Essays — 2018 · 2 min read · Translated from German
Only we can set ourselves free
How love turns into suffering and back again.
As living beings, we are basically very simple. Either we like something or we don’t. In pursuit of the things we like, however, we are willing to do things we don’t like. Love and hate therefore seem to be closely connected.
Everyone has different likes and dislikes, and these preferences are constantly changing – not only when the thing itself changes. Often it is we who change our point of view. This shows how relative our understanding of good and bad is.
Liking and disliking are directly connected. This quickly becomes clear when we look at opposite states.
- We suffer when people we like leave us.
- We feel relieved when the pain of an injury subsides.
Cigarettes are a perfect example. Without the addiction, we basically feel no desire to smoke, so not smoking causes no suffering. And at first, smoking is directly linked to pleasure for very few people. Both only arise once we have attached ourselves to it. This attachment is often described as the root of suffering – in Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Stoicism and the Bahá’í faith, for example.
Only when we give up our desires are we freed from suffering. In German, the explanation is already in the word itself: to find Erlösung (release), we have to lösen – let go of – everything. At the core of suffering lies desire. Whether we want to have something or wish for something to be gone: desire spoils the perfection of every moment.
We can learn to enjoy without suffering afterwards from the absence of that enjoyment. To do so, we have to learn that nothing lasts – and not to cling to things, but to let go.
