I read this the other day and found it powerful and insightful and wanted to share it since one of the motivations of walking with the people of Peru is the suffering I previously experienced in El Salvador and Central America which changed the way I walk forever.
A passage from The Simple Feeling of Being by Ken Wilber:
"Suffer, then, is the initial moment of the recognition of false boundaries. Correctly understood, it is therefore liberating, for it points beyond boundaries altogether. We suffer, then, not because we are sick, but because intelligent insight is emerging. ... For concealed within this basic unhappiness with life and existence is the embryo of a growing intelligence, a special intelligence usually buried under the immense weight of social shams. A person who is beginning to sense the suffer of life is, at the same time, beginning to awaken to deeper realities, truer realities. For suffering smashes to pieces the complacency of our normal fictions about reality and forces us to become alive in a special sense - to see carefully, to feel deeply, to touch ourselves and our worlds in ways we have heretofore avoided. It has been said, and truly I think, that suffering is the first grace." (pg. 73-74)
thanks so much jenn for posting this. suffering is something our world and myself has a great deal more to understand.
ReplyDeleteimmediately i wonder about oppression. does oppression function in the same way? i suppose it might, as hard as it is to witness.....
anyway, random question of the day: have you seen "A Patch of Blue." i'd be interested to hear what you think for i've been thinking it reminded me of sr. peggy's "Water". yes, suffering indeed. your post gives me much hope.