The Meaning of Suffering

The Meaning of Suffering

The Buddha, 2500 years ago, pointed out that three conditions are common to all beings: impermanence, lack of any lasting ego-self, and suffering. Dukkha (suffering) means more than pain as the opposite of pleasure, and the Buddha said that such suffering is the inevitable result of greed, anger, and delusion – delusion meaning mistaking the unreal for the Real.

There is no other single subject so applicable to men – for who has not suffered?

The Human Condition

The undisciplined mind can only lead to misery. When we are guided by our desires, and when we play the game within the pleasure-pain syndrome (seeking one and avoiding the other), the resultant suffering is inevitable. The great tragedy comes if we do not learn from the experience but lead joyless life after life without discernible meaning. To want what we cannot have, to ask that we sustain what is unsustainable, and to demand that the law of continuous change be somehow annulled is to invite unhappiness. Not to look within and introspect about what has caused the misery is tantamount to suicide.

When we pursue status or look for pleasurable endless diversion, we have empty lives with hollow hearts. On the outside we pretend to impress others, while inside we feel disturbed and robbed of our just fruits. If we do not belong to an oppressed minority, and if we have enough means to remain solvent, we place our identity in our living quarters, our cars, our children (all possessions). We often live without an inner ethic or something greater than ourselves. Although it can’t be done success- fully, we can aimlessly divert ourselves if we have the means. (I have known wealthy men who amused themselves endlessly with prostitutes and gambling, shutting out any need for looking within. Their family relationships were never very good, however.)

We have a duty to find meaning in this very life, this present existential situation. And this requires a disciplined mind. Discontent can be a good starting point if we are willing to recognize it and accept the responsibility for our own lives, both past and future. Discontent and doubt are the first catalysts leading to Enlightenment.

In western culture, this great ennui and discontent manifests in our forties and fifties. Long since having abandoned youthful ideals, we feel unfulfilled and bored with ourselves; we transfer the blame to our mates. Rupture of the family serves no purpose (and sometimes leads to suicide) unless we are willing to become true home-leavers and give up both our desires and our habits. Remaking habitual thought patterns is terribly painful. And usually, by the age of forty or fifty, we have lost the ability to pursue change. We rest in the comfortable, and what is comfortable is the habitual that has led to our present condition. “I want to change things,” we say, but we are unwilling to change ourselves. It is because we are what we are that we have the displeasing conditions. Without changing ourselves (our way of thinking, our desire-patterns, and our unreasonable self-demands), we are doomed to continue writhing in the quicksand of our own endeavors.

How we love our suffering. We are willing to give up anything but the comfortable habit patterns causing our misery. We will not throw away our crutch. Assuming we are the “good guys,” that we are looking from the highest possible peak, we rationalize and see our present situation as other than what it is. We want the rose without the thorn and the joy of autumn without the cold of winter.

Look in the mirror closely. What do you see in the face? Be honest. Is there compassion, joy, energy, and good health, and a picture of fulfillment? If not, something is wrong, isn’t it? Perhaps we do not have the intelligence to ingest the teachings of the greatest sages. If not, we must introspect on our own levels to comprehend what is wrong and what must be done. Being undisciplined, we postpone such a step indefinitely. This is suicide – literally, self-death. We take heart attacks, strokes, and ulcers as the natural consequences of living. By then it may be too late. Paying huge doctor bills as ransom avails nothing.

Without self-culture (physical, mental, and spiritual) we begin to die early in life, and our existence becomes one long death progression. Pretending we are immortal, we ignore the present symptoms and insist that our usual way (which led us to the present predicament) is best. If we can truly believe, as the Soto Zen Genjokoan states, that this world is – just as it is – our ideal state, that’s all well and good. Then, of course, there will be no complaining. If we pretend to “surrender” to a spiritual teacher, then he or she carries the load and we abandon all concerns, no matter how things go. If our prayers remain unanswered, we cannot complain because we have “surrendered” to God. But how many actually do so? We depend upon ourselves – not in the best sense as the Buddha advised but in the worst way. Dissatisfied with our self-made lot, we depend upon our limited being.

When we hate someone, we cannot love at all. If we place ourselves above others, we cannot see the absolute value of all. If we do not realize that we exist in total relationship, we are separated from others. And so we grasp only what appears favorable, hoping everything else will disappear. In so doing, we divide the Joyous Mountain into plots and subdivide it into yours and mine, good and bad. We live with hypocrisy and find we are unwilling and not ready to die. Dying each day, we pretend that death will pass us by. If we cannot appraise our present situation and determine how we got here (to a very concrete here and now), how can we face anything as nebulous as death? And yet we will die, and only by tasting death beforehand, can we live life. Only that which we do not grasp and that which can be dispensed with can be enjoyed. We cannot enjoy the absolutely necessary. Such attachment causes the suffering that attends the possibility of losing it: jealousy, envy, the inevitable bitterness inherent in a grasping way of life. And yet, to face death squarely, we need a disciplined mind.

The Fasting Mind discards as it grows. Wanting to possess nothing, we have everything, as St. John of the Cross pointed out. Retrogressing from habitual to spontaneous and from artificial to natural, we eventually arrive at our place of origin: the spiritual heart. “Losing a little each day,” we stand firm in an inner relationship with sky and earth, relinquishing all and gaining nothing. This is not a prospect that lures the fool. Meditation is hard work and promises no material reward. Introspection is painful, so why do we do it? Because without finding out who and what we are (manifestly “ourselves”) we do not have a chance. We are like the animal that eats poisonous herbs and throws up, only to eat them again and again. Face the fact that we cause our own suffering and the rest is comparatively easy: we change ourselves. We think thoughts and perform actions that will reflect what we want in the future. Emptying ourselves, we find a quiet joy within. We make every effort not to make any effort. Basking in the sun, breathing in the wind, we lose sight of gain and loss.

Can we do it? Eventually we must do it. If we want an apple tree, we must plant the apple seed. We cannot expect effect with- out suitable cause. If we want the serenity of untroubled mind, we do not do away with death or trouble. That is impossible. To live is to have worries, and eventually, to die. We change our attitude toward things, empty ourselves of our previous habitual responses, and, cultivating a new soil ground, find it empty and ready for the new seed. This spiritual seed then makes it possible for us to Climb the Joyous Mountain.