Can Suffering Not Exist?
an experiential inquiry
It is said that a human being can evolve themselves to the point where they no longer suffer. That in having glimpsed the eternal, in having experienced the deeper realities, they can then carry that experience back into their daily lives, and that the carrying of it implies they’ve overcome suffering. They’ve transcended suffering.
In my experience, suffering, in the sense that we experience it in the here and now, is left behind in the so-called deeper realm or experience. It just doesn’t matter there. At all. It has no place.
Yet, having experienced that place, I still suffer. Is that because I didn’t really have deeper experiences, that I’m just fooling myself? That there was no relief from suffering to carry back because what I experienced was delusion? Or is it because I’m truly experiencing the nature of the experience itself? Which still retains suffering in the here and now.
Let’s briefly examine this topic through the lens of my own experiences, regardless of how we might or might not view them.
Reporting in: suffering
First- I can say, definitely, that having seen and experienced a lack of suffering ‘there’ has not changed that it still very much exists ‘here’. I suffer.
Second- I personally know many others who share this perspective: that having experienced deeper reality there, they continue to suffer here.
Third- there’s more to it. It’s not as simple as we’d like to make it. In part because the desirable concept of overcoming suffering is misconstrued.
As below, so above
I’m not at all convinced, for example, that humans have the ability to experience an utter lack of suffering. Suffering exists. We exist, therefore it exists.
Even if some guy sitting on a cushion manages to meditate his mind and body into some form of ecstasy, suffering still exists. This is something we know. That being said, if we accept the concept of the holographic mind or universe, if we accept the concept of “All in one and One in all,” if we accept that everything truly is in everything, then suffering exists everywhere. It’s hard to refute this, unless you’re into denial.
To clarify, there’s a big difference between the acceptance of suffering and this notion of somehow being beyond suffering. As though eliminating suffering is somehow something only the more evolved are capable of doing. And I’m distinguishing here between eliminating suffering and overcoming suffering. Because one concept eliminates suffering and the other concept adjusts to suffering. And, yes, for the ecstatic Yogi there is the mindset of simply ignoring the suffering. But ignoring is not overcoming.
I’m proposing that suffering is not a condition exclusive to living in a certain place or state.
If I were to live in the Arctic, where it is always cold, and one day go on vacation in Bora Bora, where it is always warm, would I be expected to stay warm when I returned to the Arctic? And what’s to keep me from catching a chill, even when relaxing in Bora Bora?
The terms confuse us
I believe this concept of eliminating suffering might be a bit of an illusion, in much the same way that the Christian church has painted Jesus as perfect, that he lived a perfect life.
Not only am I not buying into the concept of a perfect life (as they define the term), but more importantly than my inconsequential opinion is that this whole notion of making him perfect has put his accomplishments out of the reach of the rest of us. Consequently, their version of Christianity, by its own definitions, becomes utterly unachievable. You can’t possibly achieve its definition of perfection, forgiven or not. The bar for a Christ-like life has been set impossibly high.
For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.- Hebrews 10:14
But even worse, this form or interpretation of perfection implies that you can’t be a true Christian unless you’re, well, perfect. This is deeply troubling, both in concept and in actual practice.
My stepfather was not a religious man. Until he met and married my mother, who was the divorced wife of a former minister. She remained devout, and part of my stepfather’s wooing process was to up his born-again Christian game. Once he discovered that scripture stated the man was the head of the house, the real game was on. The newly installed god-emperor was just a step away from declaring his own perfection. Which he eventually started claiming, based on scriptural interpretation. He would argue, raise his voice, lose his temper in attempts to thunderously prove he was literally perfect. Because God had declared it. It enraged him that we disagreed. Not so much that he was dad and headed the family. No, rather it was his romance with being perfect. My point being that certain definitions simply don’t work.
Where would suffering go?
Anyway, even if we imagine a life without a physical body, suffering remains. Because while a great deal of suffering is physically related, there is also emotional and mental suffering. Some wisdom teachers maintain that the emotional body is left behind when we physically die. Let’s assume that’s true. Then what of the mental and spiritual ‘bodies’ which survive? Can they not continue to suffer?
For example, many Buddhist believe they are obligated by vows to reincarnate until all suffering is eliminated. What gives them this calling? Isn’t this calling, this burden to overcome suffering, something that transcends their physical life? By their own standards, the answer must be ‘yes.’ The point being that suffering, when viewed in this context, is carried from life to life. From life to life- and in between lives- the heavily burdened Buddhist suffers the constant burden of eliminating suffering. Hence, their own suffering is enhanced and unceasing. Whether they are dead or alive, whether they are in this body or not.
In closing, I’ll share a personal experience, which occurred when I was fully lucid, not using any drugs or alcohol.
I have experienced the Nothingness something like this — there is a vast, dark sea of stillness — darkness, yet inexplicably full of light. Out of that vastness, that darkness, that stillness… something emerges. The vastness, the darkness, the stillness is what gives birth to intention.
I’ve previously described experiences in the so-called Nothingness. My point in re-sharing this particular experience in this essay is to convey that the ‘sea’ in which I found myself floating was so comforting and so utterly natural, that the idea of sinking down into its enveloping embrace was not at all intimidating.
And I’ll suggest that making that kind of decision- to just let go and sink away- would (at least it seems to me) leave suffering far behind, even though it would continue to exist.
Just be sure you don’t mind being re-assimilated. Which, I don’t believe, you would mind.
