How to Suffer Less

(Based on a talk I gave at Less Online 2026 titled “How to get Enlightened” that had similar content but a different framing. I think this is a better framing for the Internet where I have less ability to respond to questions in real time and I don’t need to bait you into attending the session.)Suffering sucks. It would be better if there were less suffering. Some suffering can be reduced by improving material conditions, and we should do that whenever reasonable. But other suffering is self-inflicted, caused by a desire to be someone other than who we are, and no amount of material comfort will fix it. Such suffering often feels intractable, but it’s possible to free ourselves from it, and we can do that by practicing awakening, compassion, and liberation.Awakening is fully realizing that you are not yourself. That is, the idea of the self that we call “I” or “me” is not the whole of the being who calls themselves “I” or “me”. This realization is not so hard to understand in theory, but to actually awaken, it must run through every thought and action of every moment of every day. As I often frame it, it’s not enough to have a System 2 understanding of awakening; it must be understood completely by System 1. This is why it’s so often said that awakening is not something to be achieved but something to be continually practiced.Most people who awaken experience deep compassion for all being because awakening shows them that there’s no real separation between self and other. Not “beings”, mind you, because the plural implies a separation that awakening sees through, but “being” that includes everything and leaves nothing out. It’s, to paraphrase the Dao De Jing, loving the world as yourself and so caring for all things.But awakening and compassion alone don’t end suffering. That requires liberation from habituated behavior. Habits, while at times useful, separate you from reality, because they aren’t grounded in the present moment, but in the reification of past moments