Plan 26. Sadness (dukkha)
Sadness is a term used to describe the changes in body chemistry caused by the loss of something. This loss and the associated excess pressure of energy creates a state of depression in the body. Sadness and joy are two poles of the emotional continuum. Joy is a state of expansion, outwardness, and elevated vibrations, while sadness is a state of contraction, introversion, and repressed vibrations. In both cases, the sense of time disappears and the moment seems like an eternity.
In sadness, breathing is constrained, blood flows to the internal organs, the person looks pale. On the contrary, joy opens the heart, blood circulates freely, breathing is easy, a person looks radiant and full of vitality.
Sorrow is a veil that envelops the player and darkens their vision. No ray of hope or light can penetrate from outside. And the more the player tries to get out, the more he becomes entangled. He feels weak and helpless. He is torn between the intellect, which offers ways out, and the feelings, which say that there is no way out. All you have to do is stand up, throwing back the veil once and for all. There, on the surface, there is a clear clear sky and light, but inside there is only confusion and insoluble problems created by fantasy. Just as a child who is afraid of the dark hides under a blanket, so the player thinks that as soon as he opens himself up, the horrors waiting outside will immediately engulf him. Sadness can be a temporary state, caused, for example, by the death of a child or innocent victims of war. Or it can become a way of being, a permanent imbalance of biochemical processes created through a suppression mechanism.
If a person does not want to take an honest look at some aspect of their personality, repression occurs. This happens when being honest with oneself threatens to lose one's identity, to accept something that seems unacceptable. Suppression leads to pain. The blocked energy has to express itself somehow, and this happens through pain. In this case, depression becomes a scorpion that stings itself. Bringing to the surface what is considered unacceptable will lead to pain and loss of self-identification. Suppression also brings only pain, confusion and loss of one's self.
In sadhana, i.e. spiritual discipline, depression can express awareness of the separation between the devotee and the deity. The third chakra is the plane of identification. The disciple strives for identification with the deity. Repeated failures bring sadness. The player is aware of the existence of the Divine and tries to realize it within his own personality. The separation seems like an unbridgeable chasm. He sees the problems of the first and second chakras absorb his energy again and again. He feels incapable and unworthy of the intended goal.
Yet there is a path that gives him hope. This is selfless service, represented by the next square on the board.