Often when we are suffering, some emptiness view or other is quite capable of dissolving or substantially reducing that suffering. Sometimes just dissolving it thus is fine. Sometimes though, that suffering may be felt to be an integral part of one’s humanity, so that it might seem necessary to allow and to feel that particular pain and that sense of humanness more fully before viewing it as empty. Yet it is also true that on occasion an ordering opposite to this last is viable and actually more helpful. We may choose to see the emptiness of something first, so dissolving it or at least loosening it up, and then – either allowing it to reconstitute, or taking advantage of this loosening – we can draw near to it again to be with it and hold it in a different way. An open-minded experimentation and a free and pliable approach are vital. Along with such responsive, supple, and open-minded play what is outlined in the course of these pages does involve a kind of work too. It is not necessarily always easy, or simple. But following the Buddha’s teachings and putting them into practice one discovers depths and freedoms that more than repay the effort put in. Here is an invitation. The path is open. Often so much more is possible for us than we think.
Burbea, Rob. Seeing That Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising
I took this quote a now classic book (full of amazing practices) about different Views. This quote is a reminder that there are two ways of working with suffering, both necessary - and they can come in any order. The practice isn’t to bypass the pain we feel, but to fully feel it, while at the same time recognizing it as fabrication, an interplay of luminous clarity. If we can hold space for both views then even the suffering can be a kind of perfection - a way into being fully human, a wellspring of compassion for ourselves and others.