Our ignorance and inability to understand the true nature of things is the cause of all suffering.
There are three types of suffering: Suffering of suffering, suffering of change, and suffering of conditionality.
Life itself is suffering: Birth, work, separation, old age, illness, death.
As long as the mind has not realized itself, life contains joy, but also suffering.
Especially old age, illness and death are inevitable and are experienced as suffering.
Suffering is part of our human existence.

Our suffering arises from ignorance, selfishness, attachment, aversion, greed, thoughts and fear.

It is through this ignorance that the experience of duality arises.
By dividing the world into an inner world of “I” and an outer world of “You,” we maintain separation.
It is the unobservant mind, the mind without awareness, that we mistakenly believe to be ourselves.
Although things in our lives are constantly changing, we hold on to our ideas that they are real, permanent, and separate from us.

We are usually unaware of impermanence, or we simply do not want to accept it.

When we experience suffering, we have created the causes of our suffering ourselves in the past without being aware of it.
This happened out of ignorance and cannot be undone now. However, we can learn to allow and accept this instead of continuing to punish ourselves for it.
From mistakes we learn, and we have the opportunity to grow.

Accept suffering without wanting it to go away.

You always have the choice to decide in the present moment whether or not to continue suffering.
So you can ask yourself in each suffering moment:

“What am I learning from this situation?”
“What is the suffering showing me about myself?”
“What shadow aspect is working in my subconscious mind?”

Check if you have really understood your learning task.

Because only when we have understood it, we grow.
Otherwise, the situation repeats itself, over and over again….

The goal of all Buddhist endeavors is enlightenment.
In this state, our limited ideas and conceptual worlds dissolve.
We no longer think in either/or categories, but are connected to everything and consciously dwell in the here and now.
However, as long as we see the world dualistically with our ego, the effect of every action remains limited.
Only in connection with the deep insight into emptiness can an action have a liberating and enlightening effect.

Emptiness means that everything is ultimately part of the same wholeness.

Ayya Khema said:

“If we want to create peace for the world, we must first create peace within ourselves, for each of us is part of this world. When we change ourselves, we change the world.”