Compassion and Suffering

I can't believe that I'm still awake, but I had to write this before I went to bed.  I have had an "ah ha" moment, and I just had to share it.

I was reading in "You are Here" by Tich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist Monk (No, I'm not becoming Buddhist).  I came upon this passage, which got me thinking.  It says:

"For me the Kingdom of God is where Mindfulness exists, and it is the kingdom where there is compassion.  The Kingdom of God, the Pure Land, is not a place where there is no suffering.  Many people aspire to go to a place where pain and suffering do not exist, a place where there is only happiness.  This is a rather dangerous idea, for compassion is not possible (emphasis added) without pain and suffering.  It is only when we enter into contact with suffering that understanding and compassion can be born.  Without suffering, we do not have the opportunity to cultivate compassion and understanding; and without understanding, there can be no true love."

This got me thinking.  First, it got me thinking about my Savior, Jesus Christ.  It got me thinking of Alma 17: 12 in the Book of Mormon:

And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

He did not have to suffer the way that he suffered for me.  He was not forced to suffer.  He chose to suffer.  Why?  So that he could have compassion for us.  He did it so that he would know what it felt like to be us.  He did it so he would know, personally, how to reach out to each one of us and help us to find our way back home to him.

This passage also made me think of another scripture in the Book of Mormon.  "For it must needs be that there is an opposition in all things...If not so...righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad….(2 Nephi 2: 10).”

I just thought of another book, this time from the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price.  (Sorry about all of the Mormon-centric scriptures.  I’m not familiar with corresponding verses in the Bible, or I would have happily used those.)  “Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should…have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.”

“So,” you may be asking, “What is your point?”  Here’s my point, we need to suffer in order to be happy.  We need to understand just how much life can suck, in order to understand how great life can be.  We need to experience just how bad we have it, just to experience how good we really have it.  We need to embrace our suffering, look at it a little differently, and treat it as a little child.  Why?  Because suffering teaches us how to be happy.  We cannot have the good without the evil.  We cannot have the light from the dark.  We cannot have the yin without the yang.  We cannot experience joy and happiness without experiencing pain and sorrow.

Instead of trying to avoid our suffering, we need to embrace it.  We need to cradle it like we would cradle a little child.  We need to be grateful for it.  We need to treat it for what it is, an opportunity to be happy.  It is only when we do this that we upon ourselves up to receive the true gift that Heavenly Father is trying to give us, peace.  And we don’t have to wait until we die and go to heaven to have peace.  We can have peace here and now.  “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14: 27).”