During my adolescence, I experienced a degree of suffering that led me to consider that death might be better than living in the condition in which I found myself. In the midst of this suffering, I learned how to quickly bring it to an end. How, one might ask, was this accomplished? First, a little background. As a youth, I was very angry, conflicted, and depressed, and this consumed most of my energy and mental resources, leaving little for productive activities. In short, I was suffering. The antecedents to my suffering are irrelevant because they have nothing to do with understanding how to end suffering. Second, I had a very traumatic and life-threatening experience. I have sometimes characterized this experience as the universe trying to get my attention. It was like the proverbial mule that requires a 2 x 4 upside the head to get its attention before receiving a command. Third, my traumatic experience led to periods of introspection. During one of these periods, the answer to my suffering came to me in a flash of insight, or as I have described this experience elsewhere, I had an epiphany. I realized that the physical, psychological, and emotional pain I was experiencing was not the cause of my suffering. What was causing my suffering was the relationship my ego-self (I prefer fictive-self) had with the pain. I stopped conflating pain with suffering and recognized that they are not interchangeable words for describing the same thing.
This epiphany included recognizing that the fictive-self is simply a multifaceted narrative that evolves to help one understand what is happening in their decision space and how to respond. The narrative supporting the fictive-self can have one or more dysfunctional elements, and when it does, there will be a dysfunctional relationship with many, if not all, of your experiences, especially those that cause pain.
I realized that my fictive-self had a dysfunctional relationship with my pain. When such a relationship exists, there is usually an attempt to externalize the pain by blaming it on someone or something else. Blame for my pain fell first on my parents and then on God. I felt like my pain was undeserved and unjust. There were surely many other people who deserved it more than I. This relationship between my fictive-self and my pain led me to be angry and conflicted and to act out. I struck out at the world with the intent of making it feel my undeserved pain.
When the epiphany hit me, I realized that most things that cause us pain are part of life, and they must be taken in stride rather than resisted.* You cannot push it off onto someone else or make it disappear by denying it. You must simply accept it and let it pass through you. The other thing I realized was that my narrative needed revisions to make it more functional and to reduce or eliminate the dysfunctional elements.
Many years later, while pursuing an interest in eastern philosophies, I came across a formula that captured my insight in a few words. The formula was “Pain Plus Resistance Equals Suffering.” The wisdom in this was immediately obvious and perfectly and simply expressed what my epiphany had shown me. You can end suffering, but you cannot end pain. The former is self-inflicted, and the latter is the nature of life.*
It has been said that the goal of awakening, self-realization, enlightenment, transcendence, insight, or whatever you wish to call it, is to end suffering. I agree to a point. The real goal is to understand the role that the fictive-self plays in suffering and to transcend the way in which the pain is understood. However, that may not be the only result. It certainly wasn’t in my case. A great deal can follow from such an insight if you know it to be true in the very core of your being and embody it. It transformed my life in ways I could not have imagined at the time.
It is said that Jesus suffered on the cross for our sins. I say he suffered on the cross because he was living as a human being, moving through the world. Perhaps he was a man with a connection to the divine, but that probably did not protect him from pain. If he also suffered, it was because of a human ego that had a dysfunctional relationship with his pain. I would say that this is suggested by the words attributed to him while enduring crucifixion, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). I interpret this as expressing a sense of having been abandoned and allowed to endure his pain when God should have spared him.
While not a traditional interpretation of these words, I would suggest that his role, at least in part, was for the divine to experience through him the life of a human being living in the world. Suffering is, in my mind, certainly a common experience of most persons living in the world. The root meaning of the word “sin” is said by some to be “error.” Perhaps he did not suffer and die for our sins (in this case, errors in our thinking), but as a human being, he experienced the effects of sin or errors in thinking and demonstrated that such errors can and do produce suffering.
Note: I would exclude from naturally occurring pain, pain inflicted on one deliberately and with intent, motivated by cruelty or for some nefarious purpose. If possible, such pain should be resisted, but not by filtering it through an ego narrative that transforms it into suffering.