The body and its pain are one thing; what the mind and heart are permitted to do through our inattention to them is another. We may not want to assume the responsibility for it, but the truth is what it is:
We do give ourselves over to -- moment to moment -- what we value above all else. And if our mind is tormenting us, whatever the reason, our attention to it is really a part of us resisting the same, and in so doing is delivering us, by unconscious consent, into the hands of our "enemy."
The one thing that is ours, uniquely, is our attention. And one may have to suffer oneself, but one never has to agree that there's nothing else that can be done with that darkness. The difference between these two states of mind, one unconscious to itself and consenting to its captivity, the other conscious of what it will do to itself if left unattended, is the difference between realizing the possibility of freedom and just hoping that one day one's enemy will grant it to one.
