Can joy and suffering exist at the same time?

Buddhist tradition suggests that suffering is a choice.  One may be wounded, but one need not suffer from the wound. 

Not any easy practice. In Buddhism, isn't "all life suffering?" I don't think not suffering is an easy thing to achieve for the most disciplined Buddhists.

It also talks about personal suffering as a path to compassion, that we must embrace rather than block out.

I think sometimes it's beyond our control, at least initially. We need to process suffering, even if we choose it. That's never painless. Sometimes when we carry others' burdens we suffer, compassionately with them.

Buddhism is a highly complex path that takes many years of study, I know only a very small bit of it ...  here is a story that resonates for me ..  copied from The Accidental Buddhist - http://accidentalbuddhist.tumblr.com/

 

“The Buddha once asked a student, “If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful?” The student replied, “It is.”The Buddha then asked, “If the person is struck by a second arrow, is that even more painful?” The student replied again, “It is.” The Buddha then explained, “In life, we cannot always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional.”
As long as we are alive, we can expect painful experiences- the first arrow. To condemn, judge, criticize, hate, or deny the first arrow is like being struck by a second arrow. Many times the first arrow is out of our control, but the arrow of reactivity is not.
Often the significant suffering associated with an emotion is not the emotion itself but the way we relate to it.Do we feel it to be unacceptable? Justified? Do we hate it? Feel pride in it? Are we ashamed of it? Do we tense around it? Are we ashamed of how we are feeling?
Mindfulness itself does not condemn our emotions. Rather it is honestly aware of what happens to us and how we react to it.The more cognizant and familiar we are with our reactivity the more easily we can feel, for example, uncomplicated grief or straightforward joy not mixed up with guilt, anger, remorse, embarrassment, judgment, or other reactions. Freedom in Buddhism is not freedom from emotions, it is freedom from complicating them.” Gil Fronsdahl, “The Matter at Hand”

I agree. I am not talking about suffering with anger (although nobody's perfect- I think MLK's 'righteous anger kept him going. Although a student of Gandhi's work he was far more 'firey'). I just mean, when others are sad, we're sad. When others hurt, we hurt. And that's okay. To be with their pain. Hold it with them, go through it with them. Sometimes, go through it for them. In the case of an advocate speaking for the voiceless. Sometimes we will bear the brunt of others' feelings towards them, for them, because they will be turned toward us by extension. Sometimes, that will have consequences in our own lives- and then we deal with that.

Hi Kimmio,

 

 

Pain or distress.  Standard dictionary understanding.

 

 

Anything that leads to pain or distress creates suffering.  It isn't so much a who or a how thing as it is a what thing.

 

Some pain and distress is the result of my choices or my actions.  Some pain and distress is a result of the choices made by and/or actions taken by others.

 

 

Yes.

 

Grace and peace to you.

John

Hi Kimmio,

 

 

Sure.

 

Not usually on the same plane though  I can endure physical pain and distress and at the same time feel joy in the fact that by doing so I prevent others from experiencing the same.

 

We have the ability to experience things physically and emotionally at the same time and the event can trigger different responses on different levels.

 

It gets messy.  It is certainly possible.

 

Grace and peace to you.

John

Life is a pain in the ass ... as an indirect cause of those that would like us not to be intelligent. There is only one way out that is out of our hands.

 

Caesar demanded full control (avarice) some years ago when stressing the need to power birth and death ... the sheep of this world followed the role ... thus it is journalled in the logue ... LOG-OS? The power of the myth in Hebrew ... an Aaron issue about Muses ...

 

You couldn't say such things under absolute control ... as thinking was  pain in the ass to the comptroller ... the eternal Matthew? Go figure ...

 

Suffering, to me, is the suffering of the mind. It is in what we think. Physical pain is just pain.

 

Pain and joy can exist at the same time. But the suffering of the mind (depression) is, I think, the very antithesis of joy.

 

 

 

 

The goal is to be detached. To be mindful of the suffering, but to control how we react to it. By doing so, we cease to contribute to the suffering (the cessation of grasping that is the third noble truth) and can, out of compassion, help others achieve similar release. Bodhisattva's, for instance, are enlightened individuals who, out of compassion, stop short of Nirvana and remain active in the world to help others achieve enlightenment. That's very broad, but it's basically where Buddhism goes on this issue. And, yes, Buddhism requires qreat discipline since it is a works-based "salvation". Believing in God and Jesus, as faith-based Christianity demands, can be easier though if one goes the next stop of living Christ's way (forgiving enemies, giving up comfort to help others, etc.), it can also be challenging.

 

Mendalla

 

Can you imagine thy's ole tripping off detached from the spirit ... mental schzoid or just divined love without thoughts attached ... no myths, metaphor, or un-conscious dimensions whatsoever ... full cognizance of all things (good , bad, or ugly) a state that would drive those that didn't wish to know right over the Lost Horizon as if there were no end to ITs turndown ratio ... as sort of rational-irrationality ... if you can get a grip of that perhaps you can put absolute and abstract together and get a mind phttt fo mellowing ... like a Australian being on top of things down-under!

 

You think I'm crazy ... have you looked at some of the conceptions and meditative sticklers that exist in this place? Alost like poke'in the Pi Guise ... being there are those the still belive truth is flat out ... when it a bent by nature of the space we live in ... profoundly warped!

There is, in Buddhism as well as Christianity, the transformative or transcendental suffering that leads to ego death and opens the door to enlightenment or nirvavna: the experience and awareness that we are not the separate ego individual that we thought we were, but an integral part of a greater and godly whole.

 

Then suffering is transcended through suffering.

Didn't Jesus refuse to ease his suffering on the cross when offered? I wonder why?

 

 

 

I think this is a example or metaphor for going through with one's suffering, right to the very bottom or end of it, right to the ego death that is necessary to end suffering.

 

 

 

 

 

Or, if you are going for a more atonement-oriented reading (which I don't), the purpose of Christ suffering is to take on our suffering so easing his own suffering would kind of defeat the purpose.

 

Mendalla

 

I don't go for the atonement-oriented reading either.

 

I spell "atonement" with two hyphens: "at-one-ment!"

Makes you wonder why sinning sometimes feels so good. :)

I agree with this Arminius.   I think that sometimes people are referring to hardship, pain, poverty etc. - and I would call these states.  They are.  Whether psychologically people convert these to "suffering" is optional, and takes place in the mind. 

 

This is what I referred to upthread Kimmio, when I commented that many on your list would possibly not describe themselves as "suffering" - living in a state of hardship, yes; living with illness, yes; living in poverty, yes; feeling scared, yes;  experiencing pain, yes;  but these do not automatically infer a psychological suffering - to me at least.  That is up to the individual in the situation and we cannot assume or predict who will go which route in terms of their responses. 

 

It's the word that trips us up I think - many interpretations & assumptions.  For example, in old English - "suffer" means to allow or permit - as in the King James Bible verse "suffer the little children to come unto me."  Quite different from some present day interpretations of the word. 

We often use the words "S/he 'suffers from'__illness." I think depression, for me at least, can be relative to what's going on (no, not trying to open up that debate, no worries carolla). Like, I can feel depressed because my body hurts, and vice versa, or depressed because of what's going on in the news, or because of some unavoidable personal issue I have to go through, grief. But, I can also feel moments of joy glimmering through- knowing that there is still good in the world, seeing beauty in the sun glimmering through the cherry blossoms. Those other things, they exist and we suffer through them, we come out on the other side of them, maybe a little scarred as and we learn from that, but they can exist simultaneously with joy, IMO- even if the suffering is a struggle. Think of when you are sick, and someone brings you flowers, or a treat, or tells you jokes at the bedside. Suffering and joy simultaneously.

How about if you re-read your post above, and substitute "experiences" for "suffers" - how does it change it for you?    

 

That "suffers from ____ illness" is a common phrase - but it doesn't describe everyone's experience. For example, Qwerty has written here in the past about "living with illness" rather than fighting it or suffering with it. 

Matthew, Mark and Luke make "suffering" an important part of their description of Jesus' rejection and crucifixion. Paul (in numerous letters), James and Peter also write about suffering - the suffering of Jesus, of the apostles, of Christians. My impression is that the letters make it clear that suffering should not come as a surprise to those who follow Jesus, who should endure it patiently as he did.

There are many references to particular examples of suffering. Skimming quickly, they seem to fall within the normal dictionary meaning of "suffer" or "suffering". 

Waterfall

Re: Jesus suffering on the cross there is a school of thought among some Christians that if Jesus is ( or was) divine... or if he was or is truly God ..he would not suffer in the way or in the  same sense that the average humans do. As Arminius might say his mind would be elevated beyond the primitive act of suffering. Of course that defeats the purpose of atonement  as it is  understood by some Christians, or it does to some degree.

 

@Kimmio

 

For a time back in the 70ès I had been reading a lot of Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy who is the founder of Christian Science. Its like your take on positive thinking meaning its good but it has its drawbacks. She writes that we get sick  and suffer physically because we see ( and hear)  sickness all around us on the TV etc. so that our minds are saturated with thoughts of  various illnesses, meds we may think we need  etc.  In this sense  she would say we bring our own suffering upon ourselves regarding our health. There is some truth ( not all truth) in her ideas.

 

 

I like this, well said.

Because by placing His personality on the alter, Christ willingly subjected Himself to the "fires of perfection", where out of the dross He would rise like a phoenix. He knew the fire was necessary to burn away the impermanent. He willing accepted the pain and suffering.

Okay. But living with it or experiencing it doesn't mean it's not painful- even if we can compartmentalize it and it's a dull pain in the background not a sharp accute pain anymore. Like grief, that bittersweetness of looking at a photograph of past times with loved ones who are no longer around. I think that's still suffering, no matter if we aknowledge it or not. And the suffering will be stronger as we live our way through to that place of acceptance- like, okay, I have___ chronic illness that causes pain and I miss what I used to do, but I can appreciate life's small pleasures- perhaps even moreso and that's good. I'm grateful for that.

Are you two saying that the one way to suffer is to be depressed?

Delete. Oops. That question was for Arm.

Was reading about Red Cross because of another thread and came across a quote by Florence Nightingale: " Suffering lifts it's victim above normal values. While suffering endures there is neither good nor bad, valuable nor invaluable, enemy nor friend. The victim has passed to a region beyond human classification or moral judgments, and his suffering is a sufficient claim."

http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/Museum-and-archives/Histo...

She also said: "There is no part of my life upon which I can look back without pain."

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/florence_nightingale/

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale

Is the Joey of pain elle earned process? That would be eL earned in the masculine genre, a motivational experience of putting together that previously abba'd generation? Such is illustration of separation of the heart ... makes it grow stronger ...

 

Such things are dark as Ur chi'z that altered to Herchy's as an amercan brand to extract wealth form e' louver that you find a'lover dah place ... and can't think and thus believe themselves unconceived of ...

 

Nothing should be over dunne though, or you could end up with verminous thoughts that are orange red as copperplate and coated with san ... verily gritty! That's the word as LOGOS! An intuitive truth found expressed in abstract ... that's black!

 

Enough to get eM bouncing down under ... you know soude of reality a virtual world of aborininal comprehension of things out of here ... dream time?

 

Mortal men usually scro' up like Ebenezer so they can be nailed down  as Romance/Romans does ... usually causes chaos or mental confusion that the Hebrew called citii! Once you know this stuff your cool and the emotional considers you nerdish ... a substantial blob to be impaled with a thread and thus become wicci'd ... a line giving off light? That is a an impossible legacy for those pious on the concept of not learning nothing ... the origins of positive reality as compared to the other's ID ... with a bit of graft from the neighbour's tree ... cross polity allowing for the means and mediums allowing Mrs Hype Squirrels higher ways and routes ...

I like Gibran on this. Here is a bit, not precise, from memory:
.
"Suffering is a knife that carves a cup to hold our joy."
.
George
.

I'm betting all these things were written after the suffering ended.

Hi waterfall...

 

Do you think? There is a song called "It is well with my soul", which I seem to remember was written at the very heart of suffering. Some other here may know the story.

 

I once cared for a retired professor of Old Testament Theology. He had a cancer in his brain, which gradually destroyed his quick and agile mind. There were occasional lucid moments, fleeting but sharp and clear.

 

In such moments I would frame a question which could be answered very briefly. One day, in such a moment, I asked: "If you could preach one more sermon, what would you call it?" With no hesitation, he looked me in the eye and answered: "The goodness of God."

 

I dug up Gibran's book, "The Prophet", and here is the whole of the bit I poorly quoted:

 

"Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow. And he answered: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be?

 

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

 

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

 

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

 

Some of you say, Joy is greater than sorrow, and others say, Nay, sorrow is the greater. But I say unto you, they are inseparable. together they come, and when one sits alone with at your board, remember that the other is asleep on your bed.

 

Verily you are suspended like scales between you sorrow and your joy. Only when you empty are you at standstill and balanced.

 

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your silver rise or fall."

 

A common creation story notices that the creator surveys all things and pronounces them very good. This is followed by persons choosing to step out of the "all good" creation and into the realm of dividing the "good" from the "evil". A realm commonly expressed as "I (and we) am right and you (and yours) are wrong".

 

And so the history of human conflict within each person, between persons, between groups of persons and  between persons and creation.

 

We dance as shadows in the realm of light and this too is very good.

 

George

 

 

Such is the following intelligence ... for one cannot think when in an emotional state!

 

Why many authorities prefer to remain in an emotional state ... saves them from Canans of reflection, a natural thing as action/reaction ... a science denied by monotheists that prefer not knowing .. thus you can walk all over the wee demons on your road to success that may not be all it appears to be.

 

Then on the other hand to monotheists are appearnces everything ... they never contemplate the unseen? There is a certain de void sense there ... rapture?

 

Then there is the concept of the Erse Skye spirit ... bleu lady? Now which is warmer the red lass or the bleu kohl one ... and the LOGOS just lies there I'n yah ... silently conjuring ...

 

Can a mortal dimension raise or cultivate ath aught from this? Tis an ethereal case or r'eirer than a mis Pelt  and formless word ... begs the imagination ... as when looking on the pagebuoy ... nothing there but Shadows ... but they may represent something wholly different and yet un experienced ... like vermilion sects? Bloody awesome ... those with their brains scro'd out would say nothing to wit ... they wouldn't catch on to the wonder of it aL ... an overhead sensation that escaped the bode an thingy ... as simply mind blowing as the KISS Prin of Occum ... a real edge tuit, that Circe as hazy disgorse ... pill'r talk?

Some people do not believe in Plato's Intercourse ... when the feet (soles) come together (toe to toes) for communion that's out of here ... leading to fallacy or fallout of that heavenly state ...

 

It does have metaphors about the denied intelligence demanded by Roman stoicism in which common people should not think nor love ... such is bad for Roman business ... primarily war ... and by appearances we follow along blindly ...

 

The republican aura of sheep with wool over their eyes? In states like this sheepishness about intelligence is contageous ... sort of a mental dis ease ... but don't tell anyone people are crazy ... they get pathelogical about being told what they really believe ... then the light of their rare intelligence recesses and all you see is darkness over the face of the deep ... thus the humble ness of love as god ... sort of out-of-here ... some that looka this from outside the Christian Circe say that god as Love is dead ... which is nigh truth or virtually real ...

Pathology is a tremendously interesting study that involves ontology from both ends ... being in the midst of polity (extremes) is like walking a thin red line ... you must approach it from way out there ... infinitely ... like near not living or the Y's route of Hebrews as  a voice of wisdom from something well-laid out and devoid (abstract) some people just don't have the heart for it deire! The desire for answers and knowledge ... at one time called philosophy that is hated by many in institutional settings because pathological characters tend towards destructive analysis instead of synthetic syntac ...

 

The Sufi scholar states that this is like Shadows moving across the page as th' inque'n spreads ... sometimes that silent form can spaek to the sensitive ... like a creepy sound myth as Shifting Whispering San's ...(san; without, ie as intelligence outside the emotional bodé, as alien code). This was strange enough for a lot of Roman authorities that were illiterate ... as bis-hop-ricks ... within which circle KJ fell ... although the lie holds, in the AV that he was infallable ... as a representative of God but not wisdom ... that was just devilish to those of belief in free wiles ...

Thanks, George.

I'm thinking of blues music and country music traditions, and folk singers song writers- Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell- so many others. They have to be in touch with suffering to make that music- but it's a joy. I'm quite sure joy and pain are there side by side and I can feel it just listening to it. I connect with that the most. Here's someone named Kelly Joe Phelps. He sings traditional Delta Blues in the Robert Johnson style too.

Ooh. Not the version I wanted. Poignant though. He was having a rough night.

This one. It's called River Rat Jimmy and Jehoshaphat, allegory about a childhood friend who died

 

The short answer is "yes"—if one defines suffering as psychological suffering, not as experiencing pain. If one defines suffering as experiencing pain, then experiencing pain is suffering.

 

When, in Buddhism, they say one can get beyond suffering and attain Nirvana in the here-and-now, then they mean psychological suffering, or the suffering of the mind. A person who is enlightened in that sense no longer experiences psychological suffering but still experiences pain.

 

 

The only sickness is the sickness of the mind.

-Lao Tsu

 

Here's another one called Carpenter.

Posted those because I hear and feel joy through songs of lament. I think it's possible to 'suffer' and feel joy at once- and they both get 'poured out' in the music, through the music. Sort of like what Peter Rollins said in his video on another thread- he said every worship service should include one break up song.

Arminius, I disagree.  I have physical symptoms.  They prevent me from doing things that I enjoy at times, and cause worry.  At times I feel that I am psychologically suffering, but it doesn't mean I'm depressed.

 

I have a tough time that psychological suffering means that someone must be depressed, and conversely, is someone isn't depressed then they can't be suffering psychologically.

I don't believe that having some psychological suffering is a bad thing to be avoided. We learn from it, we empathize with others by it and connect, I think at a deep level of our humanity, that way, we grow out of it (from it). Grief, for example, is normal. If totally incapacitated by it for too long, that's a problem.

I keep seeing the expression "First World Problems" maybe it requires some personal suffering, in the psychological/ depressive sense, to be able to empathize with Third World problems.

Hi Kimmio,

 

Nice observations. In what seems a contradiction, the blues liberated much joy among many well acquainted with grief.

 

I remember my first hearing of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". This at a time when life seemed wholly turned against my hopes. The song brought me through the depth of my lonely sense of abandonment and into the joyous realization that I was not alone.

 

George

 

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

       -  Leonard Cohen

 

 

 

 

Well, chemgal, I don't know where to draw the line between psychological suffering and depression. The two are much the same to me, but other people may regard them as distinctly different.

 

Where do you draw the line?

 

I'm not qualified to make that diagnosis, but in a general sense I would say that depression is it's own condition, whereas psychological suffering can just be a symptom of other things.

This is where the debate can get dicey (heads up to carolla ;) ). I think it can be either or at times, and both/ and at others. I don't think it's simple. I think it's difficult for people to seperate if their depression is situational or chemical because even if it is chemical it's more than likely to involve depressive circumstances- may be precipitated or triggered, or compounded by them (say, if you're not able to function and relationships suffer). Like, compounded by loss, grief or poverty so it's chicken and egg, 'which came first?' IMO. But I'm not qualified except by personal experience. Having been diagnosed before with depression, and having worked my way through it at other times, they certainly can feel the same. A real depressive episode feels like the load is heavier and the road is longer- otherwise similar- is a metaphor I would use

I agree it can be both Kimmio.  Factors can also be a trigger for a disease/condition as well.  Ie. A strep infection can be a trigger for psoriasis, but once the infection is gone, the psoriasis remains.  Someone doesn't need to have an infection to develop psoraisis.  Someone can have a skin condition from an infection, but the psoriasis is separate from the infection.