How do we embrace ruin?
Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2018 7:50 am
The function of suffering is to loosen the grip on inadequate conceptions and encourage the ascension to a higher state of being. Without suffering people would not progress in any real sense; they would not feel any inclination to let go of insipid and shallow world-views and modes of being (feel free to voice disagreement). Luckily, suffering and dissatisfaction is intrinsic to these inadequate conceptions, which the Buddha discovered.
Nietzsche notably wished suffering for his friends as a kind of boon to them, encapsulated in the following quote:
“To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities—I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not—that one endures.”
I'm not exactly sure if Nietzsche by this recognized the transformative power of suffering or if he merely intended it as a test of character, but the invocation stuck with me.
On a similar note the Polish psychiatrist Kazimiers Dabrowski developed his theory of positive disintegration which captures the necessary role of suffering to make us truly human (something he meant the vast majority fails to ever become). He also recognzied a higher aptitude for suffering, i.e., high sensitivity, as a treasure of developmental potential since traits of overexcitabilities carries with them the possibility of a vastly accelerated disintegration.
Still, perhaps in part due to the prevalent views of suffering (not to mention sensitivity) as regressive, most people live their whole lives in the insipid and shallow mode of being, passive in the Spinozistic sense of being acted upon rather than expressing an inner standard to the world. This is not strange.
Suffering is unpleasant, after all. There is no way around that. If it is not unpleasant, it does not have the transformative potential to destroy the convoluted self.
Positive disintegration is transcendence of convention and the disintegration of the artificial persona which is animated in the ever-familiar unlife of stereotypes, and could possibly be likened to ego-death. It is also interesting to mention that the more reknown psychologist Abraham Maslow, who developed the often cited hierarchy of needs, was not satisfied with the pyramid model that we have become accustomed to seeing and which has "self-actualization" sitting at the top. In his later years he wished to add self-transcendence as a final and ultimate step on the pyramid, something which is fairly intuitive to people who have frequently been consumed by peak experiences (the spiritually evolved).
Achieving this final step would be to abide in a "plateau" experience. In a sense, it is freedom from "self"-actualization.
But what has to be cleared away, and how? The subtle crux is of course that the person who sets out to experience ego-death is already divided against himself, since it is the ego that packs the bags and expects to go on the journey. The process leading up to ego-death, I suppose, is necessarily intensely painful. Otherwise the ego would persist. It is in fact when the ego itself is too painful -- that is, cannot bear its own weight anymore -- that it sinks away. From exhaustion, pain and surrender. To make matters worse there is of course the risk of simply developing a sick and crippled ego and go on to languish until death.
This, of course, presents us with the problem that I wished to discuss. How does one consciously tread this path? Is it destined to be a naïve enterprise that could, as if by accident, lead to success? -- that is, we can begin a process which we will inevitably and perhaps frequently regret before it is done with us. I cannot see how the ego could be anything but the somewhat unwitting architect of its own demise.
Nor is it uncommon that seekers of enlightenment balk and abandon the path because it demands too much, which they willingly confess. Yes, it demands everything.
Nietzsche notably wished suffering for his friends as a kind of boon to them, encapsulated in the following quote:
“To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities—I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not—that one endures.”
I'm not exactly sure if Nietzsche by this recognized the transformative power of suffering or if he merely intended it as a test of character, but the invocation stuck with me.
On a similar note the Polish psychiatrist Kazimiers Dabrowski developed his theory of positive disintegration which captures the necessary role of suffering to make us truly human (something he meant the vast majority fails to ever become). He also recognzied a higher aptitude for suffering, i.e., high sensitivity, as a treasure of developmental potential since traits of overexcitabilities carries with them the possibility of a vastly accelerated disintegration.
Still, perhaps in part due to the prevalent views of suffering (not to mention sensitivity) as regressive, most people live their whole lives in the insipid and shallow mode of being, passive in the Spinozistic sense of being acted upon rather than expressing an inner standard to the world. This is not strange.
Suffering is unpleasant, after all. There is no way around that. If it is not unpleasant, it does not have the transformative potential to destroy the convoluted self.
Positive disintegration is transcendence of convention and the disintegration of the artificial persona which is animated in the ever-familiar unlife of stereotypes, and could possibly be likened to ego-death. It is also interesting to mention that the more reknown psychologist Abraham Maslow, who developed the often cited hierarchy of needs, was not satisfied with the pyramid model that we have become accustomed to seeing and which has "self-actualization" sitting at the top. In his later years he wished to add self-transcendence as a final and ultimate step on the pyramid, something which is fairly intuitive to people who have frequently been consumed by peak experiences (the spiritually evolved).
Achieving this final step would be to abide in a "plateau" experience. In a sense, it is freedom from "self"-actualization.
But what has to be cleared away, and how? The subtle crux is of course that the person who sets out to experience ego-death is already divided against himself, since it is the ego that packs the bags and expects to go on the journey. The process leading up to ego-death, I suppose, is necessarily intensely painful. Otherwise the ego would persist. It is in fact when the ego itself is too painful -- that is, cannot bear its own weight anymore -- that it sinks away. From exhaustion, pain and surrender. To make matters worse there is of course the risk of simply developing a sick and crippled ego and go on to languish until death.
This, of course, presents us with the problem that I wished to discuss. How does one consciously tread this path? Is it destined to be a naïve enterprise that could, as if by accident, lead to success? -- that is, we can begin a process which we will inevitably and perhaps frequently regret before it is done with us. I cannot see how the ego could be anything but the somewhat unwitting architect of its own demise.
Nor is it uncommon that seekers of enlightenment balk and abandon the path because it demands too much, which they willingly confess. Yes, it demands everything.