What is the shape of your suffering?

The thing that first drew me to Buddhism was its honesty about the fact that sometimes, well, life just sucks. And that’s how it is. For everyone.

It was so refreshing. 🌱

Eighteen years ago today I sat in the front pew with my family for my dad’s funeral. It was a grand and sweeping celebration of life that he had planned out himself, complete with soaring hymns and a sanctuary full of kind, devoted Lutherans who’d been like family to us throughout his years of campus ministry.

To be honest, I don’t remember much of the wake the day before, or the lunch afterward, or any of that week — it’s all a smoky haze of grief.

But I do remember, very clearly, the Christian platitudes that came our way, about how he “was in a better place” and “God had a new angel” and “it was part of God’s plan,” and how they all felt supremely spiritual bypass-y, as well-intentioned as they were.

That spring, I was taking a course in my graduate program on Buddhism in Contemporary America. It became a beacon; a solace.

The Buddhist teaching that “Life is suffering” (aka the First Noble Truth) felt like the only honest thing in that season of grief.

It gave me such quiet comfort to know that even this most unfair of losses — my young father, lost to cancer at age 58; me only 26, witnessing my peers cherish decades with their not-dead parents — was in fact just a part of being alive. A normal, universal aspect of this whole being human and having a body thing.

So that was the shape of my suffering back in May 2005, which, of course, brought me to yoga, and to meditation, and a life devoted to living and sharing these practices. 

What’s the shape of yours? It ebbs and flows over time, of course — from loss and death to aging and disappointment, uncertainty and malaise, the job you wanted and didn’t get, the love you found and lost, the child you wanted and never got, or the being you adore whose own suffering breaks your heart.

Suffering is baked-in to the human experience. The sooner we can be real about that, and connect on that level, dropping the bullshit small talk and really diving in together, the sooner we’ll find a flash of peace amidst the shadows. 

Spare

I just finished reading Prince Harry’s autobiography.  (This is the German version in a bookstore downtown — note the Deutsch name.)

It was fascinating, and heartbreaking, and overwhelmingly human, and full of death. In spite of all the very-real spoils of wealth and empire and colonialism and blue-blood privilege, the guy has suffered massively.

Reading his story reminded me of the Buddhist teaching of the First Noble Truth, that quiet, frank reality that life is full of suffering, and our response to that pervasive suffering (or our resistance to it) is what determines the quality of our days.

I remember playing with Princess Di Barbie dolls as a little girl, and watching the news of her tragic death on TV in late August 1997, as I moved into my first college dorm. I remember reading People Magazine stories as a teen, gossipy profiles characterizing Harry as the wild one, the naughty one, the one who couldn’t seem to get his shit together. So it was fascinating to see him debunk so many of the supposed truths of his childhood — “truths” that the media had literally created out of thin air. The poor guy has been chased his whole life; treated like an animal in the zoo, a cash cow for paparazzi and shady journalists alike. 

These days, our house is blessedly-free of princess culture; I’m grateful to have a son who doesn’t give a shit about royalty or princess stories or any of that fairy tale hoo-ha. The way American culture saturates children (girls, in particular) with cringeworthy princess mythology makes me nauseous. It’s no wonder everyone assumes “royalty” live a perfect, pain-free existence. It’s aspirational bullshit. This guy certainly hasn’t.

Since Harry’s book release, I’ve so enjoyed seeing this embodied, grounded, warm adult version of himself moving through the world. His The Late Show with Stephen Colbert interview was especially poignant; knowing that Colbert also lost a parent young in a tragic plane crash gave their easy conversation a bittersweet undertone.

Cheers to this dude.  It hasn’t been all roses — but he seems to have really done the work. I hope he and his little family find room to breathe in the years to come.