holy smokes! A spock spork!

Mammi

In Buddhism, transcending suffering may well result in our feeling the pain that is inevitable even MORE acutely. Hence, the centrality in Buddhism of compassion, not indifference. But, if it means feeling pain more acutely, it also means feeling JOY more acutely. For, the anesthesia we have the habit of doing to ourselves to shut off our pain results also in shutting off much—if not all—of the playfulness and joyousness of life.

~Notice, Release, Shift. It works. And it works immediately. Oh, not forever. Some pains return and you'll have to Notice, Release and Shift your attention again. And like any habit or skill, you'll get better at it the more you practice it; and, if you don't practice it, you won't get better at it.

~Move your attention off yourself and onto other people, onto other activities, onto almost anything other than self-monitoring. Lose yourself in something.

Move your attention off your pain. Move your attention off your self. The first tends to take away the suffering. The second tends to keep it away. The first yields mere happiness, which doesn't last. The second yields JOY, which does.