Overcoming Suffering (Part 4): All Roads Lead Within

“There is no such thing as peace of mind.” – David Carse, ‘Perfect, Brilliant, Stillness’

The impetus behind this blog has always been to share, as honestly as possible, my search to understand and overcome this thing called suffering – a subject that can take on a particular poignancy at this time of year. I never imagined the blog would last very long – just until I was able to overcome my own suffering and then “move on with life.”

But something peculiar started to emerge during all the vision quests, ayahuasca, meditation, energy work, sweat lodges, meditations, psychotherapy, etc. – the suffering never really went away, it just changed form. It was like a game of ‘whack-a-mole’ – no sooner was one form of suffering done away with than another would pop up to take its place.

In a sense, as I emerged from that Vision Quest in 2006, I imagined I was on the road to recovery when, in truth, I was plunging headlong into a kind of futile search without end. Sure enough, by the time I returned home my depression had deepened. I’d used my silver bullet, and now something ‘more’ was needed. Ayahuasca in the Amazon would be next and, not surprisingly, my depression intensified even more.

It was starting to become clear that suffering wasn’t this ‘thing’ I could get my arms (or mind) around and ‘cure.’ The more I read, listened and watched others talk about their own solutions for depression, anxiety and suffering, the more I smelled bullshit. I knew that if I waited long enough, cracks would appear in those rosy facades, and they always did.

This is the point where I suspect a lot of searchers fall into a despondency from which they never recover. The mind, trained as it is to look outside itself for answers, grows despondent when therapy, drugs, New Age alchemy, God, etc., fail to fix what ails it. Eventually the mind collapses under the collective weight of its own aptly-named “depression.” It gives up.

The Path Within

In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus urges the seeker to “seek until you find.” But he (and other mystics) take pains to point in one direction only: within.

And really, is there any other truth that can be trusted? Isn’t trust in the counsel or wisdom or well-intentioned offerings of another merely ‘faith’ or ‘belief’? It may be true for them, but how can it be true for you? And what, really, does it mean to have faith or believe? Again, it’s just more mind conditioning, yet another example of looking outside for what ails us on the inside.

There is only one territory truly unknown to us all and it is that place beyond the mind, beyond all of that inherited garp each of us collects from parents, siblings, teachers, peers, friends, the media, culture, etc. In essence, all any of us are is a gigantic bundle of hand-me-down thoughts and theories from others. Even the language we use to think and speak and search is inherited, taught to us by others. When you strip all of it away, what is left of the “I” upon which the universe seemingly is centered?

To seek until I find, to turn within, meant to question EVERYTHING. What, for example, did it mean to suffer? Who is it that suffers? And suffering aside, who am I?

Something profound started to emerge because the more I looked the more it became apparent that “I” and suffering were inextricably linked. Suddenly, the first of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths – life is suffering – started to make sense. It wasn’t that I was unfamiliar with the statement. It’s just that my brain had translated it into, “Life can be difficult at times.” But the Buddha didn’t say phases or chapters or parts of life are difficult. He didn’t say “Mondays suck but Fridays are awesome.” He said life is suffering. All of it.

So the question: Why had my mind warped the message? Because the mind has its own version of reality and, when it comes to the notion that life is suffering, it vehemently disagrees. It thinks about all the ‘good times’ it has had, the terrific dinners or dreamy vacations, the gorgeous sunrises and the passionate lovemaking, the joyous laughter and breathless adventures and it insists, “See, life can be very good. The key is to work hard, be good, and overcome the bad stuff as quickly as possible.”

It is the same reason countless human minds have bastardized the mystical messages behind all great spiritual traditions, why the Gospel of Thomas (which does not call for any church, holy men, or scriptures to run interference for us with God) was removed from the Bible and hidden away in caves. The mind cannot abide a message that says the truth lies beyond mind, beyond the outside world. The mind MUST remain in charge.

To be continued….