MY PAGES

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Subjectivity of suffering?

I have nearly finished  week four of my five-week yoga teacher training course in Rishikesh, India...on an ashram. I mention the ashram bit not so much because of my religion-related struggles but because it's highly relevant to the way I'm learning yoga, and consequently, to the way I'm learning philosophy, which is offered up in a very unfamiliar context, in unfamiliar ways. Rather than the structured philosophical debates that may run a tangent or two but circle around a concept with which all are familiar (ie, we all read the assigned book), philosophy classes here consist of a quiet yet captivating monk talking about concepts from the Bhagavad Gita, often in nonlinear, even circular ways. A western trained academic, I've been struggling with this way of learning, finding the concepts we've covered rather obvious and at times basic. 

But the other day, as I was grappling with my frustrations, with my desire to get "more" out if the class, a classmate shared something really important. "You come from a very academic background. You - we, as westerners - are accustomed to learning with the head. But here, this, they teach you so you must learn it with your heart. You learn it here," and she placed her hand at her heart chakra. It helped. And here's the thing: intellectually, the concepts that guide yogic philosophy as we're learning it aren't difficult. But emotionally, experientially, they can feel damn near impossible to reconcile with the way the world works. 

I don't think I'm especially talented at this heart-based learning, and I'm sure there are some folks out there who would say I'm a downright failure at heart-based living, but I'm open to giving it a try now that I have some clue as to what's going on. So this post is sort of my clumsy attempt at sharing my journey of trying to apply what we've discussed in philosophy, using my heart, to some everyday challenges. 

We'll start with the basic idea presented in class - "suffering" is subjective and situated not in a vaccuum of the moment but a context of lifetimes and lives. In essence, the lesson was that while it is fine, good even, to act to help others in need, one must accept the suffering without judgment, one must be open to the idea that, suffering in this present may fit into a larger context that changes the meaning of the conditions we deemed suffering. 

Intellectually, this concept fits neatly with my anthropological background and ongoing research on drug use and homelessness. Human suffering is something I've always been able to step back from, to view through a lens of cultural and individual relativism. Even though at my core I would guess there are some universal conditions out there that all would deem suffering, I also recognize that people's experiences of these conditions are relative. If you add the other layers of belief that shape these philosophies, they may not be more palatable to you on a gut level, but they should make sense. 

For example, here in India, the levels of poverty suggest, to my western brain, suffering. Yet to a yogi, and likely to many if not all Indians, my separation from the spiritual or from my family are significant forms of suffering. In my own work as a researcher I defended the relativity of suffering regularly as I sought to highlight the multidimensionality of drug users' experiences. Thus, intellectually, I had little trouble accepting when Mataji told us that we must try not to judge the conditions of others, or ourselves, as suffering. And, to some extent, though I would argue that as a society we have more responsibility to one another than to just leave it all without critical questions, I get where it's going and agree that, on a personal level, this can be a helpful view of the world. 

It's when I try to apply this concept with my heart that I struggle. And, for me, it's the animals that make it tough. See, while my human research participants can share their emotions and we can, together, consider their experiences in lifetimes of context, with non-human animals, suffering becomes much more poignant and, as such, much more black and white. 

The other day, our yoga hall/ashram mascot dog turned up at my room with a nasty laceration that was on its way to being infected. Earlier, noisier-than-usual monkey scuffles outside our asana class had sounded like a dog was involved and I had wondered if that dog was Ajna/Kevin. I'm still not certain his gash is from monkeys but it seems likely. We tried to find a vet in town but the only hope was closed for the week's holiday. We tried to engage the help of medical students and a doctor to clean out the wound or give an antibiotic, but had no luck. Eventually, we were told where to get some antiseptic ointment and given some gauze to try and clean the wound ourselves. It was less than successful though not a total failure - in line with other philosophical lessons, I'm trying to be ok with the fact that my actions didn't bring about what I hoped would be the most ideal result of getting the dog to a vet, where he could maybe get a rabies shot - as we got some of the nasty gunk out of the wound and some of the good gunk in and should be able to have a vet out after Diwali to give him his shot. 

But here's this thing; it's india. There are countless homeless, starving, injured, mistreated dogs here and very few resources to do anything about it. And it breaks my heart endlessly. And all I can feel is that they are suffering and I want to fix it even though I know that the "one at a time" won't even make a dent in anything. 

And this is where it gets really tough for me to engage emotionally with the concept of suffering in the way I'm "supposed" to. If I follow Mataji's philosophy on the relativity of suffering then these dogs are not necessarily suffering and their lives may, as my classmate pointed out the first week, actually be a preferable alternative to the western notion that if it can't live well it shouldn't have to live at all. Subjectivity. Relativity. All terms I throw around with ease in an academic setting. And while I get it intellectually, I can't quite bring myself to accept it emotionally. 

Meanwhile, the struggle continues to find Ajna/Kevin some treatment and I don't know when I'm supposed to let go. Apparently, living this concept is much harder than thinking about it. 

Tonight, we meditated on our female energy. And when we got back, there was Ajna/Kevin, sleeping on my doorstep. As I stroked his head, my brain wandered through possible outcomes for him and the tears started to flow as I imagined what I saw as the worst. My emotions were certainly flowing and i tried, for once, to be ok with whatever comes his way. I tried to accept that maybe, just maybe, he isn't suffering. 

At the end of the day, I'm (obviously) still grappling with this learning with the heart thing as it's way more exhausting than using my head, but I think I've got one lesson down: I can only control my actions, never the outcomes, so I'll do my best to keep doing what I can, just for the sake of doing it, because taking care of this wise old street dog just feels like the right thing to do. 

No comments:

Post a Comment