Suffering and the End of Suffering

The central teaching of Buddhism is that to the unenlightened being life is suffering, that there are specific causes of suffering, that there is an end to suffering if these causes are overcome, and that there is a specific path to the working out of these root causes and thus to the ending of suffering. Called the Four Noble Truths, this teaching of the Buddha is perhaps the earliest and most explicit teaching of how suffering works as the soil and water that nourishes spiritual growth. As one famous spiritual writer put it: 'When we are suffering we are really being blessed, but we do not recognize it at the time.'

"You won't be able to surrender," notes preeminent spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle (in the video, below), "unless you are completely fed up with suffering, (unless) you have had enough suffering, and at some level you recognize that most of your suffering is self created."

"Suffering is a wonderful teacher; (it) is most people's only teacher," he points out. "Suffering deepens you. It gradually erodes the mind-made sense of self, the ego. And for some people the point arises where they realize, "I have suffered enough.""

Not only is the message of suffering and the end of suffering the central tenet of Buddhism, Tolle notes, it is also a central teaching of Christianity. "Finding the Pearl of Great Price, finding the Kingdom of Heaven that is within you, here and now, as Jesus says, is of course the ending of suffering. So one could say that you need suffering for you to realize, to come to point of realization, that you do not need to suffer anymore."

That one needs to suffer in order to come to the realization that one no longer needs to suffer, is as Tolle puts it, the "great paradox" that drives spiritual growth. One finds in time, however, that one can sincerely strive to live a life of the spirit without the necessity of constantly being bludgeoned into that position by painful struggle. That, Tolle would probably agree, is the beginning of the end of the small, ego-self.

Is there a Role for Science on Spirituality's 'Lonely Path'?

". . . And I will speak to thee of that wisdom and vision which, when known, there is nothing else for thee to know.

Among thousands of men perhaps one strives for perfection; and among thousands of those who strive perhaps one knows me in truth."                    ("Bhagavad Gita," VII:2-3)

It's been said, over and over, in all the world's great wisdom traditions, that the road to enlightenment or true liberation is a lonely path. Indeed, even in the world's most widespread religion, Christianity, those who traveled the furthest down the spiritual road, those like St. John of the Cross and Meister Eckhart, were often isolated by the Church authorities themselves. Speaking many centuries after the Bhagavad Gita was set down, Jesus (cryptically as ever) warned of the same existential loneliness in store for the true spiritual aspirant, saying, "The harvest is indeed great, but the laborers are few," (Matthew 9:27).

Essentially the spiritual quest for enlightenment is a lonely quest because it is an internal journey. Over and over, we read and hear testimony that it is essential for the spiritual aspirant to let go of the search for outward satisfaction, even his or her attachment to thoughts of outer things, in order that our real inner life is opened to us. The renowned 20th-century theologian, Paul Tillich, spoke of "the lonely self-inquiry" necessary to find the "depth" of one's existence:

". . . (A)ll those who have been concerned - mystics and priests, poets and philosophers, simple people and educated - with that road through confession, lonely self-scrutiny, internal or external catastrophes, prayer, contemplation, have witnessed to the same experience. They have found they are not what they  believed themselves to be, even after a deeper level had appeared to them below the vanishing surface. That deeper level itself became surface, when a still deeper level was discovered, this happening again and again, as long as their lives, as long as they kept on the road to their depth. . . ."                                   (Paul Tillich, "Shaking the Foundations," page 56)

Karlfried Graf Durckheim
(1896-1988)

Moreover, in today's Information Age, while our interconnectedness to a growing body of individuals seeking a higher meaning in their life seems to make this 'spiritual road' less lonely, it is deceptive. The pursuit of enlightenment is inherently a solitary business. While more people are striving for higher consciousness (perhaps "of hundreds," rather than "thousands," one strives to find the "Truth" of our existential being), even more individuals are hemmed in by the ever-illusive quest for more material wealth and 'security.' Such is the "Westernizing influences" of a worldview that tends to exult the material and discounts the spiritual.

In an interview with French Orthodox priest, Alfonse Goettman, the modern German mystic, Karlfried Graf Durckheim (see video at end of article), remarked that, "(t)he destiny of man is to become the one who can witness to the transcendent Reality at the very heart of existence." However as a culture, he observes, we seem to have turned a blind 'inner eye' to that destiny, much to our detriment.

". . . (C)ivilization in the West," he notes, "has developed only one pole of the human being and has sacrificed the other. Yet man is always called to a double mission: to recognize and master the world in which he lives, for which he needs efficiency, but at the same time to mature on the inner path which is vital to this fulfillment. The fruit of this maturity is seen in a person who is transparent to his essential being which he expresses in his daily life. It is a fact that western civilization has completely neglected this aspect of our nature."

His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama

Perhaps it is the Dalai Lama, with his profound respect for both scientific and spiritual inquiry, who best summarizes the basic existential problems - even threats - that an over-weighting of a 'mastery' of the physical world to the detriment of 'maturing' on the 'inner path' poses. In his insightful book, "The Universe In A Single Atom," he writes:

"The central question - central for the survival and well being of our world - is how we can make the wonderful developments of science into something that offers altruistic and compassionate service for the needs of humanity and the other sentient being with whom we share the earth."

". . . First of all like any instrument, science can be put to good use or bad. It is the state of mind of the person wielding the instrument that determines to what end it will be put. Second, scientific discoveries affect the way we understand the world and our place in it. This has consequences for our behavior."

Einstein famously remarked, "Science without religion is lame, while religion without science is blind." An apt paraphrase of this prescient observation in the context of over-weighting the importance of mastery of the physical world over mastery of one's inner self might be: "Spirituality without science is mute, while science without spirituality is deaf to humanity's deepest needs."

If the Information Age is to live up to its evident potential, it will perhaps do so by breaking up the relative loneliness of the spiritual path, thereby increasing the odds of finding the 'Truth' that Krishna gives in the Bhagavad Gita. The tool that might be most effectively wielded to break down this existential loneliness, given our overwhelming reliance on science and its technologies, is an authentic inner spirituality that is informed by open-minded scientific inquiry. Yet, the Western scientific culture by its logic and strictures continues, in most instances, to exclude the exploration of how inner, subjective spiritual experiences might fit into a more expansive worldview informed by both science and spirituality.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Enlightenment and Spiritual Awakening: "Bottom-Up" vs. "Top-Down" Transcendence

I hear a lot of discussion about spiritual awakening and self-transcendence where the emphasis regarding the whole enlightenment 'thang is as a process - a walking along a spiritual path rather than getting effortlessly and spontaneously to an end state, if there is indeed such a thing as an end state. That seems to be the case in most religious bodies and groups - in what the famed psychologist, William James, distinguished, in Varieties of Religious Experience as "outer religion".

Who knows? Maybe we're kind of looking at this backwards or askew. I know that for me that would be no surprise. I don't see enlightenment as a process but a state of being (be-ing). That's perhaps the fundamental difference between “bottom-up” or gradualist enlightenment which would be a process, and the sudden occurrence of an enlightenment which is experiential, “top-down”, occurring suddenly and that's it - the process of 'spiritual awakening' versus its outcome 'self-transcendence. . . .What's the old Zen adage? “Before enlightenment , chop wood and haul water. After enlightenment, chop wood and haul water.” … Or as my friend Harry taught me (my friend and teacher who had his “bright light” experience after 22 years of practicing affirmative and invocative prayer together with transcendental meditation), “If you are on a train reading the newspaper, and all you're doing is reading the newspaper . . . that is enlghtenment.”

Moral of the story? When you're peeling carrots, peel carrots. And when you're listening on the news to what is happening in Tibet, do not let yourself figure out how you would or can solve that problem. Rather, be the solution by manifesting the state of compassion that the Dalai Lama encourages. (Now if only I could bear that in mind when I am on the train reading about Tibet.)

Common sense says “nothing changes, if nothing changes. But I've often told my friends and those I work with (work, not in the sense that I'm employed doing it, although I do talk about it there, too), that in these times we need "uncommonly common sense." It's not that, “nothing changes if nothing changes,” I think. . . but, rather. that “Everything changes if no-thing changes”. One of the only 'absolute' constants in this relative world is that everything, everywhere is always changing (transitory, insubstantial and impermanent, as the Bhudda would tell'ya. . . .)

But, if the one thing that we perceive to be permanent in this egoic state which causes suffering changes, then every-thing does indeed change - that is, everything in the “outside” world, or at least in our perception and emotional reaction to the objects, even the mental objects, of the exterior world. And that one “thing” that needs to change? Our identification with, and the relentless persistence of the internal dialogue of, our unexamined, habitually conditioned thinking (i.e., learned way of thinking), our thinking without true awareness. That is, the inner “voice” which in our egoic state we take to be “us”, the stream of constant thinking that we can fall back into at any time and that can carry us away, precipitating virtually any action on our part - from the most altruistic acts to acts of murder or self-immolation.

For, of course, the one permanent firmament and fixture that we all have is our awareness, our “consciousness”. We are aware, therefore we are. We are conscious in our dreams and even on awaking from dreamless sleep again we are conscious. . . . We are aware. We are awareness or consciousness itself. . . . It is our awareness, our inner witnessing that is the portal through which we seem to look out from the Absolute to this relative world. If our identification with the constant thinking that obscures this awareness ceases wholly - and I believe that this is a spontaneous event if it is to be permanent, even if it occurs for us after years of prayer, meditative and contemplative practice - a “top-down” experience even if after years of “bottom-up” practice in mental discipline - then that is the enlightened state of being, that is the Absolute.

This end state, the impersonal experience of remaining "absolutely self-less while being relatively present" (to use the words of Robert Thurman, the Dalai Lama's friend and one-time student) is, I believe, the experience and the state of enlightenment that all wisdom traditions and religions speak of and aim for. “What manner of man,” Jesus taught, “can add one cubit to his stature by taking thought?” And, less so, it should be added, to the extent that one is carried away by the thinking of and the dentification with this seemingly real but false “self”. One cannot anything to one's "stature" or state of being by taking or being taken away by thought, one's awareness and connection with the Divine Unity, with the Absolute can only be lessened. Remember, Jesus also said, “Of my self, I am nothing. . .”

The Christian mystics also speak and always spoke of a 'Mystic Union' - the experience of “union with God” or the Absolute that Carl Jung wrote of and called “the thirst of our being for Wholeness” - even if these mystics, the not-so-famous and the famous-alike, the St. Johns of the Cross, the Joans of Arc and the Meisters Eckhart who were variously imprisoned, martyred at the discretion of the Church or forced to recant in the West, unlike the experience of mystics in the Orthodox tradition where the mystics of the Church, high and low , were and are equally reverenced along with the Bishops, the Fathers of the Church and the Saints. All these mystics spoke of and variously described this experience of the Mystic Union, this enlightenment and communion with the Divine, with God, with the Ground of Being.

I understand that Andrew Cohen, the modern teacher who speaks and writes of enlightenment for our times in terms of conscious or "evolutionary enlightenment", makes a great distinction between these two approaches and experiences - the bottom-up approach and experience versus the sudden, spontaneous spiritual awakening that he seems to have experienced by all accounts. Indeed he, like the Bhudda, teaches that the end goal is when all beings experience this liberation from the ego together, a concept he aptly calls "autonomy in communion".