Everyday Buddhism 56 - Can You Lament And Still Be A Buddhist?

Buddhist sutras and teachings speak of lamenting only in ways that highlight how it is to be avoided and transcended, so as not to fall victim to the second arrow of suffering.

The Buddha's teaching that there is dukkha, or unsatisfactoriness, but suffering is optional through one's internal relationship to that dukkha.

He teaches that is enough. But is it?

I bet, at some time during the last year, you have cried out in your heart to restore life to how it used to be. We look around and everyone is suffering and nothing is the same. Why not cry out?

A prayer of lament and grief can be a necessary expression of sorrow, as a crucial part of the experience of living in a broken world. The broken world the Buddha warned us about.

When we lament the darkest moments of life, we are at are most humble. And it is from that place, true compassion for yourself and others—and true acceptance—is born.