Stories and Suffering

Posted by Paul Reynolds on May 15, 2019 in Blog, Western Insight | Comments Off on Stories and Suffering

What a miserable day.

He didn’t have the decency to return my call.

She let me down.

Little stories we tell ourselves and others, often in the form of complaints.  They are unconsciously designed to enhance our always deficient sense of self through being “right” and making something or someone “wrong.”  Being “right” places us in a position of imagined superiority and so strengthens our false sense of self, the ego.  This also creates some kind of enemy: yes, the ego needs enemies to define its boundary, and even the weather can serve that function.

Through habitual mental judgment and emotional contraction, you have a personalized, reactive relationship to people and events in your life.  These are all forms of self-created suffering, but they are not recognized as such because to the ego they are satisfying.  The ego enhances itself through reactivity and conflict.

How simple life would be without those stories.

It is raining.

He did not call.

I was there.  She was not.

— Eckhart Tolle
Stillness Speaks

Posted by | Paul Reynolds

“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion or cultural system…..” - Rumi

For over 30 years Paul Reynolds has collected and shared inspiration from a wide variety of sources. Embracing the philosophy that at the core of all these expressions is the reminder that we are loved and supported every moment. This unending stream of inspiration, imagination and wisdom is posted via his weekly ‘Living the Question Blog’, which has become ‘home’ for those discoveries. If you would like to receive the readings and share them with those you feel will benefit, please fill out the ‘Subscribe’ form to the right and Paul’s selections will come to your email every Friday.