May I choose experience over avoidance

Consciousness must involve both pleasure and pain, to strive for pleasure to the exclusion of pain is, in effect, to strive for the loss of consciousness... the more we struggle for life (as pleasure), the more we are actually killing what we love. Alan Watts

Pain, Duḥkha (दुःख), is a part Of the continuum of life Pleasure leads to pain and pain to pleasure In an endless cycle And the common goal is To eliminate pain and Experience only pleasure

To not risk encountering pain Is to risk it all in the arms of deceptive comfort For its seductive illusion masks the pain of awareness Between the gaps of ego-consciousness To fear your fear Rage against your anger Hate your sadness Is to freeze it in time To make it separate When this pain is you When this suffering is you A reflection of your Own naked vulnerability

Fear reveals the uncertainty within For the world reflects your uncertainty back at you Anger reveals the frustration within For the world requires your direct participation Loneliness and sadness reveal your longing to share

And all these things Their aggressiveness and gentleness Their violence and sadness Ask only for the dignity of accord So that they may return back to their source