Tonight, we will discuss the practice of “taking refuge” as it relates to the question of suffering and the ending of suffering. During discussion I want us to clarify the difference between psychological suffering and what we might describe as our natural emotional responses that arise from being creatures who become attached to each other. I don’t think that grief should necessarily be problematized, however, it can get complicated by the thinking mind.

So, in some ways, I want to suggest, that we can, at times at least, bring an end to psychological suffering but natural emotions such as grief, we don’t want to bring an end to them, because they are simply manifestations of our love; but neither do we want to complicate them or dissociate off from them. We can add an unnecessary layer of psychological suffering on top of the raw grief. So our core practice of nonseparation from this moment is the key guide to how we approach this experientially. We will explore what it means to take refuge experientially, and what it means to clarify suffering and the ending of suffering experientially.