11-6-22   THE USES OF SUFFERING

Zbigniew Herbert—MR. COGITO MEDITATES ON SUFFERING

All attempts to remove

the so-called cup of bitterness--

by reflection

frenzied actions on behalf of homeless cats

deep breathing

religion--failed

one must consent

gently bend the head

not wring the hands

make use of the suffering gently moderately

like an artificial limb

without false shame

but also without unnecessary pride

do not brandish the stump

over the heads of others

don't knock with the white cane

against the windows of the well-fed

drink the essence of bitter herbs

but not to the dregs

leave carefully

a few sips for the future

accept

but simultaneously

isolate within yourself

and if it is possible

create from the matter of suffering

a thing or person

play

with it

of course

play

entertain it

very cautiously

like a sick child

forcing at last

with silly tricks

a faint

smile

Suffering is one of the most stubborn existential states. It lodges somewhere in consciousness and tangles all the parts of the wholeness axis: body/mind/spirit. It challenges over time and takes on multiple masks and personae. It speaks loudly and recruits the ego. It is the subject of psychologists, theologians, and poets alike.

In this poem, Herbert moves us through many of the dimensions of suffering, many of its colors and transitions. He offers one way to view suffering and in doing so plots out how one might use suffering to good and bad effects in lives such as ours with all their accelerations and bypassing, all their anticipations and losses. I am in mind of The Buddha's Four Noble Truths: Suffering is part of life for all of us. There are known causes of suffering. There is the possibility of the mitigation of suffering. The mitigation of suffering is couched in the Eightfold Path. I don't believe The Buddha is offering a methodology for the elimination of suffering because of how stubborn suffering is and how prevalent and persistent and insistent it is in our daily lives. He is pointing in a direction to a path that helps us deal with the ongoing stream of suffering that is the human lot. To interpret his message as an “end” to suffering is to mistake it. That misinterpretation gives false hope about some future finality when our experience is that suffering will return to us in a different guise, even though we thought we had it licked once and for all by taking the steps along the Eightfold Path. The Path has only eight steps in it but I think that is to suggest eight ways out of thousands, perhaps, to work with suffering. Herbert offers his own formulation or at least some different ideas about how to work with one's suffering.

Mr. Cogito is a character of Herbert's that begins his meditation in his head, cogito coming from the Latin for “I think” and from the root word that connotes careful consideration or meditation. “Cogito, ergo sum” is the famous phrase from Descarte's philosophical works, indicating that our being is entirely dependent on our cognitive abilities. It is striking to me to see what Herbert's verbs do in this poem and how Mr. Cogito moves from a view located inside his cognitive consciousness to then include his body and his spirit:

remove (avert, eliminate)

consent

bend

wring

make use

brandish

knock

drink

leave

accept

isolate

create

play

entertain

forcing.

There is a definite flow of how Mr. Cogito thinks about suffering, moving from an effort to manage the suffering by thinking and willing, to a more gentle and physical (even embodied) approach, to an acceptance of suffering's reality, and a turn inward to create a more lighthearted and generous gift to oneself and, perhaps, to others.

The first stanza details how Mr. Cogito works inside his head to program the elimination of suffering, reflecting what many of today's self-help guides proclaim. The simplicity of meditation and yoga postures are favorite methodologies to combat anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks, and depression, among many physical and psychological maladies. But this is thinking one's way into what is hoped will be a cure or at least a fix. We are stuck in thinking that certain methodologies, like meditation, are “tools” but the point of meditation is to have no goal or acquisition in mind. But all of them failed Mr. Cogito. Perhaps he discovered that such efforts are ultimately exhausting and unsuccessful, as many guides ultimately frustrate and disappoint us. So often we are impatient with process and discipline and seek quick fixes or short circuits to our efforts.

The second stanza opens us to a more gracious approach beginning with the intention to “consent” and then to begin to relax our physical selves as a way to open to the reality of suffering. In my initial reading of this stanza I puzzled over the use of suffering as an “artificial limb,” picturing an amputee victim of war's trauma experiencing anything akin to gentleness or moderation. It seemed to me that having been mutilated in this way would be a constant prod and reminder of the trauma and a source of continuing pain and bitterness, a source of shame (“false” because that implies one's own participation in a mutilating act, when in fact the act was a consequence of war's uncontrollable hellish intent). And I can imagine that having been mutilated in such a way might also be a badge of heroism (“unnecessary pride”), thus bypassing in a different way the reality of the suffering.

In the third stanza he tells us what to do with the stump of suffering and it is not to advertise one's disability to the world, especially to those whose experiences of suffering are not like ours. He suggests that we do this to victimize others while we ourselves are victimized repeatedly. This, it seems to me, is the path to superficial martyrdom. I speak from my own experience with suffering and can attest to the fact that it is possible to identify with suffering to the extent that its power is inflated by waving the stump in public to elicit pity. This is also to recruit others into one's circle of misery (misery, it is said, loves company). Advertising one's suffering in hopes of recruiting others assumes that what is personal and individual about your suffering is shared by others when, in fact, their suffering differs in the details. This is being stuck in the quicksand of suffering, attenuating one's own emotional responses and one's own hungering soul at the expense of the emotions of others. It is to be identified by the suffering rather than to identify with it. It is to harbor selfishness when selflessness opens the path to freedom. We are always manifesting as more than our suffering and holding our own suffering as just one more aspect of living life amidst the turmoil and chaos and never-ending traumas of daily life.

Mr. Cogito, in the fourth stanza, tells us to willingly drink what is most distasteful about suffering but to save some for the future when more suffering will most certainly be a part of life. If the initial cup of bitterness can be drunk, then saving some few sips means that it is possible to drink of it as a strangely nourishing thing and having some for future suffering. In a way, this is honoring suffering as essential to a whole life in which both joys and sorrows must be acknowledged. It is a prompt not to forget or bypass, not to cling or avert—joys or sorrows.

The fifth stanza begins with acceptance and dives into the resources of the inner life which are expansive and even infinite. Here, one can make the choice to mold from the clay of suffering (clay being the substance from which all of us have been created and which is preserved in our humanness, our “clay feet”) some image or subject or person with whom one can “play.” Play is a feature of being human that exposes the human penchant to seek and participate in communal relationships and in mutual storytelling. It is about openness and motion and the joy of being one among many in music or dance or poetry. Here sharing the joy of play is the antipode to the shallow sharing of our suffering we attempt with others, “brandishing the stump.”

And, finally in the sixth stanza, we go from wanting to play to wanting to share by entertaining in a “cautious” way how suffering can be part of the whole life, once again, and how it can take its place among the subtle joys that include a smile. Smiling is a social construct (how we meet and greet one another) as much as it is a subconscious expression of delight or joy and so in this final stanza it emerges as the most personal and transformed version of suffering.

The transitions in this poem are within the words, the verbs, as well as the images of pain and bitterness Mr. Cogito paints for us. The transitions also include a sure flow from the cognitive to the physical (the stump) to the spiritual (that which is within). It is a transition from the thinking/willing self to embodiment to compassionate action on behalf of self and others. It suggests that we cannot know the suffering of others (assumed to exist because we are human) until we know our own suffering. This is the essence of peacemaking in a world fraught with pain, suffering, hate, and violence.

The poem is very powerful and perhaps describes a different multi-step path to the mitigation of suffering, all the while making no attempt to hide that suffering persists and might arise in anyone's life. It also points to the possibility that our suffering can be the clay from which we fashion something more cautious and subtle and beautiful—maybe a smile. Maybe just a smile, but enough beauty and peace to make suffering more tolerable. And if we are able to tolerate the drink of bitter herbs but save some of the dregs, then we are practicing the transformation of suffering, a lifelong process of becoming and growing and being whole, actualizing a reality that also contains joy.