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Key points
- Unpleasant experiences are an inevitable part of life.
- When we react negatively to unpleasant experiences, we add anger and resentment to the experience.
- We can learn to react to them in a way that doesn’t intensify our stress and suffering.
It’s natural for us to desire that our lives will only be pleasant. That said, in what’s known as the first noble truth, the Buddha provided us with a list of experiences that we’ll all encounter during our lifetimes. It includes aging, illness, death, sorrow, pain, grief, separation from loved ones, not getting what we want, and getting what we don’t want. I call it “the Buddha’s List.”
It’s a daunting list, that’s for sure. Everything on the list has at least one thing in common; each one is an unpleasant experience.
This is why people sometimes say that Buddhism is pessimistic. To me, however, the Buddha was not being negative. He was being honest and realistic about the human condition. Since we’ll all encounter these experiences during our lives, why not be aware that each one will be something we’ll have to face at some point?
It would be nice if our lives were only pleasant—if we’d never have to contend with illness or aging or sorrow or pain or separation from our loved ones.
And it’s natural for us to desire that we’ll always get what we want and that we’ll never get what we don’t want. But that’s simply not going to happen all the time.
Here’s my key to making peace with the Buddha’s list of unpleasant experiences. The first two are mindfulness practices, so they may take practice:
- First, recognize that an unpleasant experience has arisen.
- Second, notice your desire to get rid of it. You may experience this as anger or resentment.
- Then, if there’s nothing you can do to change the experience at the moment, make a conscious choice not to feed your desire, meaning don’t start telling yourself unrealistic stories that intensify the unpleasantness, stories such as “This pain will never go away”; “I’ll never get over losing my beloved pet”; or “I simply have to get my way.”
When you don’t feed the desire to get rid of unpleasant experiences, at least the desire doesn’t intensify. This makes it possible, first, to accept the experience as part of being human and, second, to allow compassion to arise for any stress or suffering you’re feeling at the moment.
Like all things in life, unpleasant experiences are impermanent. They don’t stay the same for long, and you can even hasten their departure by not feeding them unrealistic and stressful stories as in the examples above.
This is a lifetime challenge—and practice. Not a day goes by that I don’t find myself in the midst of an unpleasant experience, whether it’s pain in my body, or having to go to the dentist, or getting stuck on hold for a half hour while trying to reach my medical provider.
Some weeks ago, my heart was pounding so hard in my body (one of the ongoing symptoms of my chronic illness) that I was in considerable discomfort. The thought arose: “I hate this. Stop doing that, heart!” Needless to say, this aversive thinking didn’t work.
Finally, I recognized that this kind of thinking was making me feel worse. So, instead, I acknowledged with compassion for myself that this was an unpleasant experience, one I would just wait out, recognizing that the universal law of impermanence can be my friend.
When I approach unpleasant experiences this way, they become manageable because I’m not adding aversion to what’s already unpleasant. In other words, I’m not doubling the unpleasantness. In addition, I’m adding self-compassion, which means being caring and kind to yourself. That always feels good.
And sometimes, I can make the experience less unpleasant—even pleasant—for example, by picking up some embroidery while I’m on hold or by trying some mindfulness pain relief practices if I’m in pain.
I appreciate that the Buddha told it like it is in his “list.” As I wrote in my book How to Be Sick:
Finally, someone was describing this life in a way that fit a good portion of my experience, both physical and mental. What a relief to know it wasn’t just me, or wasn’t just my life!
This realization that I hadn’t been singled out for unpleasant experiences allowed me to begin to find a measure of peace with my life as it is. When we’re caught in the net of the desire not to have the items on the list be among the conditions of our lives, we make things worse for ourselves because we’re unnecessarily adding anger and resentment to the experience of the moment.
I hope you’ll try some of my ideas. My best to everyone.
