Life Without Conflict Life Without Conflict | Page 41

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Life Without Conflict
off. Instead, when people have to face difficulties they become
so distraught, they say, “I am dead.” We all know you only die
once but these foolish people will say, “I am dead,” so many
times over! Can someone who is dead still be living? People do
not have to say they are dead all their lives. You just have to
know what true suffering is.
Why does this child laugh and not cry when I smack him
several times? And why does he cry when you smack him just
once? Is it because he feels hurt from the pain? No, he does
not cry from the pain, he cries because he feels insulted.
How can you call this suffering? It is suffering when you
do not get food to eat or when you do not get to use the toilet.
The local authorities have made toilets available in every home.
Otherwise, in the old days you had to carry some water in a pot
into the forest to relieve yourself. Now you have bathrooms
with toilets in your own bedrooms! Even the landlords and the
mighty rulers of the past did not enjoy such facilities. They too
had to go to the forest. Even they had to run to the forest when
they had diarrhea! People unnecessarily go around complaining
about trivial things in life. Why are they complaining unnecessarily?
Wrong understanding causes suffering. There is no such
thing as suffering if the right understanding is applied. If there is
a little infection in your foot, you have to look around to see if
anyone else has the same kind of suffering. If you look in a
hospital, you will realize what suffering is, while here you suffer
unnecessarily with a little infection. You have to investigate all
this, don’t you? What happens if you suffer without looking at
all the facts? How can there be any suffering for people who
have so many merit karmas, like yourself? You are born in a
family of punyasadis (fortunate ones), where you get your meal
with very little effort.
Questioner : Each person feels his suffering is greater
than others.