(This is an edited version of a post that first appeared in January, 2008 in my previous blog.)
I was talking to a similarly-aged friend yesterday about getting things done. There are things that we have to do to keep the wheels turning, so to speak-- pay the bills, buy the groceries, prepare the food, do the landry, clean the kitchen--the things that keep our lives going, the things we do over and over again just because they need to be done. And then there are things that we do that feel like real accomplishments, like helping someone in need, or finishing a creative endeavour, or launching a new project.
It reminded me of this old post about suffering, and the way buddhists understand it. Suffering is an important concept in Buddhism, but one that took me a long time to understand. Maybe I still don't understand it very well.
At first reading, it seems so entirely different than the Christian understanding of suffering. In my Evangelical childhood, I was taught to see suffering as a means to an end. The New Testament epistle of James says quite bluntly: "Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials (ie, when you suffer), knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and endurance produces perfect results, that you may be full and complete, lacking in nothing."
In Christianity, suffering is something that happens to you--an illness, unemployment, loss of a friend or loved one. You pass through problems and "tribulations" so that the trivial and unimportant is burned away, and you become a better Christian, a better person. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, more or less.
So when I first started studying Buddhism and ran across the idea that "All is suffering" (a summary of the First Noble Truth), and that the point of Buddhism is to escape suffering, it made no sense to me. Why would you want to escape suffering? Suffering is part of life. You can't run from your problems. Suffering is what helps you grow up. If you run from suffering, you miss out on life, you are a baby.
I struggled with this misunderstanding for a long time. I spent the whole time I was reading the Dalai Lama's book on happiness arguing with him.
Finally one day last spring I GOT it. I was drying my hair, and feeling irritated that it was already time to get a haircut again. You get a haircut; it's too short for a week; then it's just right for a couple of weeks; then it's getting too long; then it's already time for a hair cut again.
It was like the proverbial lightbulb went on. Oh! I get it! The Buddhist idea of suffering is more about the endless cycle, the daily grind, the unending work of getting through life. You get up, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, eat dinner, clean up, go to bed, then the next day you do it all over again. It's all about the cycle, the endless cycle.
It's a classic East/West difference. I was trained to think of suffering as a linear thing, something that happens along the way that is a means to an end, a process that gets you to a goal-- the goal of being a better Christian. Your life is going along just fine, then some big problem hits, and you have to get through it. Then (if you're lucky) things go back to normal. Getting through the time of suffering helps you grow.
The Buddhist idea is about endless reiterations of the same things, the kinds of things my WASP brain would have considered background, white noise. In Christianity, suffering is big stuff--persecution, illness, losing your job. In Buddhism, suffering is just the grind, the stuff you have to do over and over to get through the day.
Like laundry. Laundry never ends. There is always more laundry to do at our house. Or cooking. Someone is always hungry. Or batteries. You charge them up, and then before you know it they have to be charged again.
But once I got that figured out, it seems that the attitude that you have toward suffering in both traditions is pretty similar. You don't run from it, you don't avoid it, you dive in. The Buddhist idea of "escape" from suffering isn't about running from your problems, it's about reincarnating at a higher level of existence where there is no suffering. But where Christianity emphasizes endurance, getting through it, Buddhism emphasizes staying open, not shutting down, while you are in the midst of suffering.
Pema Chodron says you try to stay soft, instead of closing up like a clenched fist. You let yourself experience your suffering fully. You grow up. What I had interpreted in Buddhism as wanting to run away from suffering is actually not attaching importance to suffering, not letting yourself get caught up in the daily soap opera of our lives.
Disclaimer: As always, my understanding of Buddhism is anything but expert. More experienced insights welcome.
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So, getting back to my conversation with my friend, when we accomplish
something that has a different feeling than getting through the daily
grind, does that help? I think a part of me believes that my self-worth
lies in those accomplishments, in doing something that "makes a
difference." But the problem with that is when I'm in a period of time
when I'm not accomplishing anything except getting through the daily
grind, what am I worth? I need something stronger than that, I think. Or
maybe I need to jettison the idea that my self-worth lies in earning a place for myself, getting to a point where I feel like I "deserve" to be here.
Hmmmm. This is going off in an entirely different direction. Too much time in my head this week.
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