John 11:33 · World English Bible
John 11:33 Meaning When Jesus Therefore Saw Her Weeping
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,
What does John 11:33 mean?
Even one wholly awake feels the weight of human sorrow when it stands weeping before him. Presence does not make you numb.
From the Ego v. Being reading below.
John 11:33 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Ego v. Being
EGO & BEING
Ego v. Being
Even one wholly awake feels the weight of human sorrow when it stands weeping before him. Presence does not make you numb. It makes you more fully open to what is, and grief passing through an open being is felt deeply, without resistance, without the mind's frantic effort to fix or escape it.
This is the difference between suffering and pain. The pain of the moment is allowed to move through him because he does not add to it a story of "this should not be." Sorrow arises, is fully felt, and is not turned into ongoing suffering, because he remains present with it rather than lost in it.
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Ego v. Being lens
Live John 11:33 today
- When sadness shows up today, do not reach for your phone to make it go away. Sit with it for two minutes and let it be there without explaining it to yourself.
- If someone cries in front of you, stay. Do not fix it or hurry them, just be a person who did not look away.
- When frustration hits at work, feel it in your body, the jaw, the chest, the heat, and let it move through without the long mental argument about how unfair it is.
What would change if you let yourself feel something all the way through instead of managing it?
The same truth in other traditions
Buddhism
There is the arrow that strikes, and there is the second arrow we fire into ourselves with the story about it. The first is pain, the second is the suffering we add.
Zen · Thich Nhat Hanh
Hold your sorrow the way you would hold a crying child, gently, without trying to make it stop. Felt fully, it moves.
Tao Te Ching
The storm passes through the open sky without damaging it. Resisting what is here is what turns weather into wreckage.
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