A very sad day; one of my cats, KOMACHI, just passed away.  Such incident as this, seems to always put me into a daze and a sort of contemplative reality check.  This time, it made me recall a lecture I heard at a Buddhist seminary about the Truth of Suffering.  This lecture was not only about the famous FOUR SUFFERINGS which states that as long as one is alive, we will suffer birth, old age, disease & death but it was the deluxe version, THE FOUR SUFFERINGS, THE EIGHT SUFFERINGS. 

Aside from the sufferings of birth, old age, disease & death, this doctrine adds four more elements.  They are the suffering of being with someone you dislike, the suffering of having to be away from loved ones, the suffering of not being able to get what you want and the suffering of walking through life always thinking of the three just mentioned. 

Many people say that this type of outlook is very pessimistic but I disagree.  Such concepts just captures my interest even more.  So what do you do?  I think its to accept that hard things happen and deal with it while appreciating the good things in one’s life.   

My cats death is painful but because this concept makes sense, I just have to find a way to come to terms with it and just let go.  So, to confront such pains directly, I cried tons, maybe equivalent to the amount of tears that would fill up a  backyard pool and sent my cat lots of thank you vibes for being a special part of my life.