Zen - suffering

Over and over again, I would come to Maezumi Roshi (founder of the Los Angeles Zen Center) and say,

"So-and-so is in such pain, what can we do?"

He would reply,

"Let him suffer! Let him go through it!"

And I thought, "How cruel!"

Yet what is a Bodhisattva but someone who allows others to go through what they must go through? Everybody else is trying to stop the pain, patching him up and patting him on the back and saying,
"It's OK, dear, everything is going to be all right."
Everybody is conspiring to cover things up.

When you rob a person of his pain and suffering, you rob him of his life, his freedom, his independence; you keep him dependent on you. . . .

Ironically, it is the ones we most cherish whom we most often rob of their independence, because we tend to shield and overprotect them.

- DENNIS GENPO MERZEL, THE EYE NEVER SLEEPS