Beyond Suffering

My father was a man who once was a slave to his sensual delights. He loved to eat meat every day, ate a lot of sweets and drank alcohol almost regularly. He was already diabetic and already had hypertension. My mother and his doctor kept on warning him lest he would really get sick. In spite of this, he unrelentingly adhered to his own way of thinking: “Mas maayo pa mamatay nga busog kaysa mamatay nga gigutom.” After many years having this lifestyle, he succumbed to a stroke. He survived but not without the aftermath: a partial left sided paralysis.

He wanted to live longer. He was determined to change. Because of this, he began to be strict on his own diet and religiously followed the doctor’s orders. He recovered quickly and he already began to walk after a couple of months. Once he felt good enough, he started having walking exercises. He became a more religious person after his predicament. This dramatically changed his paradigms in life. He recovered remarkably because he changed his lifestyle because he was determined to do so.

Meanwhile, we had a neighbor who also had a stroke at almost around the same time as my father. But he didn’t have the same outlook as my father did. They both had the same kind of stroke but this man didn’t control his diet, did not even attempt at doing exercises. He remained bedridden. It seemed as if our neighbor had given up on life. Because of this, he lashed at his family at an attempt to project his own self-pity and depression.

After five years, my father developed a tumor in his lungs and an enlargement of the heart despite a renewed lifestyle and faithfulness to his medicine. He passed away after suffering terribly for three months. On the other hand, almost twelve years have passed and our neighbor who had his stroke at almost the same time as my father is still alive. He still doesn’t walk, still doesn’t talk and still has tantrums when he’s not given what he wants. Sometimes I can’t help but ask, “Why is he still alive? Why did my father have to die before him?”š

A statue of Buddha (Siddharta Gautama)

Siddharta Gautama (Buddha) teaches that pain and suffering are universal. It is caused by our sensual cravings especially when we are so attached to satiating and delighting our senses and appetites. This makes sense. If we don’t get over our love for pork and sweets despite the fact that we are already have the genetic and physical propensity to be hypertensive and diabetic, then the probability of having a stroke and having heart diseases is very high. We suffer because of our own self-abuse—an abuse that comes from over-satiating our carnal desires.

Buddha further proposes that there is an eightfold way in order to cease our sufferings. The first is the right view of life. My father arrived at this. When he began to realize and actually feel the consequences of his actions, he immediately changed the way he looked at himself and at his life. He changed his lifestyle and he disciplined himself.

Despite all he was going through, he came upon the second way, that is, the right aspiration of life. Even though he was suffering and could no longer financially support the family through work, he was still a loving husband and father. He went beyond his own selfishness and still looked beyond himself—to his family. When he could already work with his hands, he tried to fix broken things in the house. (But when it was beyond his physical capability, he would hire someone else.) He even made it a point to shine my shoes! Just imagine, a 64 year old man shining his son’s shoes! How much love he had for me and for all of us despite his own physical weaknesses!

He also became all the more a man of right speech and right action. He was never a gossip. Even though he was being slandered and ridiculed by some of our relatives, he never retaliated at them. Though he was visibly hurt, owing to the fact that these same relatives were the ones whom he helped in their time of need, he never gave in to revenge.

He was also a very determined man. Even though he had moments of self-pity, he remained a man of right effort, right concentration and right contemplation. He acted and reflected on his actions. He prayed in the wee hours of the morning. He faced and accepted Death even before it came to take him away.

(I couldn’t say he was a man of right livelihood since he did not believe in the Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation. My father was a truly Catholic man.)

Siddharta Gautama surmised that once a man would achieve the eightfold way, one would attain nirvana, a state of peace and happiness. His philosophy has influenced so many people in this day and age. All of us search for peace and tranquility within. Our social milieu—our work, families, even our social networking connections—continues to demand so much from us. We may no longer suffer the backbreaking pains of hard manual labor as in the past, but now, we are faced with increasing mental and stress related problems. We continually live in a prevalent atmosphere of stress and burnout. No wonder the man of today is in a painstaking search for peace! Siddharta’s philosophy and consequently, the religion of Buddhism, offers so much light and hope for the modern man – a victim enmeshed in a consumerist, materialist and utilitarian society.

As much as I admire his philosophy, I cannot bring myself to embrace it. He offers so much wisdom and insight but still I can’t find myself buying everything he says. It is the way he views suffering. Yes, I do not disagree that most of our problems are caused by our insatiable desires. But even so, there are those who suffer even if they are not slaves to their sensual desires. There are those who deny themselves so much so that they would be at peace with themselves but still they suffer anyhow. For example, a strict vegetarian denies himself processed foods and meat in order to avoid cancer. But then, he ends ups suffering with leukemia or bone cancer. It is as if healthy dieting made no difference. I can’t even help but ask why my father had to suffer more and die early when he had denied himself more than our neighbor who had the same condition as he did!

Furthermore, the notion of nirvana tells us that suffering must be avoided in order to achieve inner peace. Pain is something to be avoided. Remembering my father, I can truly say that he did not achieve nirvana. He went beyond that. He did not avoid suffering. He embraced it as his own. He looked at suffering as a way for him to pay for his sins. He looked at death as a key to eternal life. He did not complain even as he lay on his bed of pain. He passed away in his sleep, as peaceful as one who was truly slumbering.

I have also had my own share of suffering. What I have learned is that when you try to avoid it, it keeps coming back to you but with a vengeance. Having seen my father and those around me and myself suffering, I realized that the best way to achieve peace is when I accept it, face it and take it as my own. This was the philosophy of Jesus Christ, who did not avoid suffering but instead embraced it in the form of the Cross, got Himself crucified and died. It was in the midst of death that he found himself perfectly at peace because he knew that his sufferings would not just simply be sufferings—that they had redemptive value and would save all mankind from the blight of sin.

Nirvana will not free us from our sufferings. We cannot deny the fact that suffering will always be with us wherever we go, whatever we may do. It is when we put ourselves at the foot of the Cross and embrace suffering will it have meaning, will suffering finally make sense. We have a God who chose to suffer even though He Himself could prevent it from happening. We are likewise called to imitate Him for it is the best way, albeit arduous, to arrive at true inner peace.