On Suffering
Our problem and our psychosis is that we don’t suffer. For
thousands and thousands of years humans have never had to worry about
suffering. It was always present, free and available in sufficient quantities
for everyone. It tempered the soul. It was the land we walked and the air we
breathed. It was the launch pad of consciousness. The germinator of religion.
The suffering we felt at the necessity of robbing an equal creature/an equal
soul of life to sustain our own. This terrible selfishness. This Thou Shalt Not
Kill. This commandment broken again and again, hands wet with blood, arms tired
with brutal pummeling. Don’t be hoodwinked by your culture. During this time,
this slow explosion of mind and matter, that would eventually sweep the planet
– we did not see ourselves as any different from the life around us. Killing
our brothers and sisters and eating their flesh – first was born ritual to
grapple with the suffering this caused, this terrible guilt. The original sin.
Who were we to decide life and death – to mete punishment first with our hands
and then with the tools we made with our minds?
The suffering of the struggle to survive, the suffering of
losing loved ones to the brutality of defense, accident, disease, predation…the
suffering of how short the time was. Humanity has done its utmost to divorce
itself from suffering and has largely succeeded in the more “developed” places.
So minds become stunted. Hearts atrophied without the air of suffering to
breathe. And when we do have the opportunity to suffer – to steep our souls in
the cauldron of fire which made us – the fiery vessel of God – it is too
bright, too warm and cruel for our distended souls, our shriveled hearts – so
we turn away – we deal in repression/psychosis/depression – we stuff ourselves
with Words, pad our minds with empty concepts –
God/Faith/Nihilism/Fate/Greed/Gluttony/Alcohol/Drugs/Hatred/Jealousy/Anxiety/Depression/Insomnia…all
that we supposedly abhor – we become – because we do not know how to suffer. Of
course – who would choose to suffer? If given the choice – who would mantle
themselves with this thorough garment of pain? So we sequester ourselves in our
safe rooms of empty days and the collection of material and the easy
subjugation of our brothers and sisters – we eat now without suffering – we eat
empty promises and empty calories – and belch into the sky our stink at having
been cooped up in our safe rooms without the benefit of the cleansing and
purifying bath of suffering. We desperately need to suffer and each and every one
of us knows this, each of us carries a seed planted deep within our
consciousness…but not enough bloom…the seeds lie dormant, encased, ungerminated
– spreading their invisible radiation to suffuse all aspects of life with the
poison of non-being, non-belief…but – this will be taken care of –
collectively. Without knowing it – we will manufacture our suffering –
engineered in the dark places, unknown to us but it’s course as sure as an
arrow, to burst forth in a glorious and hideous flood of suffering the likes of
which will make WWII pale in comparison….to bring us back to our roots, to let
us breathe good air and know ourselves.
So the question is – will enough people tend lovingly to this seed, give
it the water of their tears and the nutrients of their active engagement with
the world as it truly is – a construct of spirit and matter – the natural
expression of which is suffering – to awaken the seed and have it grow and bear
its fruit…and this fruit is called Human with a capital ‘H’, whole and enlightened
consciousness, unfractured, selfless and paradoxically without suffering
because the long journey we are all asked to make, simply by being born, has
been trodden. The only way out is through.
