suffering is not a requirement for following Jesus, not a way to gain merit for
eternity, not the proverbial “carrying of the cross” toward salvation, not “no
pain, no gain.” Instead, suffering is seen as the practical and real price for letting
go of illusion, false desire, superiority, and separateness. Suffering is also pointed
out as the price we pay for not letting go, which might be an even better way to
teach about suffering.
Any time you surrender a negative, accusatory, compulsive, or self-serving
thought, word, or behavior, the Buddhists describe this as “dying”! Power, self-
image, and control do not give up without a fight, and this is first of all true
inside of our minds, where the illusions begin. Just watch a two-year-old
learning to say no to his parents. The battle starts early, comes back in full force
in the teenage and young adult years, and in truth never really stops. On a
practical level, many Buddhists understood Jesus’s words very well, “Unless the
single grain of wheat falls into the ground, it remains just a single grain. But if it
dies, it will bear much fruit” (John 12:24). In fact, they might have understood
this message more concretely and immediately than we Christians did! Such
daily and “necessary suffering” is the price of both enlightenment for the self
and compassion for others. This is what all spiritual masters mean by “dying
before you die,” or “practicing dying.” I myself do not really trust any spiritual
teacher who is not up front and utterly honest about a necessary path of
descending.
Both Christianity and Buddhism are saying that the pattern of transformation,
the pattern that connects, the life that Reality offers us is not death avoided, but
always death transformed. In other words, the only trustworthy pattern of
spiritual transformation is death and resurrection. Christians learn to submit to
trials because Jesus told us that we must “carry the cross” with him. Buddhists
do it because the Buddha very directly said that “life is suffering,” but the real
goal is to choose skillful and necessary suffering over what is usually just
resented and projected suffering. In that the Buddha was a spiritual genius, and
we Christians could learn a lot from him and his mature followers. For
Christians, of course, the goal is divine love and not the overcoming of
suffering. Yet look how many Buddhists become highly compassionate human
beings.
Both groups are saying that death and life are two sides of the same coin, and
you cannot have one without the other. Each time you offer the surrender, each
time you trust the dying, your faith is led to a deeper level and you discover a
Larger Self underneath. You decide not to push yourself to the front of the line,