Suffering

I'm an odd duck. My degrees are in chemistry, clinical psychology, and theology. The rational part of my brain always seems to be in conflict with my emotional and spiritual side. Although I've learned to live with this oftentimes uncomfortable dichotomy, I've never really been able to embrace it.

But that may be changing.

Recently, I've been working my way through an interesting book called "Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian" by Paul Knitter (who happens to be the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture at Union Theological Seminary in NYC).

Because the book is so dense and the Buddhist concepts so unfamiliar to me (I was raised in the Jewish-Christian tradition), I find that I read and re-read just a single page at a time, and then need to go and do something else. I need the time to process and mull over the new insights that the book presents to me. Despite my natural tendency toward impatience, I am trying to honor the spirit and the teaching of the book in order to use what I can to better myself. And so, like Roethke, I "take my waking slow."

Anyway, early on, Knitter presents Buddha's first sermon, the contents of which are the "Four Noble Truths." The truths are as follows:

1. Suffering comes up in everyone's life.
2. This suffering is caused by craving.
3. We can stop suffering by stopping craving.
4. To stop craving, follow Buddha's 8-fold path (which basically consists of living a moral life by avoiding harm to others and following a spiritual path based on meditation).

So I tried to apply these truths -- or at least, the first three of them -- to my life as it exists with RA. And this is what I came up with:

1. My suffering comes from the pain caused by RA.
2. I crave/desire/want to be pain-free.
3. I can stop my suffering by quashing my desire to be pain-free. I just have to figure out how to do this. Hopefully, the book will point me in the right direction.

At any rate, from what I've read so far, it seems to me that serenity and a lack of suffering might be possible through "simple" acceptance of what is. I find the idea appealing.

I've been in pain for 4 years and been diagnosed for just two. So RA is still relatively new for me. But I wonder if acceptance gets easier and if suffering somehow loses some of its prominence and focus over time. That's my hope, anyway.

Comments

[Wren]

I don't know much about Buddhism, but the things I HAVE read indicate, to me, that this "simplicity" is really very complex, in that as humans we find it very difficult to live in the moment, in the NOW. Acceptance of pain is necessary for peace of mind, but it doesn't remove the pain -- only the mental turmoil. Perhaps that's what Buddha meant?

What I've found, over many years of coping with RA, is that pain never really loses its prominence in my mind. I accept that I have the disease, and that there's only so much that can be done to mitigate the pain and other debilitating effects, but the pain itself is the same with or without my acceptance. It's generally front and center.

What's different now, versus when I was first diagnosed, is the understanding that the pain and inflammation waxes and wanes. That sometimes it's very intense, and sometimes it's as if the affected joint has a dull headache. It's comforting to know that yes, there will be relief, eventually. And that's even though I know that the pain will be back again some other time, perhaps much sooner than I'd like.

Did that make any sense? Now I'm all confused. ;o)

I hope you'll be feeling good this weekend. There's certainly nothing wrong with striving for a state of grace regarding RA. Accepting and working through the flares are always going to be less stressful and upsetting than fighting them.
-Wren

[Kim H]

Oh, I agree that the simplicity is very complex -- and perhaps that's part of the attraction of it for me: If I'm trying to figure out something so "simple," I won't be thinking about my pain. One of the tricks of hypnosis (to which I, happily, am susceptible) for pain is to concentrate on a body part that is not currently in pain as a way to dial down its character or severity. It seems to me that Buddhism is similar, in a way, to this approach.

Anyway, I'll let you know as I wend my way through it. It will certainly take me a while!