Suffering!
Ever wondered why you suffer? Why is something bad is happening to you? If God exists how can he permit something bad to happen and why does suffering exist?
‘All life is suffering’- this is one of the four noble truths of Buddhism: for a typical Buddhist suffering comes because of attachment, you are attached to something eg. car and it gets stolen and hence you suffer but in Eastern traditions suffering is looked at in a very different way from the Western traditions: I am not asserting that any tradition is better or bad, I am stating they have a different outlook on it.
For instance in Buddhism suffering is mainly the cause of ignorance, you make others suffer because you yourself suffer and are ignorant about its existence or even its cause. In the Hindu tradition suffering is because of some deed performed in your past life ‘Karma’ and for you it is just an instrument by which to balance out your deeds. In the Islamic culture the idea of suffering is seen as something that is a test from the divine and hence a chance for self improvement.
If you are noticing something all traditions are trying to make sense of the same thing here and they are coming to different conclusions as to its origins and cause, if you take a psychoanalysts point of view suffering is a cause of something unconscious or in Freudians words suffering comes when the ego brushes off against the superego, I am obviously simplifying it.
Plotinus who had a huge impact on philosophy had a much more radical idea he said suffering did not exist of course he was speaking ontologically. He said for example if you take a tree and assume it is deformed now it at its core has good in it, God bestowed it with goodness such as it can produce green leaves, it provides shade. These are goodness that are part of being a tree however, because it could not reach its fullest potential it is deformed there is still more for this tree to achieve; he didn’t say that there is more for the tree to achieve but you can run with this idea a bit.
But honestly how do we confront it? How do we see suffering and live in a world that is manifesting so much of it in our everyday lives? It may have several causes but how do we distance ourselves from it? But distancing yourself from suffering is that even a good view to hold?
Al-Kindi said that living a life and expecting not to suffer is like trying to breathe without air, suffering is an intricate part of life. It perhaps exists because it is showing you a lack, an ideal that you are striving for but cannot reach at the moment because something in you is lacking in the present and hence only if you will suffer will you be able to overcome this lacking in the present and move towards an ideal that you hope to have.
