On Grief, Sadness, and Suffering
“For the Lakota Souix grief was valued. It brought a person closer to God. For when a person has suffered great loss and was grieving they were considered Wakkan “the most holy.” And their prayers were believed to be especially powerful. And others would ask them to pray on their behalf.”
— Jack Kornfield
“Those tried most are the prophets. And then those closest to them.”
— Prophet Muhammad
And when thy Lord said to the angels, ‘I am setting in the earth a representative.’ They said, ‘What, wilt Thou set therein one who will do corruption there, and shed blood, while We proclaim Thy praise and call Thee Holy?’ He said, ‘Assuredly I know that you know not.’
— The Qur’an 2:30
If we look at one of humanity’s greatest poets, Rumi, we see that this exemplar of love, wisdom and enlightenment, found his great awakening and became a poet of unparalleled inspiration only through the grief of losing his spiritual master. When Shams of Tabriz disappeared, Rumi — grief stricken — began to whirl around a pillar in the lodge where he and his students gathered for prayer and invocation. Propelled by a broken heart and dissolved in tears, Rumi freestyled the pain of loss and separation. All the beauty that we ascribe to Rumi is hidden in that pain — and is the result of it. Only that pain brought forth such transcendent beauty. Rumi himself realized the irony of this spiritual secret and wrote about it using many symbols and allegories. Among them, “If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?” And, “The wound is the place where the light enters.” The master knows what the novice can’t yet see. The secret is in the suffering.
What Siddhartha experienced outside the palace walls was the first evidence that grief and suffering existed in this realm. Only this could have driven him from his life of comfort and into the quest for awakening.
In Vedantic tradition it is said that the basic urges of human existence are to increase comfort and decrease discomfort. In Western philosophy, Aristotle also posited that our core urges are to draw pleasure and goodness to us and to ward off harm and pain. (Christian and Muslim thinkers such as Aquinas and Ghazali made use of these concepts in their writings on human psychology and spiritual transformation). Vedanta goes on to assert the fact that discomfort is inevitable, since every human being must suffer discomfort in various forms and to various degrees in the course of life on earth. None would debate this. However, the realization that discomfort cannot be avoided, Vedanta argues, should lead one to question whether the purpose of life is actually the gaining of comfort and the avoidance of discomfort. This questioning naturally leads individuals to pursue a happiness which transcends the merely physical or emotional forms of comfort and discomfort. Ultimately this pursuit of “higher happiness” leads to freedom from pursuit of fleeting comfort. This freedom from pursuit is moksha, liberation.
Stories of suffering and overcoming grief and hardship are central to each human collectivity. They sit at the heart of our mythology, our religions and our civilizations — from ancient prophets to modern comic book superheroes. Examples abound in human history. One struggles to find a single person considered “great” (by any measure) who did not endure a great deal of grief and suffering. It would seem that suffering is as essential to greatness as fire is to metallurgy: We cannot be formed or transformed without it.
Recently, I spent the day with an elder in my community who spent 28 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was only released two months prior to our meeting. Now in his mid 60’s, grey bearded and serene. He confided in me that although he is deeply pained at the way he was wronged and is desirous of justice for his lost years — he acknowledged, “I am a better man today than I ever would have been had I stayed on the outside.”
No degree can teach you wisdom. And while a certain salary can make you well off, no amount of money can make you someone who lives well.
In our lives human suffering is real and we should all strive to be people who alleviate suffering of all beings whenever we can. Yet, we must always keep in mind that ease is not what makes awliya (saints) and enlightened beings. It is not what makes people good. It is not even what makes people happy. The one truly happy, as the sages across time and space have noted, is not one who has a comfortable and easy life, but one who has internal virtue regardless of circumstance.
This is not easy. And is only cultivated through a life of devotion, discipline and consistent practice. That is why the teachings of the prophets and sages are the greatest gifts you can ever give anyone. You may be able to alleviate someone’s suffering by feeding them or giving them shelter. And indeed it is from the prophetic teachings to do so whenever possible. Yet, to transmit someone the teachings of the Way is to gift that person the means to find fulfillment, not only in “happiness and health” — but in every circumstance. Not only for a limited time — but forever. This is true generosity, since life inevitably presents each being with many difficult and painful experiences, such as sickness, poverty, loss, tough choices, internal struggles, the pain and death of our loved ones, and ultimately our own mortality. This is why we honor the spiritual ancestors in our chain of transmission who have labored to pass on the tradition to us: They have given us the greatest possible gift. They have given us the key to reality — the means to eternal peace and the essence of happiness.
One of my teacher’s teachers told him, “the tradition that does not leave you in the present is not the tradition.” Among the many lessons that can be drawn from this statement is that the teachings of the Way are not about mere identity and superficial adherence to a codified creed, nor about mindless performance of rituals. Instead, the teachings, and the practice and doctrine they contain, are a method of transformation that — when applied to the moment to moment experiences of life — with all its joy and its hardship, will ultimately lead one to an internal peace and tranquility that is as constant on the stormy days as it is on the radiant ones.
Even those of us far from actualizing that reality can find solace in the fact that the path and practice in the present moment “now” is itself a glimpse of the destination. And that the All-Merciful One loves and ultimately grants eternal peace to those who strive along the path to the best of their ability, and turn and return when they fall short of that. “Come, come, whoever you are. Even if you’ve broken your vows a thousand times. Ours is not the caravan of despair”, said Mevlana Rumi. Ours is the caravan of hope — for those who have felt the breezes of the Infinitely Compassionate One know with an internal knowing that has woven itself into the fabric of their being (a knowing that is more certain for them than that the world of the senses is actually there) that this affair of living and dying, no matter how difficult and painful it sometimes appears, is the greatest manifestation of mercy, beauty, wisdom, and love that has ever been.
“Will you create one who will shed blood and sow discord upon the earth,” the angels were made to ask the Creator in the Koranic narrative of the creation of Adam. The All-Wise did not answer in the affirmative or the negative. But responded, “You know not what I know.”
From the limited vantage point of created beings (even pure beings of light) this realm and the human suffering and grief involved in it can seem unimaginably cruel and arbitrary. Yet, from the view of the unlimited One — which by definition is the true perspective, free of ignorance and shortsightedness — we are in the perfect unfolding. And Love, Mercy and Wisdom underlie each breath of the cosmos. We can understand it to a certain extent with our minds through study and observation, but it is only through the awakened heart that we can actually come to experiential knowledge and inner realization of this truth. This then, is the reason for the teachings. It is the reason for revelation. It is the reason for religion. It is the Tao. It is the Deen. To give men and women the secret of what God “knows”: That pre-eternal knowledge for which we have come into existence.
The materialists will scoff at this like a deaf man scoffs at the tears of those moved by the transcendent beauty of the symphony. But theirs is a willful deafness. They have betrayed their own method in the meantime. The teachings are a set of practices, paradigms and purifications which when implemented will lead to consistent results. The laboratory is your own soul. If you are going to reject it, ok. But if you are sincere you cannot do so without testing the hypothesis in the laboratory of your being. The method is scientific. The intellectually lazy will say, “Well, look at the state of so called religious or spiritual people today. Why aren’t they all enlightened masters?” “Why are there so many issues with them individually and communally?” The traditions themselves explain why this is. The truth is that the teachings are addressed toward human beings who have egos. The teachings are the means to transform those egos. But the human ego resists transformation, because it sees transformation as death. The consistent subtle and not so subtle pull of “me” veils us from the glorious unity we are all woven into — from seeing all beings as rays of the same Sun. The teachings allow us to peel back the veil and bear witness to the ecstatic truth behind the forms. But, of course the veil fears being pulled back. So, in fear it grasps onto the wisdom and truth approaching, but instead of embracing it — uses it as a shield from further transformation and fortifies its selfishness with “wise words” and “Holy Books”.
This is the problem with taking the inner spiritual psychology out of a tradition. You lose the method to counter the ego’s defenses. This leads to hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and extremism. In any case, just because some people with the map are lost — does not mean the map is wrong. We all need experienced guides, who have traversed the journey and who can help us decipher the key and point the way when we get stuck.
It is sad that the wisdom traditions have been much maligned in our day — as we become so infatuated with our own cleverness and dismissive of our ancestors. Each religious tradition is an old-growth forest of the human mind. It is an invaluable eco-system of insights and experiences and light and profundity on what it means to be a human being for a few brief moments on planet earth. Many now dismiss the wisdom of the ancestors and believe these traditions are holding us back from progress, happiness, and peace. There are plenty examples in the nightly news of religious individuals doing disturbing acts. But, if we are going to blame religion for all the evil done by religious people — we must, if we are going to be fair, also praise religion for every kind word, every tree planted, every act of charity, forgiveness, selflessness, and mercy that religious people do as well. The good far outways the bad as anyone who has traveled in traditional communities knows very well. And the bad is most often despite the wisdom teachings, not because of them. One of the greatest wisdoms that the path imparts to its travelers is how to — not only deal with and process suffering and grief — but to understand it and relate to it in such a light that it actually becomes the means for one’s awakening, realization, maturation, and liberation from suffering itself. Iman is an internal knowing, an experiential trust, that you incarnated into this realm to experience this vast range of experiences, states and emotions — and that, though we don’t understand it all with the mind — there is a perfect wisdom and an Infinite Mercy behind every appearance. This conviction makes the fire cool. And puts an ineffable sweetness at the center of every pain.
These then, are some reflections on grief, suffering, and sadness in relation to the spiritual path. May all beings be free of suffering and know eternal peace. Sending light and love without end to you and all beings. May all be free, may all be well. May we all come to know our true nature, our true home, in the Infinite as One. Blessings all over the place forever.
