic colon cancer and never experienced a moment’s stress or suffering).
Would you like to be one of the few people in the world who does not experience emotional suffering? What are you waiting for?
Thanks for reading my blog. Please post your questions or comments about living a life without stress and emotional suffering. Disagreement is as welcome as agreement. Your comments add value for thousands of readers. I love to read them all and I will respond to as many as I can.
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Copyright © 2014 Morty Lefkoe
It’s impressive that you are getting ideas from this piece of writing
as well as from our dialogue made at this place.
Dear Morty,
Awakening and becoming aware of our own perceptual processes in real time, can help us to understand how we create misery and happiness for ourselves. Suffering is a perception. Happiness is a perception. Once the perceptual process is understood, its easy to clean the unconscious of all the harmful debris and achieve freedom from the tyranny of thought. The Buddha’s methods are profound, scientific and simple. For those who have cleared the labyrinth the journey can be most satisfying.
Warm regards and best wishes to all on the path,
Vinod
I also ran into situations where my calmness (or being indifferent) have been seen as inferior qualities. In the sense they would say that you cannot fight it out, be aggressive, result oriented.
I find all this to apply at my workplace, and if i were a different hat at workplace, then you are not being authentic.
Buddha didn’t say our natural state is suffering. Where did you get this from? That’s misleading. He more likely said that suffering is inevitable but the mind’s natural state is peacefulness and clarity… I hope you get your sources right…
Love Jason
Exactly :-)
I would say that the noble truth, quoted as “All is sorrow” — I interpret that to mean that any situation, no matter how wonderful, can cause sorrow or pain — is quite correct and completely in agreement with Lefkoe method philosophy. I would also submit that the Lefkoe method come under the aegis of right view/right thinking. Dissolving occurrings is right thinking, and belief elimination is an intervention for the purpose of educating one’s future thinking.
Hi Morty,
Thanks for your article. Unfortunately there’s a common misunderstanding that many people have when talking about the Buddha’s teaching, and it’s repeated in what you wrote here.
The Buddha taught that suffering is very often a characteristic of human experience. He taught that the way to find relief from suffering is to let go of the attachments – i.e the meanings that we attach to things – that cause us suffering. So in fact there is a big agreement between what the Buddha taught and what you teach too.
Kind regards,
SJ
Further, your explanation of the Buddhist approach (meditative states, Eightfold path) is sadly far from the mark in many respects. While I really value your methods, I am saddened that your post is, though perhaps unintentionally, perpetuating misinterpretations of the Buddhist path.
Buddhism offers a whole raft of teachings about the ethics of everyday life, working with mental states through meditation (not only through ‘altered states of consciousness’, but ordinary states too), and the alleviation of suffering. It is relevant to the modern world, and is perhaps more comprehensive than you give it credit for.
I should like to ask that you write only about what is within your sphere of knowledge and experience, to avoid spreading such misunderstandings and misinterpretations.
Kind regards,
SJ
I agree. This was disheartening to read.
Thank you for articulating the idea i wanted to express, much more eloquently than i could have ever done SJ! :)
Morty, in my opinion, there is only one reality we all live by.
Therefore we cant ignore others descriptions of our world if we care at all about knowledge.
When we find a different ways of understanding a subject that we don’t fully understand and master from the inside, it just mean that our current understanding is incomplete.
I cannot say that i prefer apples to oranges if i never tried an orange.
Therefore if our goal is ultimate understanding, or helping other people, we would be wise to study the different way of understanding stuff in order to learn and hopefully combine both understanding into one, improved, comprehensive theory.
Or at least dismiss the other theory but at least not out of fear, out of understanding how its wrong.
Buddhism promise incredible things about life, the true, complete understanding of ourself and others, the mechanics of the body and mind in insanely precise details, the understandings that allow for the “permanent” complete end to human condition…..
Your method has some merit, now imagine that perhaps you have the tool to help Buddhim provide what they promise much faster!!
How cool would that be ;)
Hi SJ,
If I misrepresented Buddhism, I apologize.
I’ve just purchased a couple of books that I intend to study carefully. I do know that there are different schools of Buddhism and what is true for one is not necessarily true for the other. And there have been three turnings that modified some of the original principles.
In any case, the point I was trying to make is that the brain is wired to result in negative meanings, i.e., suffering. It is usually very difficult to overcome that wiring. The LFP is a relatively easy way to bypass the wiring and stop giving meaning, thereby stopping suffering.
I have been told by people who have studied Buddhism for many, many years that it is very difficult to stop giving meaning, to get unattached to most things most of the time. I contend that it doesn’t have to be that difficult. That is the only point I was trying to make. If I didn’t do that well, again I apologize.
Thanks for taking the time to write.
Love,Morty
Dear Morty,
Thanks for making some adjustments to your blog post, and for replying here. I appreciate you taking the time and effort in this.
Unfortunately, the previous misunderstandings in your post have been replaced by new ones. The Buddha did not teach that suffering is inevitable. The Buddha taught that if you do things which are known to lead to suffering, then you will experience suffering. If you do things that are known to lead to freedom from suffering, you will experience freedom from suffering. The Buddha taught this path which leads to liberation and freedom from suffering.
What you say about some students of Buddhism not finding this freedom from suffering is true. The Buddha himself taught a parable of giving asked for directions. If two people ask you for directions to the nearest town, and you give them accurate directions, and one of them arrives but the other doesn’t follow your directions and doesn’t arrive (or doesn’t even set off) – is the fault with your directions or with the person’s misunderstanding (or lack of effort)?
Many students of Buddhism do find freedom from suffering, as the Buddha taught, by following the Buddha’s teachings.
The Eightfold Path is but one of many formulations of the path set out by the Buddha, and his followers. Through study, practice, and reflection on one’s experience,a student of Buddhism may find liberation.
In studying and practising Buddhism, being in dialogue with experienced practitioners is vital for most people. It is easy to misunderstand words in books without friends and teachers who are further along the path and who can guide you in your understandings. Unfortunately, it is characteristic of our current society that we feel we can solely rely upon our own understandings when we read a text. For many people, this obstructs their effective understanding and practice of the Buddhist path.
Morty, I wish you all happiness and success in your studies of Buddhism. Do contact me directly if you would welcome the dialogue. I’m no expert, just on the path as best as I understand it.
Kind regards,
SJ
Exactly :-)
If we unlearn suffering, would that mean end of joy, happiness, euphoria etc. as well?
Enya, at least as per the Buddhist concept of reducing and ending suffering (and Morty’s approach seems to be similar?), it would certainly not mean the end of joy, of happiness. In fact, joy is intended to replace the suffering. When you talk about euphoria, a distinction is required: Buddhism tries to move us in the direction of a state of bliss, which comes from gradual realization about how things really do — and do not — exist. Bliss sounds like an ultimate joy, right? What we may no longer want in our lives are the euphoric highs that are unbalanced states, characterized by unrealistic thinking, that usually are followed by a crashing low, or at least some kind of come-down or withdrawal. I know we’re not on a Buddhist thread, per se, but I thought I’d comment, because I frequently hear people discount the whole approach, because of a perception that would turn them into an emotionless, joyless person, and nothing could be further from the truth.
Hi Eneya,
See a blog post I wrote that answers your question. https://www.mortylefkoe.com/positive-emotions/
Love, Morty
Hi Morty
I don’t know a lot about Buddhism. However, I don’t see sometime negative emotions and suffering as the same thing. Negative emotions can be signals that something is wrong. Signals that are trying to tell us something. I think we ignore them at our peril. Reframing them into meaningless events can in my opinion result in denial.
I think I would rather have the richness of experiencing the intensity of emotional highs and lows than eliminate them altogether and live a ’emotionally flat lined’ kind of life. I think that the suffering you describe is when you see the negative emotion as something to be avoided rather than something to be learned from
I see a distinction between the negative emotion that arises when a personal value has been offended or an moral injustice done (ie feedback) and the repeated patterns of negative emotion that are triggered from old issues that haven’t been resolved (unconscious stimulus/response).
I can think of times in history when terrible crimes were committed because people didn’t pay enough attention to their negative emotions and became bystanders as a result.
Hi Ros,
You don’t need to be upset, anxious or scared to take action that you consciously decide needs to be taken. If you lose a job, you don’t need to be frightened to look for a new job.
And the only thing you can learn from a negative emotion is the meaning you unconsciously and automatically gave a meaningless event that caused the emotion.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Love, Morty
Dear Morty,
Nice article. However, buddhism doesn’t say our natural state is suffering. It says that regular people, in samsara, suffer and create their own suffering. Our natural state however is goodness and compassion – the buddha state – and this state is prior to and beyond suffering.
Best,
Hanneke
Suffering is a man made word, not a natural state. You choose what man made words you put on your experience.