TWO ARROWS . . . QUIT ADDING MORE INJURY TO YOURSELF

“When touched with a feeling of pain, uninstructed ordinary persons sorrow, grieve, and lament, beat their breasts, become distraught. They feel two pains, physical and mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, were to shoot him with another one, so that he would feel the pains of two arrows, in the same way, when touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed ordinary persons sorrow, grieve, and lament, beat their breasts, become distraught. They feel two pains, physical and mental.”—Buddha Shakyamuni, ​Sallattha Sutta

The first arrow is the unavoidable fact of suffering. The second arrow is our own mental proliferation about the fact of suffering. While there is only so much we can do about avoiding the first arrow, avoiding the second arrow is entirely possible. - Lama Tashi Nyima