Dear Friends,
It seems to me, while no one wants pain or suffering, apparently they are one of the reasons we’re here. It’s undeniable that pain and suffering mature us. Someone who’s never suffered, is a child, no matter their age. Indeed it’s the ability to tolerate pain that separates the successful from the unsuccessful. That ability comes from willpower and practice. I’ve heard, if you ask a roomful of first graders to hold their breath, those who hold it longest will be the most successful. I don’t know if this is true, but if it is, that strongly indicates that the ability to stand suffering is an advantage. Which is obvious… in the land of suffering. Which only sharpens the point. Suffering is part of life, and while no one wants it, we have to accept it, and learn to be strong from it. Gaining that advantage for ourselves.
Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) it’s said spent the first part of his life carefully safeguarded from any form of suffering. Being a sage, he sought it out, so he could learn from it. It wasn’t until he had suffered greatly that he had his epiphany. Attachment is suffering. I however think he was partially right. I think suffering is part of life. It’s a teaching aid. Those who never suffer never mature. Their ability to stand suffering, or willpower, stagnates. While the put upon grow in their ability to stand suffering and humility. Both must be important lessons for this life. Else a good God wouldn’t allow them. Not only allow them, but insure their happening, with free will. So while Buddha was a wise man, I believe his teachings fall short. Suffering isn’t to be avoided, it’s to be managed. By exploiting it’s ability to teach.
Suffering is different from pain. Animals experience pain but they don’t suffer. Moreover, we have the unique ability to bring pain from the past or future, into the present, and therefore suffer it multiple times. An animal can’t do that as far as we know. They don’t dread the future or lament the past. They live in the here and now. I suspect we stole the ability to suffer, for ourselves, when we ate of the tree of knowledge. Suffering then is different from but similar to pain. It’s pain of the mind. Put another way, it’s knowledge of pain. Animals mostly don’t understand cause and effect. The pain an animal feels then is in the here and now, and not magnified by the knowledge of the damage and future pain the present pain will cause. Which multiplies pain by suffering.
While our astounding ability to suffer is a real pain… it’s also a teaching aid. The more we suffer the stronger our ability to stand suffering grows. To a point. PTSD results from too much suffering. Especially suffering outside of pain. So as long as the pain or threat of pain, doesn’t overwhelm the person’s ability to stand it, that suffering matures us. If it’s too much, the mind breaks down, and weakens instead of strengthens. So. the next time we’re in a position of expecting pain, we have more willpower to stop our minds from making us suffer. Pain itself is bad enough. Plus pain is informative. If our shoulder hurts to move it in a certain way, that means don’t move it that way, so it can heal. Worrying about the pain won’t make it go away it’ll make it worse.
All of which is why I say, we shouldn’t try to avoid suffering and pain, or avoid attachment to avoid suffering, I think we should manage suffering. Since suffering is pain of the mind, and we can control our minds, suffering itself can be controlled. By controlling our thoughts. How do we control our thoughts? By learning through suffering how not to suffer. One place to start is, if you have an itch on your face, see how long you can go without scratching it. Because tolerating small pains leads to the ability to tolerate ever larger pains. It grows our willpower and thus our control over our minds. So, take an aspirin when you have a headache, but don’t dwell on it. Manage suffering to grow your ability to control yourself. Because apparently, judged by experience, that’s one of the reason’s we’re here.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
