The aim of contemplative practice and inner development is to eliminate suffering and promote high-level health and human flourishing. If this were not a real possibility for each of us at this very moment there would be no need to go further. But it is. That’s not my assertion alone, but the assertion of all of the great traditions. Each of us can identify at least one individual that exemplifies this great human possibility. Recall for yourself an individual who lives in great peace, happiness, and wisdom. Would you like that for your self? It’s definitely possible. But such an attainment does not happen on-its-own. We really have to want it. And even then it will take our whole being to choose and traverse the path to this accomplishment. It takes devotion, faith, and disciplined effort. But you can do it. And if not, what is the alternative?
Optimal well being requires both a sound mind and body. Biological medicine has given us mastery of the physical aspects of life. It supports us in maintaining the health of our body. And a healthy body is an important asset in the movement towards human flourishing. But physical medicine alone cannot heal what is inner in nature. Suffering and happiness are internal experiences and can only be approached through inner understandings and development. That is why this course places so much emphasis on inner development and its primary technique, meditation.
When we’re suffering, whether the cause of our suffering is overt or hidden, we can neither be happy nor healthy. So we begin with an effort to understand the nature of suffering. If there wasn’t a reversible cause for suffering there could be no successful remedy and we would be wasting our time. But there is both a reversible cause and a genuine remedy.
Although a comprehensive and accurate understanding of suffering is pivotal in achieving mental and physical well being, it’s rare to hear any real discussion about the nature of suffering. There was never such a discussion in my medical training and it’s quite difficult to find any detailed discussion in the West of this important life experience that has so thoroughly been explored and taught in the East. However, unless we understand and address the true causes of suffering we will definitely continue to experience suffering as part of our life, and a sustained happiness and health will remain forever elusive. So let’s begin.
Suffering is a powerful holistic experience involving body, mind, and spirit. Emotional or physical suffering casts a black cloud over our life, relationships, and experiences, shifting our attention from the routines of day-to-day life to the suffering itself. It becomes the singular focus of our attention. We either collapse into it in helplessness and hopelessness or divert all our energy towards coping with it and attempting to relieve it.
Yet suffering, unlike few other experiences, simultaneously offers us the extraordinary opportunity to gain our full humanity. Why? Because distress, despair, and disease lead to an unusual level of openness and vulnerability, crowded schedules give way to the luxury of time, meaningless mental activity drops away, the ego surrenders its useless attempt to control life, rigid belief systems begin to crack, the pursuit of deceptive outer pleasures fall away, and just when there appears to be no way out new horizons suddenly appear and a life and love previously undreamed of becomes possible. Finally, we are compelled to focus on the profound issues of life – on the true essence of life. In this way suffering can be a doorway to the most teachable and potentially transformative moments in life. This is the hidden gift of suffering.
Yet we miss it thousands and thousands of times in medical offices, hospitals, and in the quiet and lonely despair of a troubled and unsatisfied personal life. We lose this transformative moment by only addressing the physical sources of suffering and failing to understand or address the inner root causes. Seeking to provide immediate relief, we label acute suffering with a medical diagnosis and automatically prescribe corresponding remedies and therapies. Or alternatively, we bear down hoping and waiting for it to pass. In any case, that’s where we stop!
However, it’s not only in moments of intense overt suffering that we lose the opportunity to grow a larger health and life. Unknown and unseen by us this same opportunity occurs regularly in our daily life. We miss it because we’ve become anesthetized to the subtler forms of suffering that we accept them as ordinary and normal parts of life. Suffering in the form of meaninglessness, doubt, confusion, ongoing emotional disturbances such as anxiety, stress, depression, helplessness and fear does not descend upon us with a suddenness that shocks our life. We’ve become accustomed to them. They too often go for normal. Nevertheless, these mental disturbances when seen from the perspective of a joyful and loving life are recognized more accurately as profound and insidious sources of suffering that on a daily basis steal from life its vitality and richest possibilities. This more subtle form of suffering when seen and deeply felt is also a basis for great life change.
It’s not only the actual experience of suffering that’s so troublesome, it’s also the loss of the important opportunity to permanently change one’s life for the better. First, we unknowingly miss the opportunity to bring suffering to an end. Then we miss the opportunity to transform suffering – the experience that appears to destroy our body, mind, and spirit – into the wisdom, wholeness, love, compassion, and authentic happiness that can indeed save our life. What’s startling is that in the midst of suffering – more so than any other human experience – abides the ever-present possibility of human flourishing. In fact, this possibility is most available to us when we clearly and decisively address the very life experience that would appear to our greatest threat. We can actually say that when seen at great depth and truth human flourishing is the core and essence of all suffering.
So why do we miss these opportunities – again and again? The problem is that we don’t understand the nature of suffering. And in our desire to be rid of suffering as soon as possible, we miss its call to awakening. We want relief and we want it now. Of course relieving suffering in any manner is important. But the great tragedy in addressing only the acute and most overt aspects of suffering is that we fail to address its deeper sources. We’ve had the experience of suffering, but we’ve lost its meaning and possibilities.
We begin our exploration of suffering by briefly discussing the nature of impermanence because the distinction between how things appear to exist (permanently) and how they actually exist (impermanently) is an important contributing cause to human suffering.
If we look carefully we will discover that all phenomenon ¬– mental and physical – are impermanent. They are impermanent because they are a collection of parts. Nothing that we experience is partless. Because everything is compounded or arises from the aggregation of smaller units there is not a specific and permanent self-nature to anything. This applies to the chairs we are sitting on, our random thoughts, our body, and the building we are now in. Everything is subject to change because of its very nature.
We usually see change only in its coarse appearance. We see it in our body at times of disease, aging, or death. We see it in outside objects at the time of gross deterioration – rotting wood on our house, leaves falling from the trees in fall, the crumbling of an old building. Such change is apparent to us. But things don’t change all at once. Although change may appear to occur suddenly it’s really a process that goes on moment-to-moment. We call this unapparent change “subtle impermanence.” How could it be otherwise? What changes in time must be undergoing change at all times. We simply cannot see subtle change with our usual senses. This is quite important to realize, as we are lulled into forgetting that change is an innate and continuous process in all things – animate and inanimate.
How is this related to the discussion on suffering that follows? Our cognitive mind makes a critical mistake. The mind, in its inability to see subtle impermanence, imagines things to appear as solid, fixed, and permanent. Stated another way, the truth of how things are is contaminated with a false understanding or at best a deluded understanding. As a result we neither directly experience nor confront the reality of impermanence. We tend to grasp at mental and physical phenomenon and freeze them in place, seeking to make permanent what is by nature otherwise. We are in conflict with the truth of life, and this conflict – a view that is in disregard of the truth of how things are – is an important cause of suffering.
A very wise teacher once said, “You must know suffering.” It took awhile for me to fully realize the double meaning of this statement. First, we must have the experience of personal suffering – spiritual, mental, or physical – in order to gain the motivation to be free of suffering. Second, to be free of suffering we must know suffering in the sense of understanding it through examination and analysis. Knowing suffering in the first instance motivates us to delve into it and in the latter instance a thorough understanding of its root causes offers the opportunity to end suffering in this lifetime.
There are three forms of suffering: gross suffering, disguised suffering, and the root cause of all suffering – the suffering that occurs when we are in exile from our inner home, when we forget our deepest nature.
We are all familiar with overt or obvious suffering. It’s the physical, emotional, and spiritual distress that we’ve all experienced at one time or another. It’s most often associated with afflictive and disturbing emotions, loss, disease, aging, and death. When overt suffering occurs, we are quite aware of its presence. We know we are suffering. It takes precedence over all other concerns. At times we can resolve it with external techniques and therapies. This works fine for a laceration, abscess, sore throat, or minor headache. We do not need to dive deeply into every pain and ever experience of suffering. So some aspects of overt suffering are transient and easily resolved. But the suffering of persistent mental distress, disease, aging, and death requires analysis and understanding so that we may succeed in permanently gaining freedom from suffering. In order to attain this understanding we must move below the surface of overt suffering to its more subtle causes.
The second cause of suffering is far subtler. The major difficulty with disguised suffering is that it isn’t recognized. It’s disguised as pleasure. As a result, not only do we not see this suffering, but we crave it and can spend much of our life and energy chasing it! Imagine chasing suffering thinking it’s pleasure! Therefore this is the most insidious and difficult form of suffering to work with.
Until the connection between what we call “pleasure” and its deeper reality, suffering, is clearly seen nothing at all can be accomplished to alleviate this subtle aspect of suffering and its effect on our mind, body, and spirit. So the first step in working with this aspect of suffering is to gain an intellectual understanding of it. Once we shine a light on disguised suffering it losses its cover. But be prepared. What we are about to discuss goes against all we’ve been taught. In a sense we can say it’s inconceivable. So, there will be much resistance to this new and more accurate way of understanding.
Because of this radical shift in thinking it will take time to reflect upon this material. So please be very patient with this introduction and allow time for ongoing study and reflection that will unfold these thoughts, discovering for yourself their truth in your own life. Only then can you fully act on this wisdom.
There are several essential points I wish to address regarding disguised suffering. Let’s look at these one-at-a-time.
1. We mistakenly learn to look outside for security, comfort,
approval, and love.
Early in life we learn to search outside of our self for pleasure and satisfaction – a search that consumes most of our life. Actually, when looked at closely it is not as much a search for pleasure and satisfaction as it is a search to relieve the discontent, disconnectedness, and void left over from childhood. This mistaken outer search is a misdirected and powerfully habituated longing for the deeper and more authentic experience of peace, happiness, and wholeness that is naturally within. But unfortunately we lose access to this human inner gem early in life and substitute a mistaken longing for outer pleasures.
The great psychologist Carl Jung stated it best when speaking about alcoholism. He remarked that the use of “spirits” was a misguided search for spirit. What Jung was telling us was that our search for peace, inner ease, happiness, and wholeness is really a search for our inner self – for our spirit. But a lifetime of training takes us on the wrong path and in the wrong direction. We search outside rather than turn our efforts inward. We seek outside experiences, objects, or people rather than turn inwards. Alcohol and our other attachments and addictions become misguided substitutes for the real thing. And as we shall see, this mistaken direction takes us towards suffering that’s disguised as pleasure. The only cure, Jung suggested, was to return to our inner source.
2. Pleasure is the word we use for an outer experience, object, or
person that relieves a previous moment of longing or suffering.
Take a careful look and you will see something quite startling. We generally apply the label “pleasurable” to outer experiences, objects, or people that relieve a previous moment of suffering. Said another way, the word pleasure is a term we apply to an experience that appears to be an improvement over a previous mental state. Watch this in your own life.
In time this relief wears off and we need another a fix to relieve the next moment of suffering or sorrow. Consider a mango. If we follow a rotten mango with a good mango we call the latter one pleasurable. However, if we follow this with even a better mango the second is no longer as pleasurable. The third mango becomes most pleasurable. And this can go on and on with experiences, objects, or people. The observation here is that the experience of pleasure is only relative to our prior experience. It is not a constant feature of the experience, object or person we attribute it to. This takes us to our next point.
3. The quality of pleasure does not reside in an outer
experience, object, or person.
Consider a fan. In the summer we consider a fan pleasant and in the winter unpleasant. But the fan hasn’t changed! The same can be said about eating. A certain amount of food can be pleasurable, but continue eating this “pleasant” meal and it soon becomes unpleasant. And how often do we discover that individuals that we initially experienced as pleasant in time become unpleasant.
So an outer or inner experience is neither intrinsically pleasant nor unpleasant in itself. What is pleasurable in one context can be the opposite in another. If we can understand this one aspect of pleasure, we will be a bit less invested in chasing after external stimuli that provide momentary pleasure but may as well be experienced in the next moment as unpleasant.
If the experience of pleasure is not innate to the experience, object, or person what makes one experience pleasurable and another not? And, why does this change from person-to-person and moment-to-moment? The answer is quite clear. Everything is always in flux and at any one moment multiple factors come together that create an experience that according to our personal past experience we will label that as pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant. But this will change according to the circumstances of the moment. That is why what we label pleasurable is so unstable. This is why the quality of pleasure does not reside in the particular experience but rather in the complexity of related factors and how we view them from our personal experience.
Consider the experience of romantic passion. We generally attribute this to the attributes of the other person. But if this were so it would never change. But we know it does. On closer examination we see that passion arises as a result of many factors: our personal sense of what is attractive, novelty, imagination, at times unavailability, a previous moment of loneliness, and so on. If one of these factors drops out the passion will shift, change and perhaps disappear. So the sense of pleasure originates with our personal take on attractiveness but is further developed through multiple other factors – none of which truly reside in the other person. If the quality of passion merely resided in the other it would never change. That is why the experience of pleasure does not innately and permanently reside solely in the outer experience, object, or person.
4. When we mistakenly think pleasure innately resides in an
experience, object, or person we desire more of it, crave it, develop
an attachment, and in certain cases an addiction to it. From this
comes all of the afflictive and disturbing emotions that result in
mental distress and suffering.
What happens when we mistakenly think pleasure is an intrinsic property of outer experiences, objects, or people? Once we label an outer experience or object as pleasurable, we naturally want more of it. We crave and chase after it, whether it is a material possession, wealth, relationship, sexuality, praise, approval, name, or fame. In time our desire and craving turns into attachment. And over time, this insatiable hunger needs more and more of these pleasurable experiences and objects. We need and are driven to upgrade the intensity of the experience to continue to feel its “high.” Invariably, all strong desire and attachment leads to some level of addiction. So our pleasures become our attachments, addictions, and suffering.
Here is where our understanding of impermanence is essential. It’s where the truth meets our confusion. All of our so-called “pleasurable” experiences are by nature impermanent. They arise as pleasant experiences as a result of a specific and temporary combination of causes and circumstances. But even so we remain mistakenly certain that we can grab them, make them our own, and hold on. However, it’s like chasing a rainbow or a mirage in the desert.
In time, fearful of loss, we begin to protect and defend our “pleasures” against potential harm or loss. We become possessive, defensive, jealous, competitive, and if anyone gets in our way, we become annoyed, angry, or even hateful. Yet the very nature of an impermanent world – experiences, objects, and people – is change. That is the nature of all experience. Change is inevitable irrespective of our attempts to fix in place the ever-changing outer world.
Consider the following 4 truths:
1. Whatever is born will die.
2. All meetings will end in separations.
3. Whatever is accumulated will be consumed.
4. Whatever is high will become low.
Everything is subject to a cycle of change. We cannot control this aspect of nature. We can only free our self from the suffering and distress by seeing this truth and ceasing to attach to outer phenomenon that are bound to change and do not innately and permanently contain the quality of pleasure.
Suffering and loss is inevitable when we depend upon external stimuli to provide us with happiness. So if you follow the natural progression of an experience of pleasure, you will see that it invariably turns into disillusionment, loss, and suffering, then again to pleasure, and again to suffering. It is an endless cycle that goes nowhere.
5. What we experience as pleasure is actually suffering-in-disguise.
So, in actuality pleasure doesn’t turn into suffering. Suffering is already embedded in what we mistakenly perceive as pleasurable, much as a fully-grown plant is unseen but embedded in the seed. We cannot see it at first, but invariably it sprouts and blossoms. That is why we call this type of suffering “disguised suffering.” It lies dormant in the experience of pleasure. Once the experience of pleasure has run its course – desire, craving, attachment, addiction, and loss – it reveals its true nature ¬– suffering. This may occur over minutes, days, years, or even decades. But rest assured it will occur. The cycle will run its course. In time all outer pleasure will bear its fruit of suffering, loss, mental distress, and sorrow.
So we have now discovered certain facts or truths about what we call pleasure. To summarize them, pleasure is not intrinsic to an outer experience, object, or person. It’s an inner mental labeling of an experience, object, or person that relieves a previous moment of suffering under a particular set of circumstances. Pleasure results from the context of our experience – remember, the fan in summer and winter.
The outer experiences we label as pleasure are impermanent and to one extent or another give rise to the cycle of desire, craving, attachment, addiction, and loss which invariably must end in suffering, sorrow, and further unsatisfied craving. Reflect on these truths. Observe how they play out in your own life. The more you can grasp these truths the closer you will come to ending the cycle of pleasure/suffering and discovering the actual source and path to authentic happiness freed from any linkage to suffering.
Unlike the first type of suffering, overt suffering, disguised suffering is far subtler and thus more difficult to identify. Who wants to think about or give up the experiences or objects that appear to offer pleasure. So we persistently hold onto and chase these poor imitations of true happiness when in actuality we are only chasing suffering. Very few of us are aware of the abundance of true happiness, peace, and joy that’s available through inner development. Very few of us are aware that authentic happiness neither deteriorates into suffering, nor is susceptible to the usual adversities of life. Those that know, do not seek ephemeral, external, and poison laced pleasures.
Because of the subtle nature of disguised suffering, one can rarely deal with it directly until at least one of two conditions are met: (1) either you have recognized that all your efforts to achieve happiness through outer experiences, objects or people have and will recurrently fail and you realize with certainty that more effort in this direction will only lead to the same result, or, (2) unrelenting stress, anxiety, depression, meaninglessness, doubt, confusion, restlessness, unsatisfied striving or chronic disease force you into this recognition.
When one of these two conditions is met, and the effort to remedy life’s sufferings with temporary pleasures is seen for what it is, we let go of what no longer works. Only then does the path to personal transformation, authentic happiness, and the permanent relief of suffering become available and desirable. This path requires turning away from outer objects of pleasure to the development of your inner life through study, reflection, and practice. It is there that one finds the authentic source of happiness – right where it has always been.
When disguised suffering loses its disguise and is seen for what it is we can then begin to work with this second type of suffering. And by working with this second type of suffering, we simultaneously undermine overt suffering and come closer to recognizing the actual source of all suffering, the third type of suffering. We begin by gaining an intellectual understanding of the nature of disguised suffering as we have discussed here. We then reflect on our new understandings. And at the same time we begin to explore our inner life through contemplative practice that slowly reveals the authentic and hardy health, happiness, peace, and wholeness that are truth-given rather than outer stimulus-driven. Authentic health, happiness, peace, and wholeness exist without reference to outer experiences. As this work progresses we slowly undermine this second cause of suffering and come closer to the final and root cause of all suffering
.
We live in exile from our soul - from our essential self. There are many explanations of how this occurred. The great traditions say that we lost this awareness of a deeper Self following a great fall from faith and grace, that we lost this awareness of Self though the obscurations of an overactive mind and under-active heart, or that we fell under the influence, an intoxication of sorts, of the outer world and its perceived pleasures. In either case, what was a once luminous peace, happiness, and wholeness became increasingly dim, dimmer, and finally, unseen.
The larger Self, the repository of the great riches of human life and the authentic source of happiness went underground – unseen and unknown. We lost access to the wish-fulfilling gem of our natural Self. This larger Self was replaced by a mental sense of self, our ego, that in its hollowness lacks essence. And this mental self that we call by our name mistakenly reaches outside to find what it can no longer see within. As a result of this misguided reaching out for transitory and stimulus-driven pleasure we end up with mental distress, unrelenting and unsatisfying cravings, stress, anxiety and emotional afflictions. We look for pleasure but end up with suffering – mind, body, and spirit.
So we live in a substitute world of rationality, surface understandings, misunderstandings, and ephemeral and anesthetizing pleasures -– a continual self-betrayal of our deeper nature and its possibilities. And this betrayal flows through all levels of our being – body, mind, and spirit. Our body suffers the disharmony of a lost deeper Self down through its cells and the vibrations of its molecules. In the body we call this loss disease.
Our mind suffers the emotional and mental distress of the forgotten open, spacious, wise, peaceful, and loving Self that is our essence. We call this loss mental suffering. Our spirit is lost in confusion, doubt, and a blindness that cannot be cured by any physical remedy or mental fix. We call this loss confusion and meaninglessness. We live as refugees from life in exile from our deepest humanity. We are lost as the poet Dante said, “ in a dark wood … for we have lost the path of truth that never strays.”
This is the subtlest and root source of all suffering. Here we come to the deepest sorrow of humanity. If we rid our self of all the afflictive emotions characteristic of the second type of suffering we will directly experience this profound sense of disconnection that accompanies a loss of our deepest self and our proper place in the great and mysterious creation called life. So this final and root cause of all suffering is the wandering in exile from a home we barely remember.
The reason we can with certainty make the statement that all suffering can come to an end is because of those courageous beings who have penetrated the depths of suffering and confronted the central affliction of humanity – the disconnection and separation from the essence of self and life. They cured suffering once-and-for-all within themselves, demonstrating to all of us ordinary beings this extraordinary possibility.
When we lost the connection to our deepest sense of Self, we simultaneously lost a connection from others, the earth, and the natural rhythms of life. Disconnected in this manner, we now float in a sea of meaninglessness, confusion, doubt, fear, and emotional afflictions, reaching out for any available anchors – for whatever relieves the pain and suffering of this loss. We desperately reach out, chasing after whatever can offer us momentary comfort, security, or meaning. And we hold on to these anchors as if they were our sources of salvation. We attach, protect, and defend these illusionary and suffering-laced substitutions for the real thing. But this cannot work – certainly not for very long.
Thus we suffer the loss of our inner life, the third and subtlest form of suffering. In response, we mistakenly reach outside for remedies that only contain within themselves the seed of the second type of suffering – disguised suffering which we mistakenly label pleasure. Unaware of this mistake we continue to court suffering, and as a result invariably end up with overt suffering - the only type of suffering we are actually aware of. That’s where the chain of suffering that begins with the forgotten Self ends up. We end up with blind and meaningless overt suffering. We are unaware of its subtle causes and its call to awaken. That’s the greatest tragedy of suffering – the fact that it obstructs the path to a larger life and health.
To eradicate suffering is to return from exile to our natural home, to our inner life. Upon return we find that this natural home contains the wisdom, peace, happiness, wholeness, love, and healing that not only permanently eradicates suffering, but guarantees a perfected life and health – a life of harmony that rolls through and transforms body, mind, and spirit. It’s a second birth from the womb of suffering into the joy of Self. And like a ripened fruit it cannot reverse its course. Once accomplished, the return from exile is a final homecoming.
It is like meeting a beloved parent or lover after many years of separation. We feel the remembrance, the warmth, the sense of being, the assurance, and the joy. It’s all very familiar. When we return home to our inner self we dissolve into it as we would to a long lost beloved of the soul. In this dissolving into the other there is a felt oneness that naturally arises along with a sense of wholeness and connectedness. Similarly this wholeness, ease, and connectedness naturally arise within us when we are reunited with our essential self.
The poet Derek Walcott says it this way:
The time will come,
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door,
in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the others welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who once was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart,
This essential self is not so far away. In the East they tell the story of a young child sitting on its mother’s lap facing away from her mother. The child is crying for mother and looking forward and to the side for her. But she cannot see her mother. Then her brother points out to her that her mother is right there and she is sitting on her lap. That’s how it is with us. When we become to re-discover this inner self we find it has always been right there. We’ve been sitting right in its lap. We’ve just been looking in the wrong direction and someone has to point out to us where to look. And the place to look is within. And the looking is with meditation.
We work with overt suffering with a variety of remedies, therapies, and techniques that sooth the emotional pain. We work with disguised suffering by gaining an understanding of why we recurrently end up suffering, despite our intense efforts to reach out to worldly pleasures. The remedy here is to turn away from what hasn’t worked, to forgo temporary outer and stimulus-driven pleasures that contain the seeds of suffering, and to turn inwards towards the development of a calm, more insightful, and more illuminated inner life with its fruit of truth-given happiness. We work with the subtlest root cause of suffering – exile from our natural home. Through inner development we gradually find our way back to our forgotten Self. It is here that we find with certainty and finality the authentic object of our longing –a genuine, vibrant, and enduring happiness free of suffering.
So here you have it. The causes and remedy for all suffering. If we do not understand the cause we cannot apply the proper remedy. But if we know the true cause we can successfully apply the proper remedy. Only then can we reverse suffering in all its forms. We do this through study, reflection and practice which gives us a true, penetrating, and complete understanding of suffering, informs us about what to cultivate and what to abandon in order to alleviate and eradicate suffering, and through practice allows for a direct experience of what we have learned. Early small steps can make a great difference. Take your time re-reading and reflecting on this chapter and practicing in formal session and in day-to-day life. Use everything to help you grow. Slowly but shortly you will begin to learn through experience what has been written above. See for yourself what is truth and what is false.
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