Meditation & Suffering by Marcus Antebi
If we teach each other to find meditation, we can lessen some of the suffering in the world.
There are cycles of suffering. In my meditations I sometimes think of suffering in the physical world. Considering the possibilities of random things and chaos, it may always be difficult for some creatures. Those creatures will push suffering on to other things. Maybe this world can be classified as the realm of pain and suffering (for some).
If I look closely, I see that every creature has an opportunity to experience bliss and probably does somehow, even perhaps for just a split second. But every creature also experiences a certain degree of suffering—some more than others.
Some people get confused about theology. They say, “Well I don’t understand, if the earth was created by God and the universe was created by God, and God is perfect, why would he create something like suffering?” In their confusion, they may stop asking such questions or create fictional stories to cover up for their lack of understanding.
You cannot have such a thing as tall if you don’t have something in your mind to describe short. That’s how your mind creates things and ideas. You have comparisons of opposites. You could see something that’s really far away and something that’s really close. But you couldn’t have just the idea of far away if you didn’t have a measurement of close. That’s the way we understand our entire reality.
For there to be anything good, for there to be anything called love, there must be something in our mind to create the contrast between the two things. There can’t be good without bad. But then a young scholar might say, “Well, why couldn’t God create a better version of that? Why couldn’t he make it so that it was only good and it didn’t matter that there were no opposites?” My answer would be that he did; it’s just not in this realm. That realm or that reality exists somewhere out of your reach. It is a realm where there are no opposites, and so therefore nothing is material. It’s all just awareness.
But it’s not even that. If I call it as I see it, then I’ve just created another material thing. So that word cannot quite describe a world or the realm that exists where there are no opposites. Contemplate this for the rest of your life. Find a better way to explain it and teach it to others, because it is one of the most profound truths.