It’s OK To Suffer (Surrender)

Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego. The man on the cross is an archetypal image. He is every man and every woman. As long as you resist suffering, it is a slow process because the resistance creates more ego to burn up. When you accept suffering, however, there is an acceleration of that process which is brought about by the fact that you suffer consciously. You can accept suffering for yourself, or you can accept it for someone else, such as your child or parent. In the midst of conscious suffering, there is already the transmutation. The fire of suffering becomes the light of consciousness.

The ego says, “I shouldn’t have to suffer,” and that thought makes you suffer so much more. It is a distortion of the truth, which is always paradoxical. The truth is that you need to say yes to suffering before you can transcend it.

- Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

I came to New York, to destroy my weak, fearful, sexless, underachieving self.

I came with the explicit mindset that I was going to Win or Die. Those were the only acceptable outcomes. (Only now do I realize how much I miss that mindset, extreme and ego-driven as it is)

Carrying that energy, that strength of will, along with the help of all of the friends and allies I made along the way…I feel like I succeeded. I went from couch-surfing for basically an entire year, getting rejected from developer positions left and right, moving through intense, maddening frustration to finally experiencing self-reliance.

Now I sleep in a bed, in an apartment with good friends. I have wonderful sexual experiences. I feel more and more creatively and spiritually expressed as the days go by and I explore my love of dance, writing, contemplation, singing, and as of late acting.

Despite all of the wonder and triumph in my life, I’ve been going through…well…if i’m being honest with myself, an existential crisis. After resolving my insecurities around my ability to evolve, and my fear of being my authentic, sexual self, combined with being liberated from my job…I found myself adrift, as I mentioned in my article Embracing The Void.

As months of willful unemployment have gone by, Life has been burning away the false identity i’d been clinging to. The great pride I felt in having a steady, substantial income, annihilated by reality. The security I so greatly valued, washed away. Easy come, easy go…

In exchange, Life, as of today has given me a new gift, a new superpower…or, well, maybe an old one. One that I forgot how to use in the midst of my triumphs and new found comfort. Or maybe I never really understood it due to my rage and my pride veiling it from me.

What I have rediscovered today is The Will to Suffer. More commonly known as Surrender.

I realized today in my contemplations and with the help of the fantastic A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, that I’ve been scared shitless lately.

I know, deep in my heart, it’s time for me to seriously pursue my deeper, greater ambitions to do bigger things, manifest self-employment, release major creative projects. Double down on the coaching project I announced in the summer, and then I got scared, and disheartened and backed away from.

The stagnation i’ve experienced following my mission, my ikigai is the direct result of the loss of resilience I experienced in indulging my comfort from having a six-figure paying job.

At some point, I forgot how to suffer.

Or, again, maybe I never really knew how. Maybe (but not maybe) I was just so pissed off that I ignored what was happening inside of me.

I got so caught up in avoiding Suffering in the last year, that it simply brought about new, greater Suffering to contend with, to further burn away my Ego and transmute it into greater Being, Presence, Awareness.

You know what’s so funny about all this? This entire journey into Self-Realization began because of a moment of intense Suffering I experienced. In a moment of great frustration, and sadness, and self-hatred I cursed Life itself, and in that moment I became aware of my Suffering. For a split, instantaneous second, I was so horrified by the thought that I ceased to ‘be suffering’, but I noticed that I ‘have suffering’, a brief gap opened up between my Awareness and my Ego. Heh, it was the Suffering and the acknowledgement of it that kicked off my own Awakening!!

And so the First Noble Truth of Buddhism holds true (‘There is suffering’ to keep it simple)…the awareness of suffering, the acknowledgement of it’s existence is the first step in the journey to end it.

Tonight, before I got inspired to write this story, I sat down to do an ‘Inner Body Meditation’ for 30 minutes because i’m working through a course with a dear friend of mine.

As I sat, I watched all of the tension, the resistance, the desire of my Ego to stop meditating, and just go to bed, or do something more comfortable. I directly observed the Suffering in my body. And I just let it be. I just let it pass. And it ceased to be.

May we all be free of Suffering.
May we all be free of Ill Will.
May we all be filled with Lovingkindness.
May we all be truly Happy.

-Matt ∞