A Philosophy of Suffering: Two Ways

The Buddha told us that if we want to be free of suffering, we need to free ourselves of all desire and choose the extinction of our personal self, so that we might avoid being reborn.

But Jesus told us that we must embrace suffering, for by doing so we share in his cross, by which he redeemed the world, and by that offering we shall be reborn to eternal life.

"Whoever wishes to be my disciple, let him deny himself, pick up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever tries to save his own life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake shall save it." (Luke, ch. 9)

To reject suffering seems like a rejection of life itself, and just removing your desires is a lack of appreciation of everything that humanity has learned to value. While it is true that we can always want more than we have, we can also learn to be content with less. The world makes many false promises, and tries to tempt us into pursuing mirages and phantoms of our imagination. But if we stop and take stock of what a human being truly needs, we can see that our situation is probably reasonably tolerable.

Of course we will always have to work for the food and water, clothing and shelter that sustain us from day to day. We no longer live in the Garden of Eden. But wait, beyond those essentials, and our normal routine social interactions of education and exchange, what more should we really need? You can say that we need some spiritual endeavors, to help us to find meaning and purpose for living, and maybe point us toward a brighter future. And I will easily grant that necessity.

But the spiritual dimension of humanity is precisely the point I'm reaching for. Life has more than enough suffering to make us doubt whether the meaning of life is worth its dogged pursuit. And yet, we have to admit that there are plenty of joys and pleasures to keep us interested. And the essential togetherness of family allows us to experience the values of sharing, compassion, affection and love, and gives us a sense of meaning  and belonging. It is the spiritual seeking for how to live a good life that teaches us how to maximize our appreciation of society.

And it is also the spiritual perspective that tells us that our societies can become too worldly and complicated. We feel the urge to get away, and strip down our ordinary expectations, to find out how self-reliant we can be. And in doing so, we discover that the simplicity of having few wants is not the same as poverty. Several great religions still proudly hold their hermits up as fine examples of spirituality. Many of them have demonstrated that we don't really need as much as we think we do, to live a meaningful life. And while we may look at them and think they are poor, they don't actually feel impoverished. The way they live is their own choice.

Poverty is the lack of access to what you experience as a necessity for your being, or the belief that you should have, or deserve more. That is what causes suffering, and as such it motivates us to seek to acquire what we therefore desire. As you can see, some desires are totally correct, and others can be inordinate, or just wrong.

No matter where or when we live, we will always need to, figuratively speaking, chop wood and draw water, fix the roof and plant a garden, mend our clothes and feed the cat. Even a hermit may do this much. But we don't need to expend our extra time to produce more than enough, other than for sharing with our friends, neighbors and visitors. Seeking commerce, for profit and accumulating wealth, can lead us into sin. Rather, our leisure time might be better spent in some recreational fellowship, or in prayer, study and worship. We could agree to collaborate on some grand collective project, such as building a cathedral, but that would be a special case.

In modern life and culture, we have allowed ourselves to become accustomed to a variety of quite complex amenities, which we can no longer produce individually. We have become dependent on certain social benefits and luxuries, for which we must pay by laboring for money. No more are we expected to be self-sufficient, but only proficient at some kind of work. But always we feel the pressure of society to aspire for more and better commodities, requiring us to work harder for longer hours. This immediately translates into a desire to please our spouses, who are usually the ones who bring those social pressures to bear. And we are made to feel guilty if we cannot provide for even the most lavish and inordinate desires. These, of course, have all been suggested by a society which itself desires to wring the most productivity and taxes from every citizen. It is a circular and unceasing endeavor to keep up with the achievements of our neighbors, always propelled by the pride and ambitions we have been educated to serve.

Stated thus plainly, we can see how we have been coopted into the service of built-up expectations to which we did not give our considered assent. It is as if we are all offering our labor as a sacrifice to some minor deities - and, in fact, that is precisely what we are doing. Those minor gods are Caesar and Mammon, the government and the banks. Whether we are poor or wealthy, both of these always want an ever greater share of the money that we work for. And they both claim that they shall serve us in our times of need, but neither have proven to be good stewards of our contributions. Indeed, these are false gods, and we serve them at our peril. Caesar can suddenly change into Moloch, demanding that  we sacrifice our children in war, and Mammon can shift with the weather, becoming the wanton, seductive goddess of fertility, who then reveals her impotence to guarantee the harvest.

And finally we begin to realize that our ever increasing desires have led us to ruin. We have found naught but suffering at the end of our road. And it is a wide, well paved, and busy highway that leads to this fool's perdition. If only we had chosen to seek a spiritual path, consciously denying those false desires that society proposes in its avarice to seduce us! We could have, on occasion, mortified our weaknesses when we saw that we had strayed from the path of voluntary simplicity. It is a sad lament that cries over opportunities lost, that could have been better used to seek the true God, and a right relationship with Him. But we always have the opportunity to repent. We can recognize how foolish we have been, and turn away from concupiscient seeking after wealth, and dedicate the rest of our lives to sharing. We have tried too hard to avoid denying our desires, but forgotten what we truly need - the freedom to choose which God we shall serve.

And yet, the atheist can find only despair when he realizes how he has been duped and betrayed by society and its gods. By eschewing the search for a real God, one can only discover that life is without any meaning or purpose. Even the assertion that we can choose whatever meaning that we want to pursue rings hollow, if we dare to ask why any choice might be more true than a surrender to despair. That is why the Buddha decided to try to break the cycle of reincarnation. He figured that the next life was not worth living.

Rather than giving in to despair, Jesus proclaims the value of life, not by denying suffering, but by affirming that life can be full of joy, peace and blessings. By forgiving us for wandering after the foolishness of believing in false gods, he frees us to seek a reconciliation with the Father, who does actually provide us with the basic needs of our everyday lives. When we reorder our desires and expectations, and seek to reform our relationships with each other, we find that life can be abundant in the things that really matter.

Of course, we do continue to experience some instances, and a background level, of suffering. Life continues to be difficult. But we can remember how much Christ gave for us, how he sacrificed everything and carried the crushing burden of guilt for all of our sins to the cross, so that we could be forgiven and set free. By such comparison we can see that we hardly face such a high magnitude of suffering. And then we still have the option to dedicate what we do experience, as well as our voluntary self-discipline, to sharing in his redeeming sacrifice. When we do that, He gives us an extraordinary meaning for living, even in the midst of suffering. We are building the Kingdom of God on Earth, and beyond  that, He promises that we shall share eternal life with Him in Heaven.