World Suffering

World Suffering

...begins very personally.

Of all the things
I once felt were mine to do,
none seemed more important
than to lessen world suffering.

After many failed attempts
in which it more often happened
I had done the exact opposite,
my attention shifted inward,
toward the more difficult pursuit
of unearthing and appreciating
my own neglected suffering.

So I ask you now
to begin asking yourself,
How have I suffered?

And then ask over and again,
until you receive an answer
which may surprise you.

My own suffering
is a dimly lit frontier,
full of riddles, half-truths,
but also of profound discoveries
like the generational wounds I carry,
alongside great forgiveness waiting
for me to return and release it.

Of all the things we can do
to minimize great suffering
and to heal this beautiful world,
nothing would be more effective
than turning our focus inward
to uncover the suffering we carry
and transmit unintentionally.

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Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark,
and shares the nature of infinity.
~ WIlliam Wordsworth

I postpone death by living, by suffering,
by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.
~ Anaïs Nin

We are healed from suffering
only by experiencing it to the full.
~ Marcel Proust

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