Humanity is destined to go beyond suffering, but not in the way the ego thinks. One of the ego's many erroneous assumptions, one of its many deluded thoughts is "I should not have to suffer."That thought itself lies at the root of suffering. Suffering has a noble purpose: the evaluation of consciousness (the awakening) and the burning up of the ego. The man on the cross is an archetypal image. He is every man and every woman. As long as you resist suffering, it is a slow process because the resistance creates more ego to burn up. When you accept suffering, however, there is an acceleration of that process which is brought about by the fact that you suffer consciously. You can accept suffering for yourself, or you can accept it for someone else. such as your child or parent. In the midst of conscious suffering, there is already the transmutation. The fire of suffering becomes the light of consciousness.
The ego says, "I shouldn't have to suffer," and the thought makes you suffer so much more. It is a distortion of the truth, which is always paradoxical. The truth is that you need to say yes to suffering before you can transcend it.
If the egoic earth drama has any purpose at all, it it an indirect one: It creates more and more suffering on the planet, and suffering, although largely ego-created, is in the end also ego-destructive. It is the fire in which the ego burns itself up.
【译文】
人性必将超越痛苦，但是方式却不是自我所想象的那样。自我的诸多错误假设好和自欺想法之一便是“我本不该受苦”。这个想法本身就是人所受之苦的根源。痛苦有其神圣的目的：评价意识（觉醒），消灭自我。被钉上十字架的耶稣便是原型。他便是众生男女。只要你抗拒苦难，苦难就会成为更加缓慢的过程：因为那抗拒产生了更多需要消灭的自我。一旦你接受苦难，这个过程就会加速，而加速是因你清醒着受难。你可以接受自己的苦难，也可以替他人接受苦难。你的后代或者父母的痛苦可以由你来分担。清醒的受难当中，蕴含着质变。苦难之火将变为意识之光。
自我会说：“我本不该受这苦”， 这想法会使你受更多的苦。它将事实扭曲，一切都似是而非。这事实便是，你必须允许苦难发生，然后才可以超越它。
如果说这个地球上的自我大戏有什么目的，那也将是个间接的：它在这星球上产生越来越多的苦难，而苦难虽生于自我，却是自我之敌，是焚尽自我的大火。
【心得】
相信几乎没有人没有玩过抓痒的游戏吧。我自己的经验是，如果自己一被抓就笑个不停，那么会引来更多的抓。如果自己对最初的几下忍住，不笑，那么基本上对方就会停手了——很简单，在我完全接受不阻挡对方来抓时，抓痒变成了一件无用的事情。谁也不会难无用的工具/武器/方法去应付任何事情吧？
对于生活中必经的那些痛苦，你愈是抗拒，它们便越强。你的抗拒为它们提供了存在的理由。当你完完全全的接受它，任命运之神（如果这个神存在的话）在你的身上施放各种考验而不加抗拒，那么这些考验的力量就会消失，消解。苦难即便不能消失，但你可以使它们变得无用，从而从其中获得解脱。