There Is Suffering, What Now?

In my last post, Life Sucks, Then You Die, I wrote of the first of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths: to live is to suffer. Notably, the Buddha never said that to live is only to suffer. Suffering is part of this human experience, but there’s much more to life than pain, disappointment and discontentment. It’s also worth noting that the Buddha said, ‘Hey, there’s great suffering in this life, but we can do something about it. Liberated from suffering is possible.’ That’s not a direct quote, but you get the idea. Further, the Buddha taught us how to liberate ourselves and all others from this samsaric existence. The solution, my friends, is to follow a spiritual path.

Why Spiritual Sampling Perpetuates Suffering 

When I say ‘spiritual path,’ I’m not talking about choosing a religion. What I’m referring to is a system for developing a worldview that decenters your egoic self and connects you to your ‘true’ self. A path that brings you closer to the truth of reality, versus distracting you from it.

This path could be Buddhism or the yogic path, but also the path of a 12-step program, a shamanic path, mindfulness of the breath, a path of devotion to creativity, an exploration of mathematics, and so on. Whatever it is, the suggestion is to follow a single path, all the way through. This is very different from dabbling in spiritual practice, picking and choosing what we like from several paths. Many of us start by dating, and that’s perfectly ok. The real spiritual growth begins when we get married. 

We enjoy going to yoga classes, for example, and so we experiment with asana and sample different styles of yoga. We may dabble in breathwork, pranayama, or start up a meditation practice. As a yoga and meditation teacher, people often share with me their reasons for landing on a particular practice. Often, I hear them say the practices they do on a regular basis are those they find enjoyable or ‘easiest’ to do. People are drawn to practice trends, based on what certain ‘influencers’ (be they on social media or in your community) deem popular at the moment. In my particular bubble, the practice of the day is a ‘cacao ceremony.’

When people bristle at or make fun of the latest spiritual practice ‘trends,’ my sense is that’s a sign that your intuition, your gut feeling, has something to say. Much is lost when we pick and choose practices from larger spiritual traditions, especially when we pick and choose the practices that conflict the least with what our ego is attracted to at this moment, as not-yet-enlightened beings.

Are the spiritual practices we’re picking and choosing reinforcing an ego-driven identity, or are they challenging this ego-driven identity? Is our participation in whatever aspect of yoga we have attached to strengthening unhelpful patterns of behavior, or challenging us to move toward behaviors that benefit all?

For example, someone may be attracted to yoga asana because they came from an athletic background and can excel in a yoga class. It may not necessarily be easy for them, but with effort, they’ve been able to put their body into advanced yoga postures. This is fun and they enjoy the results. Because they’ve not participated in the complete path, however, feeling good about their yoga practice is dependent on them being the most skilled student in the room. They are self-critical and derive their self-worth by comparing themselves to others. 

If they get injured, they don’t handle it well. They get frustrated or angry, and when expressing these emotions, harm others. As their body ages and they begin to lose strength and flexibility, the battle against reality continues. Their practice moves them closer to dis-ease than health and ease as they increasingly push their body past what it can safely do in an effort to maintain control. They find less and less joy from the practice they’ve dedicated so many years to, and their low sense of self-worth only grows stronger. 

The yoga practice that once boosted this person’s ego no longer functions as a means of feeling good. All things change. A genuine yoga practice, one that embraces all eight limbs of yoga, prepares us for this truth. Genuine yoga teaches us to let go of attachment to the body, versus strengthening this attachment by solely focusing on all the cool things that a body can do.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche calls this picking and choosing Spiritual Materialism. In brief, this is the act of using a spiritual practice to get what the ego wants. The problem is, until we are awakened, we want all the wrong things. We don’t have very good pickers. When used in this manner, even a ‘spiritual practice’ can end up perpetuating our suffering.

The Benefit Of Going All In

To go all in on a single, authentic, spiritual path is to trust the process. It requires us to let go of control, to question what it is that we think we want, and to surrender to a higher power, who knows better than we do.

To go all in on a single, authentic, spiritual path is to take refuge in something other than our own unenlightened beliefs, ideas and habits. These are the beliefs, ideas and habits which have us searching in all the wrong places for that which will free us from pain and help us feel satisfied.

To go all in is to participate in the dance of trusting a teacher, a path, a map, a structure to guide us and strengthen our capacity to hear, listen to and follow the guide we have deep within.

Yes, we get to participate in the practices that come easily and bring joy without much effort, but when we’re all in we also participate in the practices that challenge our beliefs about who we think we are, what we think is worthy of pursuing, and where we think real contentment comes from.

When we’re all in on a single path, no stone is left unturned. Spiritual bypassing becomes harder to do. Our shadows and all that is hiding in the deepest, darkest place of our psyche will be excavated.

It’s only by going all in that true liberation is possible.

Is Your Practice Liberating?

I’d like to see yoga and meditation teachers speaking more intentionally about liberation; total freedom from the fluctuations of the mind. I think we are indeed moving in that direction. 

One benefit of the horrors we are witnessing today is that it no longer seems enough to practice yoga or meditation to feel calm and stress-free. The suffering we see in the world is demanding a more urgent response, one that cuts to the cause versus treating the symptoms. 

I like to think that in the yoga and meditation world, we’ve moved past ‘yoga for a beach body’ or ‘meditation for productivity’ practices that fully support capitalism, patriarchy and structures that cause harm. Yet we have to be ever-vigilant. Is the practice we’re doing to reduce stress, get rested and feel calm lulling us into a state of compliance, complacency? Making it possible for us to stay longer in a harmful situation? Or is it bringing our central nervous system back to a state of balance, so we can more clearly hear the call of liberation. 

Are we practicing so we can feel better about our participation in and compliance with oppressive harmful systems, or practicing so we can free ourselves and all others from such systems?

To participate in a practice that is fully liberating, we are called to follow our practice into the unknown, into uncharted territory, into the unexplored regions of our mind. We are called to step out of habit and do what we haven’t yet done, to be who we haven’t yet thought we could be. To do this, we need someone more experienced at the helm. We need a teacher who has been to the end of our chosen path, or in the least, has traveled much further ahead than we have. 

The process of liberation invites us to surrender to a trustworthy guide. 

So, Now What? 

Along the path of practice, it’s up to us to ask ourselves, is it working? What is the benefit of meditation, for example, other than getting better at meditation? How is this improving my life, my experience in this world, and the experience of all others? 

At first, we dabble and wonder if what we’re dabbling in offers us any relief from the pain of being human. At some point, if liberation is of interest, we might choose to stop dabbling and get serious. We might choose to follow - completely - that which has been working for us. Our next step, then, is to find a wise, compassionate teacher who can show us the maps that reveal the way. 

Along the way, we keep asking the question, does this feel of benefit to me and to all others? Is this person my teacher? We never give up agency by giving ourselves over to a guide, a path, a system.

If the practice is authentic, and we’re authentically practicing, we’ll start to catch glimpses of the liberation from suffering that is possible. Each glimpse motivation to continue, to go deeper, to explore further this - one - thing.

May you find yours.