A Panacea for Pain

I'm back again on a hot lazy afternoon. I've taken the day off to run some errands. It's been a while since I've been able to do such things--to have a late breakfast and to loiter around at coffeeshops. 

But today has been productive so far: I went to Bangsar to settle some strata-title business; drop off my car at the service centre and then paid a visit to the bank before heading home. Life, like everything else, requires maintenance. 

Now I'm at home, having downed two cool beers, feeling relaxed and contented. The weekend looms and I intend to make it a productive one--productive in terms of maintaining that elusive work-life balance.

Wisdom is the knowledge of balance. How much is enough and when is it too much. That is the eternal question. How much money is enough? Many people would claim moral superiority by saying that they do not need too much to survive. Just enough to eat, with food and shelter. And of course, the occasional holiday overseas and maybe an expensive gadget or two. And of course, a nice pair of wheels.

But how many holidays? How much is considered expensive? And what difference does a flashy car make in getting you from point A to point B?

We can't answer all those questions with certainty. We think that we are just moderate in our consumption. But of course we wouldn't mind more. How much more is enough? We don't know when we cross that elusive line.

By nature, our consumption increases if we are better off financially. Everything we consume has a tinge of unsatisfactoriness--that eternal Buddhist bugbear. Can we live with this feeling of unsatisfactoriness all our lives? Those who can't end up seeking solace in spirituality. 

We are encouraged to see dukkha as an inevitable truth of existence. But how does it help? Does acknowledging that you are in pain make the pain more bearable? 

What else could one do? Suffer like an animal or suffer with dignity? Doesn't the need for dignity causes even more pain? What's wrong with suffering like an animal?

The pain of an animal is physical. The pain of a human being is complex and multi-layered--there's a physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual dimension to it. This is the 'pain stack'. 

Physical and to a certain extend emotional pain can be eased with medication. When the pain is intellectual and spiritual, where do we find solace. In idealism and religion? That's what the atheists and the religious fanatics have in common.

Who can blame us. We are all suffering creatures. Is there a panacea for pain? That's what we are here to find out. That's why I write this blog and you reading it.