I feel that suffering is wrong. That said, often the greatest wisdom can only come from at least some suffering. This is, seemingly, a paradox, for while suffering is wrong, it can also be right.
I suppose I should say that I think that useless suffering is wrong. But what is useless and useful when it comes to suffering? I think the point is that while no one truly likes suffering, that it may be a necessary means to an end, that end being a means itself, in the sense of it being awakening and living truly as opposed to living delusion.
Pointless suffering is wrong, suffering that is born of other people’s ignorance is wrong. Suffering that comes from awakening, suffering that comes from growing up, finally dealing with reality, is not wrong, but is rather right.
The problem is that the discussion about suffering is often understood too simply. Many philosophies seem to be predicated on the idea of avoiding suffering, but I think this is an unthoughtout position. Do they mean the biological animal response to not liking pain? Is pain synonymous with suffering? I think suffering is more, and more complicated, than mere physical pain or discomfort.
Maybe this (Western?) idea that suffering is bad is part of what keeps people from understanding the path of awakening in the right light.
Rather than avoiding suffering, denying or resisting it, I have found that only when we allow ourselves to go through (emotional and spiritual) suffering can we work through it, can we stop its controlling and limiting power over us. Suffering is not good, but it must be acknowledged and allowed to be if we are ever to get to the other side of it. It should not be fought or denied. As is typical in Western cultures, that which is difficult, confusing, and painful is avoided, denied, for the benefit of the ego-self and the immediate. But the only way to get past, to get rid of, suffering is not to try to avoid it (for this is impossible in the long run) but to go through it. The only way to do away with the suffering is to suffer.
So, I don’t want to suffer, but when I realize the futility of avoiding or denying the pain of it, that it will only make it worse, I then want to suffer so I can work through it and thus no longer feel the pain. So, the suffering is neither good nor bad—it is both, and so neither.
.
From my personal notes, 9/7/99.
