The Enlightenment of Suffering

The evasion of suffering is insane; the appreciation of it divine

Photo by Denis Oliveira on Unsplash

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Why did ancient ascetics seek the end of all suffering through enlightenment? Maybe it was not the end of suffering but the attempt to master suffering that was, subconsciously, what gave their lives meaning. 

It might be that if the enlightened somehow eliminated suffering, they would suffer more in whatever surreal nothingness they found themselves in. For if suffering were not an essential part of our nature, then why is it to be found in wealth and poverty, in pre-state and post-state times, in perfect health and when stabbed or shot or ill? Why have we not yet figured out how to eliminate suffering with drugs or sobriety, mansions or caves, love or hate, communes or solitary confinement? 

What then? We have tried nearly everything, yet suffering prevails.

Many people look upon monks and prophets and ascetics as semi-divine, but I imagine that they fall into one of two categories: 1) they’re madmen who can’t accept the natural order of things, in which case we can look at them as amusements as opposed to inspiration; or 2) their divinity is a result of profoundly beautifying their suffering as Siddhartha did in his ascetic/fasting phase, and we have much to learn from them. 

And what would the latter category, the masters of hardship, say to us? That we do not require an escape from suffering (the path of the insane), but an appreciation of it (the path of the divine).

Even today there are those who seek hardship despite the modern affluence that casts it as a negative. Why would they do this? Because the worse things get, the better they become: healthier, stronger, more mentally vibrant, more useful to others. They are free: free from evasion, and apathy, and laziness, and the drudgery of inching ever closer to the end of life without having ever lived.  

A modern sentimentality might hear this and think, “What is he saying? I don’t care about ending suffering or mastering suffering. I don’t need to listen to him. Why would I go out of my way to immerse myself in ancient trials? Why study violence in the form of hunting or martial arts or warfare? Why grit my teeth in 35 degree water? Why starve myself for five days? Why run so hard that my body can’t absorb another milliliter of oxygen? Why rig some dogs to a sled and mush into the wild where if I do not pack my things properly, I and those with me will die beneath the northern lights? I neither want to be a monk nor a risk-taking lunatic. Why not just live a nice, easy, middle-ground life, and do whatever I feel like doing?” 

That is certainly an option, one of the luxuries of the modern world; but for many, this is nothing more than a poison apple. What is the value of warmth if we do not know the cold? The satisfaction of safety if we do not know danger? The joy of being alive if we do not know what it feels like to have one foot in the Styx? This condition is neither life nor death.  

I am a canary in a coal mine. When my autoimmunity was at its worst, the middle-ground response was a one way street to pills and drooling and, eventually, a coffin. I refused the path of drugs and a death of decay. It was only by pushing my body to its literal limits – a replication of the stressors found in SEAL training and war zones, which are themselves replicas of ancient human hardship – that my immune system had no choice but to curb its assault on itself.

The modern cult of middle-ground enlightenment within college campuses, corporate offices, and government institutions is to further eliminate even the slightest tremor of mental discomfort with safe spaces and every bead of bodily sweat from physical exertion. They treat this as a noble ideal that will finally, as the theory goes, rid humanity of all ills of mind and body, when all it may do is render them impotent when the hammer falls. 

One ethnographer of the Dani of Western New Guinea noted that, “In the face of war, death, and ritual – three areas where one most expects overt signs of anxiety – the Dani seem calm and relaxed.”¹ How many people today are “calm and relaxed” in their safety and privilege? 

What then?

Without an external enemy, whether it be cold, heat, famine, predators, an angry mob, or a blood-hungry neighboring tribe, it seems the mind turns upon itself, and the body follows obediently. 

The lesson from the masters of hardship is clear: occupying the middle-ground is living death; seeking the end of suffering is a betrayal of nature; mastering suffering is the essence of what it means to be human. A savage pleasure in adversity is a human non-negotiable. 

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1. Heider, K.G. (1970). The Dugum Dani: A Papuan Culture in the Highlands of West New Guinea (1st ed.). Routledge.