Hi, MeanGirl,
I know from Brad’s comments in his posts in the past that he doesn’t always read through the comments. He admonished himself once for this, as his teacher, Gudo Nishijima, always does. You could check Nishijima’s blog, if you’ re interested in Brad’s lineage teacher.
I do think that everyone realizes the end of suffering all the time, and that the teachers who inspired me in the past were all keenly aware of this, and of their own inabilities. Like Brad, these were (and are) Soto Zen teachers, for whom the sitting practice is the teaching, in essence.
I think we have a vocabulary now to express the basics of that sitting practice in words, but it’s not possible have an understanding substitute for a witness of experience. The end of suffering is the witness of the place of consciousness conditioned by attraction, aversion, or ignorance, and the experience of action out of the free occurrence of consciousness that follows. If I don’t experience consciousness taking place, and the involuntary action connected with that experience, then I own my suffering until I do, and prayer in one posture or another is the only approach I know.
How about you?