The Buddhists talk about several kinds of stress. There is the stress of living in a mortal body, the stress of having experiences we don’t like, of not having experiences we do like, and the stress of change. For the past 5 years or so I have been experiencing stress and pain so great that at times I thought dying would be the only way to end it. I experienced the stress of having everything I didn’t want: depression, isolation, loneliness, aging. There was also the pain of not having the things I did want: companionship, respect, trust, commitment, love, time, children, family, strength. I used to go to bed wondering how long my brain could endure the apparently never ending pain. A walk up the stairs, a glimpse of a couple holding hands, a child’s smile – all of these could become the occasion for more and more pain and then pain generated by pain upon pain. There is no doubt: at times I would have preferred to die than go on living with the pain. It’s like I knew that somewhere over those hills was a sunset so stunning I could not bear to live without its beauty in my eyes at least once.
But now I feel something different. Now, I can feel an emotional experience as just one single event. It arrives, often unexpected, it unfolds as difference, as one signal amongst many sensed by my brain, and it passes away. Events are impermanent. They are both suffering and beauty at the same time. Now a walk up the stairs can be painful, a glimpse of a couple holding hands, a mother with her child, a thought, a memory. All of these are pain for me still. The difference is that I breathe with the pain instead of frantically trying to escape it. I have no doubt that my life will be lived in pain for some time to come. The difference is, that I’m not afraid of it any more. I am not the pain. Once I learned not to edit my “self,” I was free to live.
metonymy4u 
The Buddhist philosophy is interesting, I have read a bit about it,…but giving it all to Jesus, in my opinion, is the only way to find total healing. When you let Him in and totally surrender to Him, you will experience His grace, His faith and His courage and the healing will begin and will not stop. My mind is boggled at the journey I have been on; not too different from your own. But God…
God Bless.
I appreciate your comment, your support and your kind words! I suspect that many functional similarities exist between the contemplative practices of the world’s major spiritual practices in regard to what we may think of as grace or equanimity. I think this is what St. Thomas was describing in his often neglected gospel:
“Jesus said: I will give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched….”
A common Buddhist metaphor for awakening is the image of a full moon, and our words are compared to a finger pointing to the moon. It is important to not get too distracted by the person pointing and remember to look at the moon itself from time to time.