TOP FIVE REGRETS OF THE DYING

[phenomanon]

I really like this book. I have a copy of it. It helped me recover from the dark place I was in after I left scientology.

My biggest regret is not having had children. I gave my best fertile years to a cult, and a strange marriage. I live with this regret every day. It has taken enormous (primal depth) grieving to get this under some sort of control. I really really wanted children. I've had terrific support from professionals as I have tried to work through it. It's an ongoing process, and I accept it may be with me for the remainder of my life. I do my very best to ease the ache deep inside and allow myself to weep when I need to.

A few years ago I did some volunteer work with hospice. I listened to the dying speak of their regrets and saw the anguish in their eyes. It changed me profoundly. Also the journey of my mother dying made me aware of many things I had previously either not been aware of, or had taken for granted.

I've made some very conscious choices about how I am going to live my life. I try to not hold back even when I feel like shit and utterly vulnerable. I have made many mistakes the first 50-odd years of my life and I have no illusions I may make more mistakes. Because of the huge mistake I made on not having children I try to be tender with myself and face whatever the hell is going on in my life with as much robustness as I can muster.

None of this is perfect, black and white, or easy. xx

Glenda, which feels better: having no children, and hence no emotional ties to them, or having children who tell you to your face that they are happier without you in their lives?
I dunno. Pretty easy to see what I regret: the ways I raised my kids. I regret my entire worthless life. Sod it.
The sun is shining today. The birds are going nutz.
Mr Eagle swept in early this am and is sitting in the top of the 80' Fir tree out in front of my house.

 

[phenomanon]

IMO, there is no better experience for gaining wisdom than working with the elderly.

When I first started elderly care, it was in a nursing home and the majority of folks there were depressed with many regrets. If I hadn't switched to Home Care, I would never have had the magnificent opportunity to meet some truly wise aged folks who taught me the best lesson I ever learned. A lesson that you just reminded me about.

In Home Care, I met aged folks in their 80s and 90s with NO REGRETS. My parents died in recent years, too, but also had no regrets.

It wasn't that they hadn't made mistakes and plenty of them, but that they accepted that life is a mess. Most things don't turn out the way you plan, nothing is ever perfect and even when you think it is, it doesn't stay that way for long. You can put your hand in a river, pull it out and put your hand back in a moment later, but your hand will be in a different stream of water with entirely different living creatures the second time around.

Life is short, it's fast. Hindsight is 20/20. No matter how smart or careful anyone is, nobody can see the entire picture all the time and predict everyone else's behavior and every consequence. Even if you could, a moment later, circumstances can be drastically different. Try too hard, regret too much and we miss the next stream of water worrying about the stream that passed.

Life is a mess. Oh well. I'm so fortunate to be here, alive and healthy, I'll take the mess. I've wasted enough years regretting the past.

Hiya, Sheila. Me, too.
I think that being Elderly (86), I have enough going on in my head without pulling in those past pictures and stimulating grief. I recently realized that when I was feeling regret, it would lead to anger and I would be most unpleasant to have around. Anyway. I need to Clean my bathroom and kitchen and I need to cook and I need to get some garden work done. I need to get dressed.

 

[JustSheila]

Hiya, Sheila. Me, too.
I think that being Elderly (86), I have enough going on in my head without pulling in those past pictures and stimulating grief. I recently realized that when I was feeling regret, it would lead to anger and I would be most unpleasant to have around. Anyway. I need to Clean my bathroom and kitchen and I need to cook and I need to get some garden work done. I need to get dressed.

Hiya Pheno!

My keyboard froze after my last post, sorry I missed you!

I think you're awesome and perfect the way you are, regardless of how you got to be who you are now.

(EZLinus, I wrote you back but lost the post when my keyboard froze. Will answer you in the next few hours. )

 

[JustSheila]

Like try to move to Australia, for example? I understand what you're saying, but it is possible to overdo it, just a bit.

Helena

Yup. Yet well worth the experience, anyway, because it all came full circle for you when you came back.

Maybe you would have run somewhere, anywhere, anyway, Helena, and maybe it was the running so far that made your current roomie/bf reach so hard for you when you returned and work so hard to have you in his life. Maybe you had to leave and come back to accept that.

Just maybe.

Maybe it was the only way it would have worked. Life is so darn messy that way.

 

[Glenda]

Glenda, which feels better: having no children, and hence no emotional ties to them, or having children who tell you to your face that they are happier without you in their lives?
I dunno. Pretty easy to see what I regret: the ways I raised my kids. I regret my entire worthless life. Sod it.
The sun is shining today. The birds are going nutz.
Mr Eagle swept in early this am and is sitting in the top of the 80' Fir tree out in front of my house.

The past few years I have given your question a LOT of thought. The one about the idealised romance of what motherhood might have been like versus the reality that so many live (rejection, abandonment, etc).

There is no simple answer. I fully accept that if my ex-hubby and I had children together I would 90% certainly have lost them to scientology disconnection. We would have raised them within the structure of scientology, as true-believers. Of that I have no doubt. I also have no doubt that my belief structure was destined to crack wide-open and I would have faced the unspeakable pain of what to do - leave without my children or stay living in a lie.

So I have avoided that awful pain.

But no one can begin to know what this ache has been like. In the beginning when I really faced the reality that I would grow old without children & grand-children with all its accompanying drama, the grief was very intense. I could not look at a small child without tears welling up. I do not wish to be dramatic, but that is how it was. Thank God I had a really experienced therapist to help support me through it. I felt like a total failure as a woman in a society that places such value on motherhood. People would ask me "how many children do you have Glenda?" (a very common question). My throat would constrict, my chest pound and I would either feel powerful sadness or fiery anger. No amount of sweet words from others touched the sides of my emptiness and misery.

The first big healing step was moving towards fully facing what had happened and the absolute unfairness of it. Partly it was because of my own blindness to reality and partly it was what the cult inflicted. I had to find a lot of self-forgiveness. That was not as easy road, it took time and a lot of deep inner work. Then I chose to forgive the perpetrators but NOT for the reasons many may surmise. I did not want to carry the pain I felt towards the crazies that had been part of taking away the most normal natural thing in life, motherhood.

There is nothing black and white about deep forgiveness. There is so much mythology surrounding forgiveness. I studied the subject from various schools of thought and found my own way forward. I chose my own path type thing. I did this simply because I wanted my dignity, my peace, my love for life to be in my own hands. I wanted my own heart to be pure regardless of how others behaved. That may sound a tad noble, but in reality there is nothing noble about it. It involved a huge amount of tears and anger and facing some harsh truths about myself. It involved a huge amount of inner change.

What I am left with now after so much deep work, is a softness towards something that brought me to my knees and nearly broke me, several times. I have a gentle relationship with the sadness in my heart. I am "boss" over that sadness and honour it best I can. I have surrounded myself with people who are tender with me and never deliberately trigger the sadness. They respect my attempts to find some dignity for my mistakes and the cruelty that was inflicted by others.

I don't view my live as worthless because I didn't have children. I did but I don't now. I have become (most days) a very proud strong woman. A woman who has truly tried to look at both of sides of what love and true connection means. I live in the middle of all that. In the mess. I have learned to laugh about it all, to accept my sadness and have found ways to give the powerful untapped maternal energy to various other things/people in life.

This has been a powerful "grief process" and one which may never completely arrive at that black and white platform called "true acceptance". I can backslide into bargaining or anger from time to time though this is getting less as time passes. I have learned so much about myself and life because of exploring it. Regrets, I have a few. But I try to love them with as much tenderness as I can.

 

[The_Fixer]

The past few years I have given your question a LOT of thought. The one about the idealised romance of what motherhood might have been like versus the reality that so many live (rejection, abandonment, etc).

There is no simple answer. I fully accept that if my ex-hubby and I had children together I would 90% certainly have lost them to scientology disconnection. We would have raised them within the structure of scientology, as true-believers. Of that I have no doubt. I also have no doubt that my belief structure was destined to crack wide-open and I would have faced the unspeakable pain of what to do - leave without my children or stay living in a lie.

So I have avoided that awful pain.

But no one can begin to know what this ache has been like. In the beginning when I really faced the reality that I would grow old without children & grand-children with all its accompanying drama, the grief was very intense. I could not look at a small child without tears welling up. I do not wish to be dramatic, but that is how it was. Thank God I had a really experienced therapist to help support me through it. I felt like a total failure as a woman in a society that places such value on motherhood. People would ask me "how many children do you have Glenda?" (a very common question). My throat would constrict, my chest pound and I would either feel powerful sadness or fiery anger. No amount of sweet words from others touched the sides of my emptiness and misery.

The first big healing step was moving towards fully facing what had happened and the absolute unfairness of it. Partly it was because of my own blindness to reality and partly it was what the cult inflicted. I had to find a lot of self-forgiveness. That was not as easy road, it took time and a lot of deep inner work. Then I chose to forgive the perpetrators but NOT for the reasons many may surmise. I did not want to carry the pain I felt towards the crazies that had been part of taking away the most normal natural thing in life, motherhood.

There is nothing black and white about deep forgiveness. There is so much mythology surrounding forgiveness. I studied the subject from various schools of thought and found my own way forward. I chose my own path type thing. I did this simply because I wanted my dignity, my peace, my love for life to be in my own hands. I wanted my own heart to be pure regardless of how others behaved. That may sound a tad noble, but in reality there is nothing noble about it. It involved a huge amount of tears and anger and facing some harsh truths about myself. It involved a huge amount of inner change.

What I am left with now after so much deep work, is a softness towards something that brought me to my knees and nearly broke me, several times. I have a gentle relationship with the sadness in my heart. I am "boss" over that sadness and honour it best I can. I have surrounded myself with people who are tender with me and never deliberately trigger the sadness. They respect my attempts to find some dignity for my mistakes and the cruelty that was inflicted by others.

I don't view my live as worthless because I didn't have children. I did but I don't now. I have become (most days) a very proud strong woman. A woman who has truly tried to look at both of sides of what love and true connection means. I live in the middle of all that. In the mess. I have learned to laugh about it all, to accept my sadness and have found ways to give the powerful untapped maternal energy to various other things/people in life.

This has been a powerful "grief process" and one which may never completely arrive at that black and white platform called "true acceptance". I can backslide into bargaining or anger from time to time though this is getting less as time passes. I have learned so much about myself and life because of exploring it. Regrets, I have a few. But I try to love them with as much tenderness as I can.

I think you brought out a point about regrets of things that never happened.
Over time, we get so caught up in the romantic ideals about what we missed out on that we forgot all about the realities of what it could really be like if it did actually happen...

Something we would never truly know. As Sheila said, life is messy and our thoughts and realities can often be two very different things.
After watching a number of family history shows, I noticed that it has always been the same. Even in days when life was supposed to be much simpler, so many folks had very messy lives, often through no fault of their own.

I have always had some resentments attached to my hearing disability, thinking if only...... Make no mistake, it certainly was a barrier to many things I wanted to do.
But it is what it is, and I guess I would have been a very different person if I had normal hearing. I dunno.

I accept it for what it is now. Not 100%, but I guess that will have to do, but that acceptance has made a lot of things simpler.

Learning to let things go certainly seems to change my outlook on a lot of things and I seem to have gained more tolerance.

 

[Glenda]

I think you brought out a point about regrets of things that never happened.
Over time, we get so caught up in the romantic ideals about what we missed out on that we forgot all about the realities of what it could really be like if it did actually happen...

Something we would never truly know. As Sheila said, life is messy and our thoughts and realities can often be two very different things.
After watching a number of family history shows, I noticed that it has always been the same. Even in days when life was supposed to be much simpler, so many folks had very messy lives, often through no fault of their own.

I have always had some resentments attached to my hearing disability, thinking if only...... Make no mistake, it certainly was a barrier to many things I wanted to do.
But it is what it is, and I guess I would have been a very different person if I had normal hearing. I dunno.

I accept it for what it is now. Not 100%, but I guess that will have to do, but that acceptance has made a lot of things simpler.

Learning to let things go certainly seems to change my outlook on a lot of things and I seem to have gained more tolerance.

Exactly. How is it possible for me grieve so hard for something that never was? Idealisation? Expectations based on others/societies ideas? A misguided sense of what perfection is?

Tolerance and resilience often get lost in the emotional wilderness. Add to that the avoidance of the emotional wilderness - what a mess!

The raw acceptance of "what is" in any given moment is not something, imo, humans are that skilled in. We seem to be hell-bent on seeking external stories/ideas to cling to and give limited attention to the truly "big story": the internal world of finding out who we really are and why the hell we are here. It's a solitude journey and one which many have sold their souls to others to find their answers from.

I am not sure I am making sense. Please forgive me as necessary.

 

[lotus]

After I took care of my parents before they died, I felt peace for a while. People couldn't understand why I went to care for them because of what they did to me in the past, but they were my parents. That's how I saw it. No regrets on that. That was seven years ago, and since then, pain and anger have returned. I learned that forgiveness isn't exactly possible. But understanding is. I definitely understand why they were the way they were and empathize with them. They did the best to their ability. Otherwise, I really like old people in general and like spending time with them.

Same here.
Also, witnessing them becoming so fragile, almost like babies, (since you feed them, look after their diaper to be changed, provide hugs, secure them) made collapsed some resentment I had...When you almost become their mom it changes all things in our mind. There, I understood they did their very best in regard to what their own parent gave them too...which was very little on the emotional side, but transmitted them their fear an anxiety.. That was about the conditions of raising a family at the timeof WW2 was occuring , it was not quite funny and secure, it was not easy to ensure all the basics were provided though (they were to be short of the basics soon) ...Most of us really do their very best..like my mom and dad did, like I did, like you did....in regard to our fears, insecurity, flaws ..

I think that when approaching our least chapter in this life, we must give up to all of this anger and regrets, we must make peace with the loved one, and apologize for the wrong doings. Usually people who loved us will forgive, will be touched, greateful and give love. That is the only way to leave this world without any regret. There is also way to forgive in our heart...when there is distance impeding those relations or they are broken the only thing left is to try as possible, to remember the good part of the relationship we shared before a dark cloud darkened it and made both suffering..

I , try to make the best as I can, to end each of my day like if it was the last one..in case I would have to leave suddenly..I wanna be in peace and leave without regret. In the event there is a new journey when passing over, the best is to carry just a light suitcase to make it easier to travel. Not easy all time..but I try!

 

[EZ Linus]

The past few years I have given your question a LOT of thought. The one about the idealised romance of what motherhood might have been like versus the reality that so many live (rejection, abandonment, etc).

There is no simple answer. I fully accept that if my ex-hubby and I had children together I would 90% certainly have lost them to scientology disconnection. We would have raised them within the structure of scientology, as true-believers. Of that I have no doubt. I also have no doubt that my belief structure was destined to crack wide-open and I would have faced the unspeakable pain of what to do - leave without my children or stay living in a lie.

So I have avoided that awful pain.

But no one can begin to know what this ache has been like. In the beginning when I really faced the reality that I would grow old without children & grand-children with all its accompanying drama, the grief was very intense. I could not look at a small child without tears welling up. I do not wish to be dramatic, but that is how it was. Thank God I had a really experienced therapist to help support me through it. I felt like a total failure as a woman in a society that places such value on motherhood. People would ask me "how many children do you have Glenda?" (a very common question). My throat would constrict, my chest pound and I would either feel powerful sadness or fiery anger. No amount of sweet words from others touched the sides of my emptiness and misery.

The first big healing step was moving towards fully facing what had happened and the absolute unfairness of it. Partly it was because of my own blindness to reality and partly it was what the cult inflicted. I had to find a lot of self-forgiveness. That was not as easy road, it took time and a lot of deep inner work. Then I chose to forgive the perpetrators but NOT for the reasons many may surmise. I did not want to carry the pain I felt towards the crazies that had been part of taking away the most normal natural thing in life, motherhood.

There is nothing black and white about deep forgiveness. There is so much mythology surrounding forgiveness. I studied the subject from various schools of thought and found my own way forward. I chose my own path type thing. I did this simply because I wanted my dignity, my peace, my love for life to be in my own hands. I wanted my own heart to be pure regardless of how others behaved. That may sound a tad noble, but in reality there is nothing noble about it. It involved a huge amount of tears and anger and facing some harsh truths about myself. It involved a huge amount of inner change.

What I am left with now after so much deep work, is a softness towards something that brought me to my knees and nearly broke me, several times. I have a gentle relationship with the sadness in my heart. I am "boss" over that sadness and honour it best I can. I have surrounded myself with people who are tender with me and never deliberately trigger the sadness. They respect my attempts to find some dignity for my mistakes and the cruelty that was inflicted by others.

I don't view my live as worthless because I didn't have children. I did but I don't now. I have become (most days) a very proud strong woman. A woman who has truly tried to look at both of sides of what love and true connection means. I live in the middle of all that. In the mess. I have learned to laugh about it all, to accept my sadness and have found ways to give the powerful untapped maternal energy to various other things/people in life.

This has been a powerful "grief process" and one which may never completely arrive at that black and white platform called "true acceptance". I can backslide into bargaining or anger from time to time though this is getting less as time passes. I have learned so much about myself and life because of exploring it. Regrets, I have a few. But I try to love them with as much tenderness as I can.

Being this honest and real with oneself is the strongest a person can really be, IMO. Thank you for sharing this. All your words resonated with me very much. Thank you.

 

[JustSheila]

After I took care of my parents before they died, I felt peace for a while. People couldn't understand why I went to care for them because of what they did to me in the past, but they were my parents. That's how I saw it. No regrets on that. That was seven years ago, and since then, pain and anger have returned. I learned that forgiveness isn't exactly possible. But understanding is. I definitely understand why they were the way they were and empathize with them. They did the best to their ability. Otherwise, I really like old people in general and like spending time with them.

I only wish I could live with no regrets. I don't know how to do that. Everything you say about the stream of water is right -- missing the one in front of you, worrying about it and the one that just passed and the one that you'll probably miss that's coming, it's all so sad really because life IS too short. I regret that I have been missing out on it my whole life. How do you stop and live it? I really don't know how. Any time I've stopped to feel it, it has never included very much joy. And I am starting to get very exhausted with the mess.

But believe it or not, I am very appreciate of my life -- the good things. I may not have my health, but I am alive and I have one person that loves me, and I think life in general is awe-inspiring. I'm not not sure if it out weighs the pain. The exhaustion. I'm not getting younger and my illness is not getting easier.

Family bonds are strong. You didn't need a reason to be compassionate and look after others, but family is a great reason, anyway. There is a depth to that bond beyond words. You did good.

I'm not a Buddhist, but in this case, maybe you might find this helpful.

The First Truth of Buddhism is, "All Life is Suffering." Pain and anger are part of that suffering. Seven years of relief from it is pretty good, but I'm sorry to hear the bad feelings returned. They do that, and it sucks, doesn't it?

Since I'm not a Buddhist, I'm not going to promote the Eightfold Path. It's noble and all, but I don't think that's the whole picture, either. But there is this point they make in Buddhism that acceptance is important and that self-improvement will end the suffering. Pain of any kind is a signal that something requires attention.

For example, I've always worked heavily with my hands, but I'm older now. Too many hours of fine handiwork causes swelling and pain. So I accept that I have to take Acetaminophen and joint supplements to continue working with my hands. But you know what? It took me FOREVER to accept I had to take those regularly! Instead, for the longest time, I just worked less at what I enjoyed and let the pain dictate it was time to stop. Stupid, right? Oh, well, but eventually I stopped my stubbornness. Now, I work with my hands all I want and without holding back and manage the pain rather than letting the pain dictate to me.

Emotional pain is its own signal to look after yourself better. You have needs and desires and you are denying them to yourself in some way. Will the pain manage you or will you manage the pain? Step outside the box. Take baby steps, you'll get there, but give yourself what you know you need. Sex? Girlfriends? Intellectual stimulation? Working in a group? Personal goals to achieve, letters to write, friends to contact? Whatever you need, it's your happiness, GIVE it to yourself! Martyrdom and self-denial of basic human needs aren't going to make you happy or a better person and the denial will only add to your exhaustion. Don't deny yourself whatever medical remedies will make things easier for you, either. You're a sweet person and your life is and has been worthwhile. Someone sees you, loves and appreciates you for who you are, right now. That's terrific! All your experiences, good and bad, made you that person and you are just fine as you are, right now.

 

[I told you I was trouble]

Reading here makes me realise (again) how fortunate we are to have this place to share our thoughts and (yes, I'm going to say it) wisdom ... it seems to me that there is a trust (of each other) that cannot be bought, though perhaps we have earned it over the years.

 

[JustSheila]

Reading here makes me realise (again) how fortunate we are to have this place to share our thoughts and (yes, I'm going to say it) wisdom ... it seems to me that there is a trust (of each other) that cannot be bought, though perhaps we have earned it over the years.

Beautiful and concise. Wise words, woman.

Yes, we earned it. We built it, rebuilt it, revised it and put life into it and a river flows through it.

 

[EZ Linus]

Family bonds are strong. You didn't need a reason to be compassionate and look after others, but family is a great reason, anyway. There is a depth to that bond beyond words. You did good.

I'm not a Buddhist, but in this case, maybe you might find this helpful.

The First Truth of Buddhism is, "All Life is Suffering." Pain and anger are part of that suffering. Seven years of relief from it is pretty good, but I'm sorry to hear the bad feelings returned. They do that, and it sucks, doesn't it?

Since I'm not a Buddhist, I'm not going to promote the Eightfold Path. It's noble and all, but I don't think that's the whole picture, either. But there is this point they make in Buddhism that acceptance is important and that self-improvement will end the suffering. Pain of any kind is a signal that something requires attention.

For example, I've always worked heavily with my hands, but I'm older now. Too many hours of fine handiwork causes swelling and pain. So I accept that I have to take Acetaminophen and joint supplements to continue working with my hands. But you know what? It took me FOREVER to accept I had to take those regularly! Instead, for the longest time, I just worked less at what I enjoyed and let the pain dictate it was time to stop. Stupid, right? Oh, well, but eventually I stopped my stubbornness. Now, I work with my hands all I want and without holding back and manage the pain rather than letting the pain dictate to me.

Emotional pain is its own signal to look after yourself better. You have needs and desires and you are denying them to yourself in some way. Will the pain manage you or will you manage the pain? Step outside the box. Take baby steps, you'll get there, but give yourself what you know you need. Sex? Girlfriends? Intellectual stimulation? Working in a group? Personal goals to achieve, letters to write, friends to contact? Whatever you need, it's your happiness, GIVE it to yourself! Martyrdom and self-denial of basic human needs aren't going to make you happy or a better person and the denial will only add to your exhaustion. Don't deny yourself whatever medical remedies will make things easier for you, either. You're a sweet person and your life is and has been worthwhile. Someone sees you, loves and appreciates you for who you are, right now. That's terrific! All your experiences, good and bad, made you that person and you are just fine as you are, right now.

What a wonderful post. Thank you.

Today is a new day.

 

[JustSheila]

What a wonderful post. Thank you.

Today is a new day.

Hoo ah! Glad you liked it but EZ?

Maybe you can pick one day this week to just do things you enjoy. Just one day... get your hair done, or a manicure, or go somewhere new to lunch or go to a new meetup group. One day. It won't hurt a thing and you might just smile a bit wider for it.

 

[EZ Linus]

Hoo ah! Glad you liked it but EZ?

Maybe you can pick one day this week to just do things you enjoy. Just one day... get your hair done, or a manicure, or go somewhere new to lunch or go to a new meetup group. One day. It won't hurt a thing and you might just smile a bit wider for it.

Me? Do something special for myself? I'll be surprised if I get myself in the shower today. I've been doing a rewrite on my book since 5:AM. It does not depict my growth and that really needs to be in there, otherwise, who would want to read it?

 

[Helena Handbasket]

Looking at 'regrets' does not make for a happy day. Looking rather, at pleasant memories is better for your mental health.

I am so curious: if you don't 'go toward the light', and you don't agree with Newton's descriptions of a big org in the sky and don't care to travel that route, what is the 3rd option?

(1) You can just hang out in the spirit world for a while. Might not be too easy, with predatory spirits here and there setting traps.

(2) Just reincarnate as quick as possible with the first available "good" body, however you define that. This is what I plan to do.

Helena

 

[phenomanon]

(1) You can just hang out in the spirit world for a while. Might not be too easy, with predatory spirits here and there setting traps.

(2) Just reincarnate as quick as possible with the first available "good" body, however you define that. This is what I plan to do.

Helena

Reincarnate back into a new body? OMG! I hope not. I am thoroughly tired of this shit.

 

[strativarius]

Reincarnate back into a new body? OMG! I hope not. I am thoroughly tired of this shit.

Hubbard liked to identify himself with Buddhism, but in Buddhism the idea is to END the cycle of birth and death, not perpetuate it.

 

[lotus]

today, 18 april 2017,

is the day Phenom converted to buddhism

 

[lotus]

Hubbard liked to identify himself with Buddhism, but in Buddhism the idea is to END the cycle of birth and death, not perpetuate it.

Hi dawlin,

There is a trick in that, depending if one practices the small or great vehicle.

When practicing the small vehicle, you practice with the purpose of reaching the end of your suffering and thus end of rebirth cycleASAP
but practicing the great vehicle, is to ferry all sentient beings to attaining enlightenment and freedom of suffering

Practitionners of the great vehicule, believe it would be a mistake to practice ''selfishly'' and believe that we can be free of suffering while others, still captive of this realm of existence, are still suffering..:confused2:
For example, we reach nirvana, and then looking back, we realize there is still a lot of suffering, so we go back..to help those suffering.

It is called the path of the boddhi!

(all parents would do that for their children, since the greatness and deepness of their love, create them suffering their children do suffer.):confused2:

Thus, when one joins buddhism to attain freedom of suffering, and realizes he has choosen the great vehicle..
He knows he has been fooled
.... again

( I tried to keep my writing neat for you nice hey?? )