Mudita Journal

Suffering as a form of spiritual guidance

January 5, 2010 · Filed under: Buddhism, Eckhart Tolle, Intellectual, Mindfulness, Witness Consciousness
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In response to my post on the significance of suffering, Andrew ends his insightful comments with:

So in that sense I think the issue of suffering is important: I think denials of it lie at the root of many problems.

I do wonder, though, if this gets at what you are talking about. I sense you may be referring to something more.

Good points. And yes, I am groping for something more, here.

In a nutshell, it’s this: I have come to the view that suffering, if you respond to it correctly, will open you to a sense of deep and profound connection with the world.

Responded to incorrectly, suffering will cause you to close and pull inside.

Responded to correctly, you have no choice but to open to it, feel the emotions at a deep level, and allow your conceptions of the world — your ideas of separateness, isolation, ego, and the many neuroses they carry with them, such as depression and anxiety — to fall away.

I’m describing it in conceptual terms, but it is an experiential observation. It’s not something I’ve arrived at by thinking, but by doing it over and over and observing the results.

When I feel fear or pain, and I surrender to it completely, and I feel the emotions fully, I fall out of my self and am left with a sense of openness and connection to the world that feels transcendental.

Is it possible to feel that openness and connection without suffering first? Probably. And I envy anyone who has that opportunity, however rare. (Or maybe it’s what we all feel as infants? I’m not sure.)

But mostly I look around and I see people who have suffered (and responded well to it) displaying this openness. And I see people who have suffered (and not responded well to it) displaying closure and stunted spiritual growth.

Nobody experiences life without suffering, so the question is: do you allow it fully into your experience, allow it to transform you, to teach you, to open you? Or do you close and try to withdraw from it?

And to me that’s what it means to acknowledge the significance of suffering — to open to it and allow it to transform you. Respond to it like a teacher, or a form of corrective feedback, or a therapy. If you don’t do this, then you miss the greatest spiritual lesson life has to offer.

So I guess what I’m saying is the complement to what you’re saying. You said that denials of suffering lie at the root of many problems. And I’m saying that fully embracing your suffering, when it inevitably happens, gives you the most profound opportunities for aliveness and growth.

I need to say more about what is means to embrace suffering. I don’t mean wallowing in self-destructive thinking, or moping around depressed, or developing a new identity for yourself as “someone who suffers.”

What I mean is a very specific way of being present with the emotions (learning to locate and be present with them in your body but not getting caught up in thinking about them) and then learning to feel them in a very pure and intense way, so the emotion can move through you freely rather than getting trapped inside.

This ties in with another post I hope to be able to write soon, about how best to respond to pain and fear. Coming soon….

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  • patrick stephens

    It seems to me that suffering, like any other state of being, is fundamentally passive. Suffering is something one experiences, it is not something that one does. Suffering (like a lightning strike or snowstorm) may or may not have much value in itself. What matters is the individual’s response to the suffering.

    I think that’s what Rand is getting at: the idea that what’s important in life is what you do, not what happens to you. That she might have oversold her thesis should not be surprising. ; )

    In that sense, suffering is entirely insignificant; in that the existence of suffering doesn’t signify anything about the person suffering. How a person deals with suffering, however, does signify something.

    To be sure, we must take some responsibility for whatever part of our suffering is self-inflicted, but that acceptance of rational responsibility is part of the response, not part of the suffering itself.

    So the question may be: does suffering provide good opportunities for growth? Should we prepare ourselves to respond to suffering and take those times–as difficult as they may be–as opportunities for self improvement? Sure. But I don’t see any persuasive reason to wait until I suffer to improve myself. Nor do I think that the opportunities for growth are necessarily greater during suffering than during periods of relative ease and prosperity. It may often seem that way to us, only because when the suffering abates, we experience the difference between our emotional states so keenly. But the rise in the swell may only seem so high because the trough was so low. (It would strike me as exceptionally odd if that measurement was subject to less bias than any other we make.)

  • Melissa

    One, suffering shouldn’t be glorified. Two, suffering can but isnt necessary to create compassion and character. Three, should we attempt to avoid suffering? What causes it?

    I think this question is much easier to deal with sitting at one’s keyboard than lying in the street, in the hospital, in a jail cell, etc. Should we take action to alleviate the suffering of others? Should we suffer “with” them?

  • http://www.zader.com Joshua Zader

    Just a couple quick responses…

    Patrick:

    - I’d make a distinction between tragedies that befall us and the suffering we experience as a result. The tragedy is outside, the suffering (pain, confusion, anger, fear) is inside. And so it’s not a strictly passive process; it’s a reaction to the circumstances in our life.

    - I agree you shouldn’t wait until you suffer to improve yourself. But suffering is like a big flashing neon sign, indicating that this is a golden opportunity for growth and improvement and remembering to open to life rather than closing to it.

    - I actually do think the opportunities for growth are greater during suffering. Many of our worst neuroses, the things that hold us back the worst, get cut wide open when we are suffering. So it’s an incredible opportunity to experience them more deeply and heal them.

    Melissa:

    - I don’t think I’m glorifying suffering, but I’m certainly acknowledging its profound role, in contrast to the common tendency to minimize it or ignore it as much as possible.

    - Yes, I think we should attempt to avoid suffering, but we should be careful to do so by opening to its significance and role in our personal growth, rather than by trying to minimize it or repress the feelings of suffering.

    - I’m neutral on the subject of suffering “with” other people. I have no opinion about whether someone should seek it out. But when someone I love is suffering, it certainly opens me in much the same way that my own suffering opens me.

  • Austen

    It may be useful to make a distinction between pain and suffering – pain being the raw negative sensation or feeling, and suffering being essentially what happens when we respond to pain unskillfully, like by resisting or denying it, which in turn compounds the pain. “He has a painful condition, but he’s not suffering that much from it” — that makes sense to me. I’ve always found this a helpful distinction. Though I think there are severe types of pain where we can’t help but suffer in response. In extreme experiences, they do kind of blend.

  • http://steelevisions.com/ Phil Steele

    Perhaps the most profound writer on this topic is Viktor Frankl, the concentration-camp survivor who wrote “Man’s Search for Meaning.” The entire premise of that book is that suffering can be a path to growth, or to self-destruction, depending on how we *choose* to respond to it. I highly recommend this short, concise book to anyone interested in psychology or human potential.

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