Is a full and beautiful life without suffering?

Time future and time past all exist in time present, and one can say that to exist in time present is the greatest and most eternal gift.

All life is is one long moment from birth to death, there is only one moment that we are given. One moment to live a life full and beautiful. And what makes a life ‘full and beautiful’ exactly? Is it a life without suffering? A life full of pleasure and comfort?

I do not believe like the Epicureans that it is the limiting of suffering and pain that makes life truly blessed. Physical pain is information, a warning signal that something is wrong that needs fixing, and as such a necessary uncomfortability for our very survival so that we can enjoy life fully.

And speaking of psychological pain, I do not think this necessarily an evil either, and serves much the same purpose. Whether through mental ailment or simply the fickle foreplay of fortune in a persons life; whether a person faces prejudice, isolation or poverty, when taken healthily as simply a challenge to overcome in one’s personal development and journey, one can make a benefit of adversity.

 It was an idea of certain Stoics that in a round about way to be tested by such adversity was a sign of God’s favour and not his discouragement – as through this struggle you gain the gift of self knowledge and assurance through learning to overcome such challenges. Such suffering enriches one character if it is chosen willingly and met courageously.

So a good life does require a little suffering and struggle, and does not in my opinion equate to a life of growing flabby in too much ease and comfort.

As such, I do not believe that the good in life is lived by maximising pleasure either, with pleasure and pain there is always a paradoxical reaction. One often brings the other in its wake. Ask any addict, the root of their suffering is their very pursuit of habitual pleasure and its subsequent crash, never mind its potential real-world impact on their life in a practical sense.

It is a case of the medicine being in the poison and the poison being in the medicine.

In eastern traditions such as Buddhism there is great emphasis on the ‘middle way’ between asceticism and hedonism, and Buddhism taken as a psychotherapy seeking an answer to the question of suffering in the human condition, I believe there is a lot of wisdom in this.

In the story of the person of the historical Buddha he was a prince who new nothing but luxury, comfort and pleasure, protected from even the knowledge that suffering in all its forms even existed; disease, poverty, and old age were alien to him.

Then, once he went on his path to spiritual enlightenment he sought the extremes of suffering in his aestheticism and self denial to truly understand it and by experiencing it grow callouses to it and so conquer it. At one point it is said that the Buddha was so emaciated and malnourished that he could touch his spine through his stomach. That is suffering.

 Neither extremes were the answer. Suffering is inescapable in life, you will always suffer in some way, so maybe a ‘full and beautiful’  life lies in accepting this fact, working with it and moving forwards in the best way you can regardless of external stimuli or circumstance. It is not what happens to us, Epictetus teaches, but our reaction to it that defines us and shapes our destiny