Enduring why?

I was treated to an engaging presentation on Buddhist thought and practice last night and within it was reminded how the Buddha sat under the tree resolving to find the origin of suffering.

It struck me that “whys?” of this type seldom have an answer that suits the rational mind that poses it. While it can be argued science has made it’s bread and butter following an endless repetition of “whys?” to their logical outcome, “why suffering?” remains as fertile a question as it ever was.

As the presentation went on to suggest, perhaps it’s not our role to figure out the answer, but instead to demonstrate a willingness to simply sit without an answer.

Remaining in our doubts and uncertainties finds a striking analogy in Keats and his formulation of negative capability, a quality of mind he celebrated in the writing of Shakespeare. Do we see the beauty of our most pressing questions? How about the beauty of the figure seated patiently with unresolved concerns, much as the figure in this photo holds the flower.

It is not an easy practice. It’s easier to ignore the issues or to delegate responsibility to a different authority all together.

Recently I came across this passage which begins to bring the issue to a head:

“This experience of dissolution may be disorienting and frightening, even at times emotionally painful, and the ego will often resist it even while it welcomes the greater experience of wholeness and the promise of greater vitality and meaning.” (Stein, The Aims and Goals of Jungian Analysis, in Jungian Analysis, pg. 45)

Posing such questions challenges the ego to sit in relationship to realities beyond it’s limited perspective. And living in relationship to the collective unconscious, exercising what Jung calls the transcendent function, is living in a manner that attends to the responses provided by the unconscious.

As Stein notes: “It consists of a self-observing ego that is alert but not overly self-conscious or critical; that is receptive, yet also discriminating about emerging psychic contents; that is knowledgeable about personal workings of the psyche without being inflated or dogmatic; that is stable, yet flexible.” (ibid, pg 47).

Patiently seated with our “whys?” unanswered we engage in an act of witness. And our enduring becomes the invitation we send to the unconscious that it might formulate a response.