The Second
Arrow of Suffering

The second arrow of suffering is a very evocative metaphor for describing two distinct ways in which people suffer. The analogy describes how people are hit with a first arrow of suffering – they experience something painful – and then they are hit with a second arrow. The second arrow is the proliferation of thought, angst, anger and resistance that comes up about being hit with the first arrow.

The purpose of the analogy is to point out how the second arrow is optional and within your control. It’s not possible to remove all pain and suffering from your life, there will always be arrows, but how you are able to relate to that can shift dramatically. You can stop yourself from getting hit by the second arrow.

The suffering of the second arrow is the dukkha that can be uprooted through meditation practice and awakening.

I find this metaphor really nice for clearly describing these different aspects of suffering, but it actually isn’t the helpful for helping people realise how they can avoid the second arrow. It’s easy to say, but very hard to do.

I think it’s important to think about why people are getting hit with the second arrow in the first place? Where are these arrows coming from?

Time

An important first step in unravelling this is recognising that you can only ever be present in this moment. This is one of the fundamental teachings of awakening; you can only awaken if you can first be present with what is in your experience in this very moment.

A slightly obvious, but important nuance to this is that just because you can only ever be present in this moment doesn’t mean that the past and future don’t exist. There is an expanse of time, greater than you can possibly begin to imagine and the present moment is interconnected with all of it.

There is a stream of events that has led to you being here in this moment and there is a stream of events that is yet to unfold. In every moment you are being impacted by traces of other countless moments. The present moment can include all of this.

There is one way of experiencing this where it’s almost like time goes in both directions – that this moment is creating both the past and the future.

In this mode you are standing in this moment and looking back at your past. How you are feeling now and the lens that you are looking through will shape how you experience your past and history.

With this frame when you are suffering, you will look for all the reasons that you are suffering. For example, the people and events that are to blame for what has happened and that have caused the suffering. This way of looking is very conducive to blame, shame, hatred, aggression and frustration. Essentially, it is rooted in wanting things to be different to how they are.

It comes from a fundamental resistance to this moment. Rather than accepting where you are, you seek for a way to release some of the pain through blame. Blame is a pressure release valve for pain.

To understand this way of relating to the second arrow of suffering I want to introduce a new metaphor, where the arrows are the directional arrow of time. The first arrow is the forward motion of time and experience. The second arrow is looking back into the past to find blame.

With this metaphor, you remove the second arrow by not wishing things were different nor trying to reframe what has happened. You accept that you are where you are and move forward from there. You are trusting the wholeness of reality as it is expressing rather than looking back to pinpoint blame.

Only This Moment

It is sometimes either taught explicitly or subtly alluded to that arriving only in this moment will remove all your suffering. This is a bit silly, because you never remove the first arrow of suffering entirely. There is plenty of suffering to go around and being completely detached from the suffering in the world actually feels kind of dissociated and psychopathic.

It can become easy to attach to a new identity that ‘you don’t suffer’ and then use spiritual bypassing, denial, and dissociation to reinforce this, but this isn’t a very healthy thing to be aiming for.

When suffering, or dukkha, is defined as purely the second arrow of suffering then it is possible to remove this. But this is an inordinately difficult thing to do properly and it has some side-effects that can be unexpected for people.

The second arrow is often a protective force that keeps people from feeling or facing the full force of the pain that is in their present moment experience.

Blame is a pressure release valve for pain.

Removing the second arrow can mean that the present moment is actually more painful, or more difficult to be with. This is why people aren’t already doing it. There is something too painful to look at, or it’s benefitting them in some way to not be present with it.

Importantly, accepting where you are in this moment does not mean denying that the past is having an impact on you right now.

For example, if someone you love has died, you are going to feel heart-break, grief and pain. Arriving in this moment involves opening your heart to those things and feeling all of the emotions that are present for you.

If the second arrow is activated then you tend to wish the situation was different. You are looking for a way out of the pain. An escape.

This process is really nicely described in the stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Each one is like peeling back the layers that are keeping you away from the present moment.

Through these different stages of grief you are checking in with reality to see if this new situation is really true and deepening into what that means for you, slowly opening to the pain and emotions that exist underneath the resistance.

If you want to remove the second arrow from your experience, it requires going through quite a lot of this grief cycle. It means showing up in this moment with courage and feeling the depths of what is present with an open heart, without going into justification and blame.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have at least some unfelt grief to do with lost loved ones, lost opportunities, mistakes they feel they made or disappointments in life.

In order to be moving forward and not looking back, you first have to be able to open to feeling what is here in this moment, including all the grief or emotions that the events leading up to this moment have inspired in you.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness practice is one of the most powerful things for helping to release some of the second arrow.

Rather than looking for who or what to blame and getting caught in that loop, you are releasing yourself and others from that and opening your heart to the vulnerability of life having been painful in ways you wish it could have been different.

Tonglen

Another great practice for working with releasing the second arrow is Tonglen, or Taking and Sending as it is described in English.

The practice is essentially opening your heart, breathing in the suffering of others and sending out love. Rather than running away from suffering, you are meeting it with courage and openness, taking it in and then breathing out love and care. The suffering could be physical pain, emotional pain, fear, anger, or anything else that causes someone to suffer.

Through the process of meeting it with an open heart, you are practicing developing your courage and capacity to stay with difficult things. This process transforms suffering into a deep understanding of the pain in life and a forward motion that is a more meaningful, connected, real, and beautiful expression of yourself.

The practice can be done at different levels. It can be done on a perceptual level with other people’s suffering to cultivate an open heart-mind. It can also be done on a very embodied level, which is much more shamanic. At this level you are opening your heart to really feel all the pain and struggle that is present and meeting it with compassion. This means the emotions get metabolised on an embodied level.

Embodied Therapeutic Practice

You can also do this with your own suffering through processes like Bio-Emotive Framework or Somatic Experiencing.

In order to do this sort of work sincerely on an embodied level, you have to open to letting the emotions really impact you in your heart, body, and mind. It usually involves a good cry. Or maybe some rage.

Whatever level you are working at, going through a process of taking in suffering and either meeting it with love or sending out love will metabolise some of the more difficult emotions and release some of the compulsive need to blame, dissociate, resist, or fight back against the present moment. It frees up that life force in you, allowing you to move forward in an open, honest, and heartful way. It doesn’t necessarily remove all the pain, but it creates a bit more freedom to let go of the second arrow of suffering.

The Collective

One of the ways in which the metaphor of the second arrow of suffering as an arrow of time becomes especially meaningful is how it relates to collective experience.

In the original metaphor the image is very individual. Each person gets hit with an arrow of suffering and it is up to them to stop themselves being hit by the second arrow.

I do believe that this has some important truth in it and keeping this level of accountability to your own behaviour and the way you hold experience is incredibly meaningful and empowering for practitioners. Part of the ability to stop the chain of blame is to have the courage to be present with your experience with an open heart, whatever life throws at you rather than feeling sorry for yourself or looking for other things to blame.

However, this also misses the important truth that as well as your individual story and experiences, there is also a collective story and shared experience that is impacting everyone in every moment. The history of humanity is incredibly tough. You don’t have to look far in any direction in either space or time to find serious amounts of suffering – starvation, genocide, slavery, rape, systemic oppression, ill health, natural disasters, mental health crises.

Planet Earth is a place where suffering is one of the things that is in abundance and this manifests on a collective level. Historically and also presently, there are not enough resources to go around for everyone to be safe and have everything they need. This means that people are going without for their most basic human needs being met and often fighting over resource and power.

If the second arrow is understood as something that impacts you individually there isn’t much space or understanding for how this fits into a collective perspective.

If the arrows are understood as the arrows of time, then this can be understood on an individual level or a collective level. Everyone is carrying the weight of an imperfect past that resonates through their being through ancestral trauma. Some carry a lot more than others.

Being able to hold this in yourself and for others with skill and grace is one of the most wise and compassionate things you can do.

Being able to recognise when others are doing this in a way you benefit from, is also important for being awake.

The Resolution

In order to remove the second arrow in the collective sense, there needs to be enough capacity in the collective system to be present with the hard truths of a situation and how this impacts everyone, including the people who’s voices are normally oppressed.

This takes a lot more resource and capacity than most groups or collectives have available to them.

The container needs to be able to be honest and direct about the suffering that is present, without going into blame. This isn’t comfortable or easy, but when it is done in a safe and held space it is deeply transformative for everyone involved.

An open heart knows that history is complicated and messy. That it’s impossible to know why things worked out like they did or what impacts it would have had had it been different.

From an open-hearted perspective you can recognise that in order to heal people need to be able to move forward with love and care, without invalidating the real pain and suffering that is present for them. That compassionate love, is what allows people to release what they are holding onto and to move forward.

Resolution in this context is not about blame and whose fault it is, which would be the second arrow of suffering,  it is about making space for and allowing everything that is present to be here in an open and spacious way and to find a way forward from there.

No Mud, No Lotus

One of the things that can help you drop the second arrow is the understanding that the difficulties in your life are a part of what shapes you.

It is through opening to your deepest shadows that you create the ability to feel more joy in life. It is through overcoming obstacles that you develop strength and compassion. It is through experiencing loss that you are most able to appreciate love.

With an understanding that suffering can be meaningful you can come to a deep acceptance that even if your past is causing you pain right now, it is giving you the opportunity to learn what it means to be alive. To open to life in all its facets and to support other people to do the same, even when it is uncomfortable.

Being able to practice in these circumstances gives you the opportunity to deepen into an awakening that doesn’t rely on you being in perfect conditions, but is about cultivating intimacy with experience in all circumstances.