One of my meditation teachers on the retreat I sat a few weeks ago gave a morning reflection which I adapted in part. It went something like this:
Why are you here? (Here she leaned forward and peered at each of us.) Why are you here???
To end suffering! Isn’t that right? (We all nodded.)
And what causes suffering?
Clinging. The Buddha said, “Nothing whatsoever is to be cling to as me or mine.”
What do we cling to? We cling to our bodies. Then we cling to ideas about what our bodies should be like - thinner, stronger, younger, more attractive, with hair like this or that, able to wear different clothes, healthier. Think of the various ways we attempt to change our bodies.
And our thoughts and feelings. We should like this person more, we should be kinder, we shouldn’t think this thought or that thought. We shouldn’t feel sad, or angry, or impatient, or frustrated, or anxious. And yet sometimes we do.
Does any of this sound familiar? She went on to say:
The Buddha was very clear. When we think or do something that is unwholesome, we suffer. When we think or do something that is wholesome, we don’t suffer. So we can end our own suffering by abandoning what is unwholesome and embracing what is wholesome.
And how do we know what is wholesome? The Buddha pointed the way in the Fourth Noble Truth. The way to the end of suffering is the 8-fold path:
Here I am inserting the Buddha’s original teaching on the end of suffering and a link to the entire teaching which is fairly short."The way leading to cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, is this: It is simply the noble eightfold path, that is to say, right view, right intention; right speech, right action, right livelihood; right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.” https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.011.nymo.html
And before you give up with the magnitude of what is being suggested here. Consider this: The key to it all is in each moment. Moment by moment we can end our own suffering by abandoning what is unwholesome and embracing what is wholesome. If we are stuck in a negative thought pattern, we can bring mindfulness to it, which is wholesome, accepting that it is here and holding it with the thought, this is a negative thought pattern, I didn’t choose to think it, it just arose. But I can choose now to be aware of it and I can choose to let it be without taking it on as me or mine, without hooking my identity to this thought pattern, without encouraging, feeding, supporting, or reinforcing it. It arose and I can allow it to fade away.
That is abandoning a negative thought pattern that was causing suffering. That is abandoning an unwholesome habit pattern. That is ending suffering in that moment.