Vajra Yogini, the trauma goddess, appears in the form of the Hindu Goddess
Durga carrying a trident and says, "Let us discuss suffering."
Most people have a deeper, unconscious layer in their personality which is
like a land which flows with rivers of sorrow. The land grows plants and
flowers but their roots reach into waters of pain.
Vajra Yogini shows a primitive land, and a place of dinosaurs and jungle creatures to illustrate what this layer of the personality is like. Elephants cry in the distance and volcanos rumble. She strikes the ground with her trident, and black polluted waters flow out. They are full of beings writhing in pain. In response to the question: "Can these waters be stopped?", she answers, "No, because they are not limited to this land, or to an individual or even to a group."
She says,
The river of pain cannot be ended but it can be limited. This is not done
by ignoring pain and becoming numb, but by transforming it. As beings
evolve spiritually and are liberated from their pain in this life and in
previous lives, their previous self, which was grounded in pain, must
become a new self grounded in compassion and the recognition of pain in
others.
Human beings are not the only ones who suffer. There are galaxies,
universes, whole dimensions of existence which are conscious and suffer.
This is a universal substrate, not just the collective consciousness of
mankind or even of the earth. This suffering pervades everything.
Do you think Bodhisattvas are happy? They can be miserable. There is so much
suffering and often so little they can do. Do not be led astray by Tibetan
Buddhist smiles. Buddhism is recognition of sorrow, plain and simple.
But Yoginis and Dakinis have greater freedom than bodhisattvas. We are not
bound to suffering. We have room for artistry and creativity that
Bodhisattvas can only show in their paradises.
Many children suffer and experience the betrayal of love in childhood. But
the world is full of traumas for children. Children are sold, beaten,
raped, and enslaved. Those who love change into people who hate, or are
uncaring. Those who suffer often feel isolated but they are in reality
fully part of the world, for the world is full of loneliness, betrayal, and
suffering. There is a vast army of those who have been betrayed and
suffer. They simply don't show their membership cards. This is why
confessional groups like the 12-step and anonymous groups are so popular.
They allow people to recognize their betrayals and suffering. Silent
suffering is destructive while shared suffering is liberating and creates
deep bonds.
Do not turn your eyes away from pain. It is not there to be enjoyed as we
see in the twisted values of the entertainment industry. It is there to
reveal the finite and tragic nature of individual human life, and to
motivate people to look deeper.
For most people, life is hard, lonely, and painful. They try to attain
status and wealth and beauty to escape from their pain. But this just
increases ignorance if they use these distractions to hide from pain rather
than learn from it. Pain reveals limits and limits must be encountered.
One cannot escape from a cage if one cannot see the bars.
As the earth is created from liquid super-heated lava, individual consciousness is
created from liquid super-heated pain. Pain is the limitation on infinity.
Every creation of the finite brings pain. Only when the finite is left
behind can we have joy.
But the current state of the world has its collective perception clouded by
volcanic ash. This accompanies volcanic creation, hiding suffering behind
a cloud of obscuring darkness. The sunlight is gone and people are left in
darkness. So they turn to the
fires of the senses seeking light. There are bonfires of conflict, and in wars and
competition, people find meaning.
There is dark sexuality and sensuality, and in piling up varieties of
pleasure, people get brief glimpses of joy. There is the substitute joy of power
and control where the glory of creation becomes dominance, and eventually
callousness and cruelty. Group or tribal identity substitutes for universal identity
[such as identifying with all mankind or all sentient beings],
and it cannot rest and must expand until everyone becomes part of the
group. Thus we get wars - cultural, economic, and religious.
The waters go down, down beyond this land. They are part of the greater
universal waters of pain, the source of suffering for all of the worlds.
The universes run on sorrow just as cars run on gas and oil. Pain is the
universal substrate. The Buddhist understanding is that all life is
dukkha
or suffering. The person's localized river of pain cannot be stopped
because it is like a tidal river connected to a vast ocean of pain. It cannot be escaped because
it is universal, a basic aspect of embodied existence.