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Originally Posted by Bliss Sage  One thing I don't understand is why is there more misery when you are clinging or why do you say it has been multiplied? |
Well, I can only speak for myself.
For me the sum total of misery if I immediately give in to my cravings is higher than if I just sit with craving as best I can, while trying to have compassion for myself and acknowledging that the craving is pointless.
When I crave, and then run away, I still had to suffer through misery during the craving. Then, later on, when I'm clinging to my solitude, inevitably something comes up and I have to go back into a situation where that same craving will manifest. Sometimes, I will get the same craving just from thought alone - not from doing anything physical but just by THINKING about doing something physical. Then, even if it's only for a minute, I'm back in my misery.
The only reason I noticed this about myself is because I focused on mindfulness. Once I've experienced the misery of the clinging like 100 times, it becomes painfully obvious to me (since I was observing myself with objective mindfulness) that it is less miserable to just deal with the initial craving rather than dealing with the later on clinging.
Simply put, the reason I know this stuff about myself, is because I spent time being mindful and observing myself. Mindfulness was the key to me realizing what I needed to do - which is just suck it up when it came to the original craving so I could be saved from the clinging later on.
This doesn't mean I go looking for craving. This doesn't mean I stick around people who hurt me. But when craving comes to me, as it inevitably seems to do no matter what, I don't convert the craving into clinging. I do those 3 steps instead and just sit with my craving. I try to feel compassion for my suffering, and also remember that this suffering is better than the alternative suffering.
So I stop the chain at the craving.
And the magical thing about stopping the chain at the craving, and doing those 3 steps, is that over time the craving just stops showing up in the first place!
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And a second thing, if your craving is, for example, just to never have to be in the presence of a certain person/s, which is sort of what mine is in this case, it seems doable without having to consider doing it again.
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If that works to reduce the misery, then it works
For me, what I find is that the misery tends to pop up all over the place and no matter how much I run I can't really escape it. The running seems to multiply it.
I don't think this is necessarily true for everyone though.. I think it depends entirely on the individual. Just gotta meditate and be mindful so you can learn how your own personal misery works, then you can take the necessary steps to get rid of that misery. If avoiding your family truly gets rid of the misery, then I would say there is nothing wrong at all with that solution.