The Role of Suffering: The Gift Inside the Pain

The practice of trying to keep thoughts organized for coherent writing, as an eternal optimist like myself, invariably leads to focusing on the practical nature of what I’m writing about and how to use the tools. Some of the best tools, however, can be difficult to write about or even spend much time thinking about.

Sometimes I wake up from dreams with a strong feeling that the dream was my subconscious trying to tell me something. My subconscious, of course, doesn’t speak in english but rather symbols and feelings. So I have to interpret them. A recent dream left me realizing that some of my biggest leaps in my philosophy on life have come through suffering.

My initial thought is ‘that sucks, don’t dig into that.’ I think the dream was reminding me that it has been important. In Buddhism, suffering is not optional, it’s a part of life. Life brings pain, confusion, loss. We spend a lot of energy trying to avoid it or forget it.

The Puzzle vision, and subsequent framework, started as a way to make sense of the system we live in and the stories that come from that. As I’ve pulled on the various threads and explored what it all means and how it all fits I’m now realizing that there is no system of thinking or action without suffering. It’s often not an unfortunate thing we should ‘move past.’ It’s part of the design and maybe we should honor it.

In today’s world of complexity where we feel like we’re called to achievements, milestones, and milking every moment for good and progress, suffering can feel like failure. But what if suffering is a natural signal of life? What if suffering is beckoning us to presence.

Pain doesn’t just highlight failure and point to what’s broken. Pain shows us what matters to us.

If The Puzzle is a process of becoming self-aware of our own systems and stories and how they piece together then suffering is one of the greatest tools for showing us the boundaries and edges of ourselves. Suffering can feel like it breaks us, but if so it’s breaking us open. Suffering creates the space for connection, for clarity, for presence.

I’m not advocating rehashing trauma or the causes of suffering, AT ALL. And if suffering is, at times, unbearable then moving past it is definitely the path I’d choose. But if we can view the suffering itself (not the cause) as part of our puzzle, view it as a piece that we never wanted to put down but is in front of us nonetheless, then maybe we can reframe it, honor it, and incorporate it as a sacred part of our Puzzle.

We all have suffering in our past and often we can quickly find that emotion, that space. It’s easily accessible for a reason - biologically, and philosophically. Our brain wants us to remember pain more than joy so we don’t get eaten by that tiger. Sitting with the suffering is one of the fastest paths to presence. Our brain wakes up all parts of it thinking ‘Oh no, is something bad happening or about to happen.’ It wants all it’s faculties and tools available to respond. That’s presence.

I grew up with a lot of suffering that had no cause. I have battled bi-polar disorder for most of my life. I knew I had it but also denied it cause there was no definitive way, outside of observation, to diagnose it for most of my life. I knew there was something wrong with me, but just blamed myself and my weak mind. Then I sat under a brain scan machine to look for remnants of a head injury I had had in my 20s. Drs said I had fully recovered from the head injury but asked why I didn’t mention the bi-polar disorder. “I didn’t know you could scan for that and didn’t think it was relevant.” They could and said it is.

All at once my suffering had a name and my experiences became both validated and somehow confusing. I looked back at my life through a verified lens and the mental gymnastics I would go through trying to deny and overpower both the manic and depressive phases seemed like a Sisyphean exercise.

So I don’t need to flirt with trauma to call on suffering and as such I want to be careful with this post. But calling on the suffering can bring our mind into focus and help us find the present moment. The way I do it is to remember JUST the feeling of suffering and call on all my senses to be fully awake. I actively try to switch my brain from it’s usual 80%-90% perceived reality created by feedback to taking in as much information as it can. With my senses alive I can bring my whole brain into the present moment. Try it and let me know how it goes. I have more tips for it if you like.