TRANSFORMING SUFFERING INTO PRESENCE
"Know how to suffer, and thou hast power not to suffer."
St. John
Suffering is inevitable. The question is how to make it useful, and in particular, how to transform it into presence.
The first step in this process is not to express the suffering externally. Of course, we still experience it, but we act as if we were not suffering; that is, we do not complain, or become angry, or seek sympathy, or anyway show our suffering. This has the effect of causing an internal division of ourselves into the part which is suffering and the part which controls the expression of the suffering. The second part is outside the suffering, and so it can begin working to change the suffering.
This leads to the discovery that the greater part of our suffering is imaginary; that is, it is caused by things which are entirely within our control. For example, much emotional suffering is based on our imagination of what others are thinking about us, while in reality they may have quite different opinions about us — or even not be thinking abut us at all. And even when there is some basis in reality for suffering — for instance, physical pain — our imagination makes the suffering much worse than it need be.
Seeing imaginary suffering for what it is causes it to diminish and gradually disappear. This is also true of what can be called unnecessary suffering. Some suffering is a necessary payment in order to achieve an aim — for instance, if we want to get to the top of a mountain, we must accept the physical suffering of the climb — but much of our suffering serves no purpose, and so is unnecessary.
After unnecessary and imaginary suffering are seen for what they are, what is left is the real suffering that is part and parcel of human life on earth. Only this real suffering has possibilities for development; work on imaginary suffering, being based on something which is imaginary and so has no real existence, can only give imaginary results.
The separation of ourselves into two parts which occurred at the beginning with non-expression now becomes crucial to further progress, for the next step is to accept this real suffering and to stop fighting against it. Real suffering never involves all of our being; in fact, in the absence of imaginary suffering, the part outside the suffering inevitably proves to be by far the greater part of ourselves, and this part can accept the unavoidable suffering of the lesser part. In this moment, things are what they are — reality is what it is — and even if efforts to change might have been possible at one time, it is too late now. Fighting against the suffering is useless. The only possibility is to accept the suffering and continue with our lives. However, this is not a passive or resigned acceptance. Part of acceptance of the present situation is accepting the possibility of change in the future, and of our responsibility to make efforts toward that end.
And now, having separated from the suffering and then eliminated or at least reduced the imaginary component of it and accepted the real suffering, we are ready for transformation. Transformation can be described as embracing our suffering, as actively and willingly choosing it. It involves seeing the suffering in the context of universal laws, of seeing its beauty. And obviously such things are not possible for an ordinary man. Whereas the preceding steps can be accomplished through work on ourselves, transformation requires the presence of a higher level, the level we call Divine Presence. In fact, they are two aspects of one thing: Divine Presences transforms suffering, and transformation produces Divine Presence.
At the same time, work toward transformation is one of the most useful tools for making Divine Presence possible. But it is not only suffering which can be transformed; beauty and pleasure can also be transformed into Divine Presence by the same techniques. However, because our lower selves assume that pleasure is theirs by right while suffering is something to be avoided or at least worked with, we must first learn to transform suffering. But the ultimate aim is to learn to transform our entire lives into one joyous expression of Divine Presence.
Girard Haven