A man I converse with has a 9-year-old son, who may have a condition known as Pandas. Since he’s known about his son’s suffering, he’s been worried about him.

The line of argument we followed consists of three steps:

Step 1: Seeing Suffering

Accept, as he put it, that “all people face challenges.” This, to my ear, would go much further in that it would take up right into the Buddha’s First Noble Truth, according to which all life, from the point of view of the ego, is suffering. One must, to begin with, come to genuine grips with the fact and the near-ubiquity of suffering.

The Book of Job strikes me as offering the best treatment of what I’m here terming “Step 1.”

Step 2: Bearing Up

In Step 2, we find that we can bear up to the challenges we face, dilate into them, enlarge ourselves.

This is not easy, however, as there are plenty of dodges–including denying, minimizing, deflecting, rationalizing, hiding, and so on. We are to be really honest with ourselves.

Step 3: Being Love

We are invited, at this point, to be love: to see how our heart opens in compassion and love; to tune into and to become this open heart; to respond from and as this open heart; to feel our heart “going out” to the one in need and, by extension, others in need.