"Behind every beautiful thing, there's some kind of pain"

Bob Dylan is complaining in his song "Not Dark Yet".

According to Buddhism he is right.

We are doomed to be unsatisfied because of the ever changing world.

Clinging to things and persons and the endless craving makes this.

Mindfulness cannot stop the clinging and craving, but it can make us aware of it.

Religious people often looks for salvation.

In traditional  Buddhism Nirvana stands for this salvation.

Thich Nhat Hanhs interpretation of  Buddha's words is that Nirvana is in the here and now. We don´t have to look for it in the future.

That makes no salvation but is probably more true to reality.

But it makes the suffering more easy to bear.

You cannot avoid to be hurt, but you don't have to make it worse by thoughts and feelings of bitterness.

You can make some space around the feelings and thoughts, you can let them come and go and understand that they are just a part of you. New feelings, new thoughts will come.

I think Dylan's lamentation  (written after a surgery) had the same effect for him; he focuses on the discomfort, he is precise on it, he accepts it and with the words he creates some space around it - listen to the guitar, sounding like church bells:




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