Suffering: A Gift

This is my very first blog on Zaadz.

I don't know why, but I am being led to post this excerpt from one of my articles. Maybe it is somehow connected with all of the violence, turmoil and 'suffering' we are witnessing in areas of the world, particularly this past week. Or maybe not.

I don't know anyone who hasn't experienced at least some of what they have perceived as  'suffering' in his/her life. (If you do - I'd love to meet them!) For many it can feel nearly impossible to make sense of their or others' suffering.  The so-called 'rational mind' using a dualistic mentality wants to reason it out and make it logical and meaningful. It doesn't have to be.

It is what it is.

I view “suffering” simply as a GIFT and an OPPORTUNITY (as are most experiences I can think of at this moment).  

- mu
 

Meaning in Suffering

If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete. - Viktor Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning"

I don't believe that we absolutely must find meaning in all that we deem other than "perfection" or "good" in this life. But, I do believe that if we are able to detach from the idea that suffering has no rightful place in this life and examine it for the gifts it offers, then we have found the meaning within it. In suffering, in the most 'unlovable' of circumstances, we are given the opportunity and catalyst to develop a type of love that is not dependent on conditions of comfort, beauty, or flawlessness. A love of life itself can evolve which accepts, embraces and values all things, including suffering.

Frankl writes,"The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity, even under the most difficult circumstances, to add a deeper meaning to his life." When most or all of what we have, or have known in life is suddenly or gradually stripped away, as was the case with the prisoners in the concentration camps, and we are left with little or nothing but our body, mind, and choices, what we choose for ourselves in these times is key to the quality of our human experience. I believe it is the key to any prison, self-imposed or otherwise, that we create or have to endure. It is key to finding the nature and expression of love in the moment and in this life...

... as Frankl points out,"Opportunities to grow spiritually beyond oneself do exist even in a provisional existence. Most men in the concentration camp believed that the real opportunity of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge." This is true for all of us as well. Loss through various encounters with suffering, and a life 'as we knew it before' may have indeed passed, but in that passing, we are given the opportunity to rise to new challenges, and as Frankl wrote, "make a victory of the experiences,(and) turn life into an inner triumph."

It is possible to turn suffering into an inner triumph.  ~ 

[Excerpt of "Meaning in Suffering" © 1999 m.u.]