Masochism

In the first post, I talk about accepting pain so you can move forward. Time and time again this question comes to my mind, what’s the upper limit to this? And if one masters it, doesn’t that make them a masochist?
Somehow the idea of being a masochist doesn’t appeal to the core of my soul (ha).

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

– 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.

I tentatively concluded: it isn’t about relishing the pain, but enduring it – like a solid bar of gold in a hot furnace; understanding that:

“Even the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise”

– Victor Hugo

You might even learn to make peace with its advent. And if you can somehow find a silver lining, all the better; that’s what hope is.

“In the time when the Buddha lived, about 600 BC. The Hindu system had become somewhat… decadent. It isn’t altogether clear what had happened but it was certain that it did seem in some way to be in need of reform. And so, though there were many reasons for this, and the Buddha as a young man – being basically troubled by the great problems that we’re all troubled with: the problem of suffering and the problem of what all this universe is about – he endeavored to follow the methods that were then being used by people who were sramanas or vanaprasthas, forest dwellers.

And at that time it’s very apparent that the main method that these people were using was an ascetic discipline: starvation; very arduous meditation practices; probably self-flagellation and things of that kind. And it said that for seven years he practiced these austerities, but he found out that they didn’t lead to liberation. And all the people who were practicing them knew they didn’t either but they felt that was only because they weren’t doing it hard enough. And so he propounded instead, ‘the middle way’, the way that led to liberation from the rat race: neither through austerities, nor through pleasure seeking. See, these are the two ways; the two paths: the people who say the whole point of life is to enjoy it, to get the most out of it you see; the other people who tried that and then they found it was sour grapes or something you know, or they burn their fingers in the pursuit of pleasure; the girl that was so beautiful eventually fell apart – or just turned into a shrew – and whatever it was, and so they said instead, ‘let us torment ourselves’.

A lot of people enjoy this, or get something special out of it. I was in Mexico this summer and what I went there for was to study Mexican Catholicism, where they make a great cult of suffering. And I was very puzzled about this and wanted to understand it and everywhere you know, they have these ghastly, tormented Christs: all drooling with blood hanging on crosses in very contorted positions. And I realized there are certain people who find that the sitting on the tip of a spike is the realest place in the world, because when you’re on the tip of a spike you know you’re there; there’s no doubt it. And also you know that you’re expiating for everything; this, somehow by sitting on this – on the spike – you are paying for your guilt and so long as you hurt you’re alright. See? So these sramanas were doing something of the same kind, and the Buddha became Enlightened. Became a Buddha. He woke up. At the moment when he gave up that kind of quest; the moment he gave up, as we should say, ‘trying to take the Kingdom of Heaven by storm’.

– Alan Watts