Sitting with Suffering: A Task for Spiritual Companions
Published in the June 2020 issue of the journal "Presence"
(published by Spiritual Directors International; link below)
I am sharing it here, because access to the article on the Journal site is restricted to subscribers
“Suffering is not an illness; it is the normal counterpole to happiness.”
“Every real solution is only reached by intense suffering.”
“Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.”
The above three quotes from Carl Jung frame my understanding of suffering.
I have heard it said, “Pain is inevitable—suffering is optional.” I do not agree. I believe that suffering is not optional. Into every life, some suffering must come. It is an essential feature of being human.
What we can choose, though, is how we relate to that suffering. What is our angle of relatedness to the suffering? Do we run from it? Do we walk head-on, willy-nilly, into suffering, with a false sense of bravado? Or do we treat suffering—pathos—with the respect and the gravitas it deserves?
It is in our choices in the face of suffering that our true mettle shows. It is up to us whether we suffer neurotically or, using Jung’s terminology, “legitimately.”
What Is Suffering?
The English word suffering comes from Latin sufferer, meaning “to bear, undergo, endure, carry or put under.” It is composed of the roots sub, meaning “under,” and ferre, meaning “to carry, bear.”
Thus, suffering is what we carry, what we bear, and what we labor under.
The experience of suffering is universal.
Neurotic versus Legitimate Suffering
The first of the four noble truths in Buddhism states that all life is suffering. It is then diagnosed that suffering is a result of either desire or aversion (we want something, or we want to turn away from something). The Buddhist way teaches that if we truly understand the emptiness, the shunyata, that lies underneath all forms, then we will cure ourselves of the false or illusionary forms (i.e., attachment and aversion) and thus be free from suffering.
Theoretically, it makes sense. And it can certainly help with neurotic suffering (e.g., holding onto a job or a partner long after they have stopped being growth-promoting for us). In these examples, we are called to a larger life, but we are afraid to let go of the security of what is known and step into the larger, but the much more challenging, unknown. These are the moments when vipassana or insight meditation, confirming for ourselves the emptiness of these longings and aversions, can be very helpful.
But then, there is an entire other class of suffering. Jung calls this legitimate suffering, or moral suffering. A case in point would be our brother, Job. Called by God to sacrifice his own child, he has moved past the place of attraction and aversion. He has entered the crucible of legitimate suffering.
We can see this call all around us. The mother whose child goes into school and shoots classmates and teachers. The father who must get up every morning knowing that this son has become paraplegic after a road accident brought on by his own drunkenness. A son who will never rise, or smile, or lay a hand on his arm. The mother who, at the height of a famine, snatches the one piece of bread from the hands of a dying boy to feed it to her own starving child. And then wakes up every subsequent night, drenched in cold sweat, as she dreams of this other boy pursuing her for his piece of bread—his lifeline—that she had intentionally and knowingly snapped out of his hands!
These are the sufferings that must be met.
And I believe that these sufferings must be met not just by the mother or the father in these stories. These are archetypal sufferings that belong to us all. During these times, we are asked to labor under, to carry, and to bear the pain of this world.
In June 2016, during the run-up to the most contentious U.S. presidential election in recent memory, poet-philosopher Mark Nepo wrote an essay in the magazine Parabola entitled “Hearing the Cries of the World.” In this essay, Nepo calls on each of us to take up the Bodhisattva vow of "keeping the cries of the world alive.”
Sitting with Suffering as a Spiritual Companion
As we sit with clients as a spiritual companion, we are often asked to bear witness to the intense soul suffering that many times pushes people to find a spiritual counselor in the first place.
In his article, Nepo has a few suggestions about how this might be done, with authenticity and integrity:
There are always things to be done in the face of suffering. We can share bread and water and shelter in the storm. But when we arrive at what suffering does to us, there is only compassion—the genuine, tender ways we can be with those who suffer.
And I will add that the more we have looked into the depths of our own suffering, the more we have kept company with those parts of us that are hurt and broken and lost, the more we will be able to draw this compassion from within us, for those we sit with.
Because what else is compassion, but com (“with”) + passion (“suffering”)?
Amor Fati
“Sisyphus” Oil on Canvas (1548-1549); Artist: Titian; located in Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
There is an old Greek philosophical idea—that of Amor fati, literally meaning “loving fate.” Our English word fate is derived from the Latin fatum, meaning “that which has been spoken” (by “the gods”). It is the given conditions of our lives. It is the “is-ness” of the ground we stand on. What is uttered by “the gods” (or circumstances, or even blind chance), is unalterable. That we have an illness, or a history of abuse, or that we come from a colonized culture, is an unalterable fact.
But again, how we face this fate, this decree of the gods, is up to us.
Here again I draw on another article published in Parabola—“Amor Fati: How to Embrace Your Life” by contemporary Jungian analyst James Hollis. In his essay, Hollis uses Albert Camus’s take on the Myth of Sisyphus as an illustrative example. Camus takes the well-known story of Sisyphus, the “lonely prophet” who is fated to forever roll a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down again, ad infinitum.
But then, Camus adds a genius twist! To quote Hollis:
Yet Camus adds a radical defiance, a cri de Coeur, a hope. He imagines that at that moment when Sisyphus descends the hill once again, forever once again, he pauses and smiles before pushing that stone back up. In that smile, Camus fantasizes, is our existential revolt against fate. In that moment, rather than being doomed, fated, Sisyphus chooses to push the stone. In his choice he takes the autonomous power away from the gods; he reacquires his freedom, and his dignity.
Hollis continues:
Camus is on to something more than revolt, a gesture which may remain forever futile in the face of fate. In that mysterious, inexplicable smile, Sisyphus says yes to his life, a condition he cannot choose, but an attitude which is entirely his. This yes is the achievement of amor fati, the love of one’s fate.
Amor Fati Can Open into Sublime Beauty
When fate, including its inevitable suffering, is truly met, what emerges from it could be sublime beauty.
Some lines from Kikakou, a student of the great seventeenth century Japanese poet, Basho, comes to mind (taken from Mark Nepo’s Book of Awakening):
A blind child
guided by his mother,
admires the cherry blossoms…
This snippet paints a perfect moment—a pearl to be beheld—without the need for any therapeutic intervention.
Or, as Rumi says (from The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks):
Don’t turn your head. Keep looking
at the bandaged place. That’s where
the light enters you.
Japanese Aesthetics of Wabi-sabi
There is an idea in Japanese aesthetics called wabi-sabi, which is the art of embracing the flawed or the imperfect. An example of wabi-sabi is Kintsugi, where a broken porcelain object is repaired with resin or varnish mixed with powdered gold, in order to highlight its brokenness. Or a blanket may be woven with a deliberately missed pattern, or a piece of twig woven into the yarn.
It is said that working with wabi-sabi opens us to mono no aware—“the pathos of things”—which opens into beauty and celebration!
The Task of the Spiritual Companion: To Invite the Client into the “Scar Clan”
Doctor Clarissa Pinkola Estés is a much-beloved elder, a Jungian analyst, poet, writer, and keeper of old stories. She is lovingly referred to by her community as Doctor E. She has coined a beautiful term that sacrilizes suffering (i.e., makes it sacred). Her term for it is the Scar Clan. The Scar Clan is a tribe composed of those of us who have been hurt—deeply and repeatedly—by life. We carry scars that crisscross our bodies and our souls. From Doctor E’s perspective, these scars invite us into our elderhood.
“The Scar Clan”
A young sapling has an unblemished green stem. Smooth to touch, and soothing to gaze at, this stem must nevertheless be protected against gusts of wind, or grazing animals, because it can be easily snapped into two. It does not yet have the resiliency that can only come from living a hard life. But as the sapling stands there—day and night—through rain, storms, thunder, and snow, it grows hard and rough bark on its surface. Each year of winter adds another ring of protection around the tender core that must be kept open for water and nutrients to rise from deep within the soil to reach the outermost leaves, flowers, and fruits. Over the years, decades, and centuries, the tree becomes old and wise, its skin now covered with scars. These scars bear witness to the life history of the tree and the challenges it has survived. The scars state, “I am still here. I have survived. I still stand.”
I believe that when we sit with people who have scars, and we are not ashamed of our own scars, we can invite them into the Scar Clan—the tribe of survivors and celebrants of life.
An invitation to the Scar Clan needs to be made gently and with grace.
As I see it, our job, as spiritual companions, is twofold; and the two halves are intertwined.
On the one hand, we help the person see that their suffering is personal and individual and that it is genuine—that a shattering has indeed been experienced, whether in body, soul, or both. There is cause, indeed an invitation, to grieve and mourn what has happened (and also what was desired but could not happen). The individual suffering needs to be held with exquisite care, love, and spaciousness. And for as long as it needs to be held.
On the other hand, though, I believe that it is our task to slowly and gently invoke the idea that it is a suffering that is shared by many others around the world. No matter how horrific our experience, there are others who have experienced this horror. We are not alone—no matter how shattered and isolated we feel. Indeed, we are communal beings, who suffer and rejoice together. To the extent we can own and celebrate our own scars, we become a beacon of hope for others who will follow along these same paths.
I end this exposition with some lines from Estés’s book Women Who Run with the Wolves :
Tears are a river that take you somewhere. Weeping creates a river around the little boat carrying your soul-life. Tears can lift that little boat off rocks, off dry ground, carrying it downriver to someplace new, someplace better.
References
Estés, Clarissa Pinkola. Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. First River WolfPress E-book/Digital Edition. 2017. P 374.
Hollis, James. “Amor Fati: How to Embrace Your Life.” Parabola 40, no. 4 (Winter 2015–2016).
Nepo, Mark. “Hearing the Cries of the World.” Parabola 38, no. 2 (Summer 2013). https://parabola.org/2016/06/14/hearing-the-cries-of-the-world-by-mark-nepo/.
Nepo, Mark. The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have. York Beach, ME: Conari Press, 2000. P15, Kindle version.
Barks, Coleman. The Essential Rumi – Reissue: New Expanded Edition. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2004. P142, Kindle version.