Life is Pain

LIFE IS PAIN

There is a common theme which can be found throughout the world’s great religions and practices of spirituality expressed in the phrase:

“Life is pain.”

The Pali Canon, or “Tipitaka” of Buddism is one of the most profound; wherein it is written:

Cape Cod Marathon, 1999

“The Noble Truth of Suffering is this: Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering; sorrows and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; association with the unpleasant is suffering, dissociation from the pleasant is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering – in short, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering.”

The Judeo/Christian Holy Bible includes this nugget of truth from its Book of Wisdom:

“And I too, when born, inhaled the common air, and fell upon the kindred earth; wiling, I uttered that first sound common to all.”

And from an ancient letter to a one “Lucilius” from the Roman philosopher “Seneca” comes this happy little tidbit:

Things will get thrown at you and things will hit you. Life’s no soft affair. It’s a long road you’ve started on: you can’t but expect to have slips and knocks and falls, and get tired, and openly wish – a lie – for death.

When you take some time to think about it, I mean REALLY sit down and focus on the idea, you might start to wonder quietly to yourself: “What is the point of living?”

If life is pain, why suffer so?

It’s a fair question and one which I’m sure countless human beings have pondered since they first gained the ability to ponder.

My thoughts on the matter are clear and best demonstrated in the final miles of a marathon as encapsulated in the belief that:

“Pain is a condition which must be accepted and overcome.”

I see several “raisons d'être”, greater and more effective than death, with which to overcome the pain of life:

FAITH

Simply put, I believe that life is a condition of our experience in this “now”.  I can’t accept (although I’ve tried) that our existence is finite and without purpose.  I would happily talk to you of my understanding and belief in God and the divinity and promise of Christ…but in more general terms: I believe in the sanctity of human life.

John Michael, age 2 hours

I do not feel that life is something you should treat as unimportant or trivial.  If life is pain, then we have to have faith that there’s a purpose for all this suffering.  Confidence in Gods love (or the importance of love in any measure from any source) is powerful enough, in my mind, to accept and overcome the pain of life.

Faith in that love and the sanctity of life is a force that can overcome anything.

ART

Though “rotten” with pain, life can also be beautiful, of course.  And it’s no frivolous fact that life offers the experience of beauty. I am a firm believer in this daily exercise which I BEG you to incorporate into your daily life:

Experience something beautiful every day.

When you’re in the final miles of a marathon with your body weak, your mind filled with negativity and your feet, legs and arms suffering in pain; you must consider how beautiful the finish line will be: with the cheering crowds, the happy-exhausted fellow runners, the satisfaction of having finished and the medal to wear around your neck.

Your running is your art, and in finishing your marathon you have composed a never to be duplicated masterpiece.

After a really bad day at work with the pressure and tension seeping into your soul; to enjoy a perfectly balanced Argentinean glass of Malbec from the Mendoza  Province is to experience something of beauty.  It is the artistic expression of the wine maker, who worked through long painful and sleepless hours to cultivate, harvest and ferment the wine you’re savoring.

Beauty can be found in the company of your family.  Art can be experienced in the failing rays of a sunset.  Pain can be made bearable every day when we stop to smell the flowers and appreciate, even for a few moments, something of beauty.

FRIENDSHIP

Yes: life is pain and the world is cruel.  We are born into this world screaming and gasping with our first breaths and experience the trials and tribulations of humanity for the entire duration of our short lives.  But we need not experience this alone.

Sunset seen from my back porch

If life was a roller coaster ride; I mean one of those GIANT FREAKIN’ loopy gut churning hypersonic mach-five5 eyeballs-in-the-back-of-your-throat roller coaster rides on wooden rails where you had to be at least five foot six inches tall and have a doctors note and a signed waiver of responsibility before you could climb aboard; I wonder how many souls might want to take a spin?

Clearly there would have to be some overwhelming benefit to suffering such abuse; and while the promises of faith and beauty are tempting lures to get us to stand in that line for the “ride of our life”; I’m thinking that the concept of love is something worthy of any suffering we might experience.

In accepting and overcoming the pains of life, it’s the power of friendly relationships with other human beings who share in your suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune which will help you to focus attention on the art and beauty around us.

UBI AMOR, IBI DOLOR

If life is pain then acceptance is the key to overcoming our suffering.  Faith, Art and Friendship are all fair trade-offs, each providing a worthy purpose to the pain of life.

I’m not telling you something that you didn’t already know.  Consider this just a friendly reminder.

We have passed the vernal equinox, and in the northern hemisphere life is blooming, bringing beauty back to the world.  But while we rejoice in the melting of snow and the longer, warmer days where we can run and play and enjoy the outdoors, it’s important to remember that purpose, beauty and friendship can be found even on the coldest days and the darkest nights.

Where there is love, there is pain.

I say BRING IT ON.

Steve Runner
April 13th, 2011