Life is Suffering?

Did the Buddha say "life is suffering?" Many of us seem to think so. In fact, though, we don't know; he certainly didn't speak English. Even to suggest that we question this age old assessment on human existence courts incredulity. Of course, life is suffering. Most of human history seems to validate this hard truth. Philosophical doctrines have been invented to account for the suffering and tried to give answers and treatments. Religious systems like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism among the major ones and numerous others all strive to give some sense to our existence and suffering. These systems promise a meaning, relief and ultimate reconciliation while the atheists among us may have their science to comfort them while they seem to rest in the knowledge and acceptance of final oblivion after they're gone. There is no sense in asking the question, why. And the vast majority of us without a deep commitment or understanding of religious belief or practice seem to muddle along with a watered down version of Stoicism mixed with a large measure of Hedonism in our dealings with the inevitability and ubiquity of suffering. But what is suffering exactly and is life all about this? What then do we mean by the word life and suffering. As I write these words I'm in pain. My lower back is still somewhat sore from shoveling snow a few weeks back and one of my lower back molars feels "hot", a chronic condition that comes and goes. Is simple pain suffering? Or is suffering paying attention to the pain, wanting it to stop and being helpless to make it stop? Can we be in pain and be unaware? Do we then suffer? Then again, there is the mental component to all forms of pain- the anticipation of it as in various anxiety states related to bad things happening to our bodies sometime in an indefinite future. Is worry suffering? A state of mental anguish of not knowing the outcome of events that happen to you or your loved ones or upon certain decisions you have made without clear knowledge of the consequences of those decisions. We live and living does seem to wound us no matter how hard we try not to get wounded. But is life, is living itself suffering. Finally, there is life in the sense of organic bodies existing and then dissolving back into nonexistence as bodies. But do bodies inherently suffer by merely being bodies? We're brought back again to the question: what do we mean by the words suffering and life?

The phrase, "life is suffering" seems to equate living or being alive with the state of suffering. The Buddha seems to have made this equation and we can leave it at that for now. I strongly suspect, though, that the original words and meanings attached to life and suffering that the Buddha had in mine were vastly different than what our English language can justly render now. We don't and can never have the benefit of once again speaking with the Buddha to get a clarification. And so this is what has come down to us; this is what has happened to our language and this is how we speak to another now. This is what we must investigate.

The word suffer is a transitive verb which is derived from Latin, sufferere, sub-'from below + ferre 'to bear'. Suffering basically has the connotation, "to bear with." Hence living with respect to the phrase "life is suffering" is something we put up with, we bear, shoulder, tolerate. Moreover, the use of the word suffering in conjunction with life does seem somehow to imply that life itself is not intrinsically valuable and that a true value ultimately transcends this life that we have. Now, whether or not the Buddha felt or viewed life in this way is hard to say since, again, all we have is "his doctrines" that have come down to us through translation and interpretation. But clearly, the phrase, "life is suffering" seems to disparage life itself and that any movement that enables us to focus our attention away from the contingencies of life are valuable and what should be developed. This is problematic, though. If we confuse spiritual development and a spiritual "life" as moving us away from our ordinary earthly existence, then it is not hard to see how this would distract and divert our energies and imaginations away from making a better world for ourselves and our posterity. Why bother if this life is not the true meaning of our existence. Why work towards making things really better for our children and our children's children if in the end we believed that our true 'home" was not here but rather in some transcendent realm beyond our imagination?

So, the phrase, "life is suffering" does seem to have a the connotation that life is something that we must for the interim of our earthly existence in bodies, to put up with, to bear as a burden. But is this so? Is this the only way to look at life and suffering? A full exploration of this very important issue can not be entertained in a short essay. But, a look at what we may mean by life is in order. There are so many definitions that we are understandably confused at times.  Life seems to be everything. Everything that we struggle mightily to hang onto even to the point of giving it up in various forms of self-sacrifice. The word "life" is an abstraction and symbolic. But it points to the very basis of my existence from its physical aspects all the way to the eternal and spiritual. Paying attention then to that must be important. But then why is "life suffering." If it is so precious and important why do we characterize that to live is to suffer, to experience the need to bear with our existence. Here is a subtle point that we can go home with right now: precisely because life is so fundamental and precious that we are always prepared to suffer, to bear it even when in the course of our lives we do experience pain and fear( which is a potent form of pain). Of course, there may come a point when the pain is too much to bear then is it not to a greater life that we want passage to? I think life is suffering to the extent that we naturally do everything we can to bear the wounding and the pain, that we always seek to extend even beyond an incarnated one into an eternal transcended one. Camus, I believe, was right. At the very least he was onto something basic when he proclaimed that the only true philosophical problem is the question whether to live or commit suicide. And with this Camus puts life at the very center of our values. And with the question of suicide, the question of freedom joins in. If we are always free as our ability to not only contemplate suicide but to carry out the deed seems to indicate, then life is the most fundamental item in that equation. All our values seems to turn on this one value, life itself. To live or not to live to paraphrase that famous Bard, then exemplifies the basis of our freedom and the worth of our lives. It seems to me then that the phrase, "life is suffering" while it may at some level appears to paint a terrible picture of our existence, an existence we best be done with, that we best find ways to make as tolerable as we can, does not have to mean that life itself is valueless or meaningless. On the contrary without life, we would know no freedom nor value, nor even have that consciousness of beauty and love that freedom and a fully developed value framework supports. Life is the very ground, in a word, literally of our existence as consciousness beings. To live and to be conscious may indeed be the same thing. And from the womb of a living being we have a life only to return in organic dissolution to a greater life eternal. A quiet wisdom may in our solitude and peace ease our suffering or make us smile mysteriously.

The War Narrative, Empire and Beyond: A Brief Sketch

The war narrative has everything in it: the play of power, conflict, adventure, solidarity and camaraderie, heroism, victory and achievement. Thus this narrative can be quite appealing at least in the abstract. Of course, in terms of the actual flesh and blood encounter with its brutal realities this story is hardly to be recommended as a way of life or one would think so.

In point of fact, the emergence and expansion of civilization as we have come to know it has been at its core, the playing out of this war-story on a grand scale. The ancient Mesopotamian empires from Sumer to Persia attest to this. Later on in our history we have had the example of the Athenian bid for empire in 5th century BCE in the Mediterranean and we should to remind ourselves of the Spartans who lived by the fruits of constant war for generations and to a great extent were admired by their Greek contemporaries for doing so. We have the Egyptian experience to the west in Northern Africa, the vast empire of Alexander the Great, followed on its heels by the incomparable might of the Romans.  And during the Middle Ages and well into the Renaissance period there arose of out of the Arabian desert a powerful and vast empire to bequeath its legacies to us.  And of course to the East in Asia, we must not forget that huge and great empires arose there that have left their mark on human destiny as well.  We also find empire building in the West, in the New World with the famous examples of the Aztecs, the Mayans and the Incas. And finally, the peoples of the African continent gave us their version of empire too. Humanity is therefore no stranger to the experience of empire and to the experience of war with its violent conquests and destructive use of force. In fact, not only do we seem to stand in awe of the martial might of empire we seem to worship it in our patriotic hearts. It is my contention that the war-story has been written with our very blood and has embedded itself so deeply within our tortured souls for so long that too many of us have a very hard time imagining a different one that could inform our destiny.  Moreover we fail to realize and appreciate that our narratives are not neutral. They give us meaning and a social cohesiveness even when they can be so horrific and and destructive. And this is what we have to face if we truly want to live by a different story, one that does not mean or promise a permanent end to conflict, but rather one that allows us to resolve conflicts without destroying ourselves and the Earth.  And this not going to be easy.

A question naturally arises that in order for us to truly know and appreciate the warmth and need for friendship and companionship do we not need the backdrop of war with our fellow man? This is a profound and disturbing question and one to which we seem to have given at the very least an implicit and emphatic, yes.  Most of us simply cannot imagine a world without war even on a much lesser scale in the form of the win/lose competitive scenario. In fact, many would argue that only in the thick of battle can genuine valor and honor shine. Elsewhere I want to show how we have confused conflict with war thereby valorizing battle as a way to the resolution of the former.  The influential American philosopher and psychologist William James proposed a "moral equivalent to war." Even for James warfare had its moral virtues and he called upon us to find a substitute for it in our lives to maintain them. 

This is the primary issue at the core of our humanity; it is not a mere abstract problem and it never was and never will be. It seems that in the final hour we have to make a fundamental choice: to continue to make war with our fellow beings and by extension all of nature and thereby choose death and destruction, to continue to believe in the magic of sheer force to give us a sense of who we are, integrity and security or to move bravely beyond the win/lose narrative and thereby help to create a world of genuine solidarity and peace not without its problems or conflicts. But rather to move into this world through the thrust and amazing power of our imagination- a world in which our humanity can at last have a chance to fully develop. That is the world I inhabit in my heart( and I invite others to share with me) which makes me, much of the time, a lonely stranger in this one.

Vermont Solidarity Now

What we need here in Vermont is a renewed vision that would promote solidarity in all areas of human concern. We need to mobilize the caring, the skills and the resources of all Vermonters for all Vermonters. This does not mean, of course, we isolate ourselves and ignore the rest of the world. If the resources are available to provide for our collective well-being with respect to adequate, decent housing, safe and renewable energy, nourishing food, high quality health care and maintenance, high quality education for all and opportunities for needed and useful work, then we ought to build a socio-economic web to share this wealth in an equitable and ecologically just way that works for all. This is not just a funding issue, rather a very basic political and spiritual one.

People need to feel connected with others in ways other than the usual zero-sum, win/lose competitive one that only in the end makes adversaries of us all. The core insight and spiritual principle here is simple and straight forward: we need each other in order to flourish as Vermonters and as human beings. This does not mean a naive denial of the shadow side of being human nor does it disregard the many real conflicts that we face in our lives. It does mean, though, that we finally grow up as a people and take responsibility as a species for all that we do and can be.

Let's begin the dialogue and the work of Vermont Solidarity now!

The Lie

So many words and only one truth. The words reflect a narrative and the narrative is the context out of which we live out our lives. The many diverse cultures attest to this. The many individual human lives attest to this.  Our story is a struggle for a security that will always elude us because it is based on an illusion. Clearly there is no peace, no freedom- no genuine whole human life lived in isolation and competitive adversity. Yet the narrative that we're supposed to accept is that we're individuals facing an alien world and that our well-being is up to us as isolated beings in a win/lose struggle. This seems inhuman. It seems insane. Only those who speak from the relative safety of a physically supportive context and who have the means to survive and to survive well can "afford" to say that a person "needs to struggle" with all its anxieties, dislocations and distractions in order to live and to be free. This is the lie, the fantasy, too many of us live by.  So many words and only one reality, the reality of our need for one another and compassion.