Being hurt by another

What happens when we are hurt by another's behaviour? Let's take the first occasion of an insult. The word arrives at the ear. "You idiot!" We perceive with the ear not just the sound of the word but also the tone of anger.

We perceive with the eye the signs of anger on the face and in the body language. We can also sense at the heart level the emotion. For instance, we can sense the tension in a room where there has just been an argument. All this is the point of contact. after this the process is internal, dependent on our inner dispositions.

It is recognized and is then labelled as unlikable. This is the point of feeling which is determined by our past experience of insults and how we are reacted to them. Some people will be slightly hurt, others incensed. When this happens, the heart has reacted upon the hearing. It feels hurt.

Immediately there rises the craving to be rid of the hurt and the normal desire is be rid of the person who hurts us and respond to the person in kind. Or if the threat is too great, the unpalatable desire to swallow our pride and retire. These cravings are possessed by the self. This is called grasping. It is on at this point that we actually identify with the process. Only now does the idea of me arise.

Once the sense of I has grasped the craving, this craving is empowered and a reaction is willed. A karma, an action of thought, speech or body, is performed. This is the moment of becoming. We become the reaction. We start shouting. All this, of course happens in milliseconds. The sound of the word strikes the eardrum. It is recognized and a feeling of dislike arises. A reaction of don't want. The concept of me grasps it: I don't want. The reaction is empowered. I do something.

Everything from the reception of the word at the ear door and the feeling or touch door has been an internal process dependent on our own inner conditioning. In this case, we have reinforced a conditioning of angry response, which causes mental turbulence. And so, we cause ourselves to suffer.

Even if we swallow the insult and did not respond, it festers. The tiny quip in the morning is relived tirelessly. It is inflated through fantasy throughout the day until the heart is so inflamed with its desire for revenge, we cannot sleep nor eat. In that virtual reality of the mind, we have punished the person a thousand fold, even to the point of murder. And all this mental anguish is of our own making.

But what about a physical assault? Is that any different in its psychology? Just as in the previous example, the sound strikes the eardrum, so the blow to the nose strikes the sense door of touch. The process from now on is exactly as the above. It is recognized as thoroughly unlikable and so not wanted. We react perhaps with a blow aimed at the offender's own nose or we retire hurt and brood over our revenge. And again, all this mental anguish is of our own making.

This process is true of any pain based on the senses. Through careful investigation of the way this psycho physical organism works, we come to realize that no one can cause us psychological pain. If this is fully realized, we will also discover that there's no need to blame anyone - parents, spouse, children, colleagues, politicians, society and so on - for our psychological distress.