In his book called “Way of all the Earth”, Dunne brings up some very important philosophical questions that people have been asking themselves and each other for centuries. After reading this book, one may think that Dunne introduces his own religion, which is unlike any other. But if we look closer, we can understand that he actually connects his philosophy with Buddhism, and his whole book in fact can be considered to be an interpretation of Buddhist philosophy. This paper describes the main topic of “Way of all the Earth” and specifically talks about the point of suffering both in Dunne’s book and in Buddhism. I am also going to look into the types of suffering that Dunne introduces and explain how they work in people’s daily lives.
First, I would like to explain the term “suffering” and talk about where it came from. Now, we all know that the doctrine of suffering first appeared in Buddhism. The first teacher of Buddhism was Gautama Buddha, who was originally from Nepal. Buddhism spread with a very high speed, because a lot of countries traded with Asia. Its philosophy was all over the world very soon. People liked Buddhism: it didn’t have any strict rules like Christianity, Confucianism or Islam, where you should have prayed five times a day and go to war for the God. Buddhism was completely different. It taught people to live in peace with everything that surrounded them and essentially let things go without getting tied to them.
Buddha called suffering “dukkha.” For him, everything in life was dukkha. It doesn’t matter if dukkha is mental or physical – it can appear at any time of one’s life, because we live life to suffer. Dunne agrees. He considers all everyday life things suffering, because all the people live and suffer at the same time. The only thing people can do, according to Dunne, is to accept suffering and to realize that there is no escape from it. It is a normal process, just like being born or dying. Buddha, as I already mentioned, didn’t welcome any bonds between people (relatives, spouses, friends) because those bonds worsen suffering. If one doesn’t get what he fights for, he also experiences suffering. And suffering can be felt every day, for example when one wants to buy a car but doesn’t have money for it. That’s why Buddha (and Dunne) promoted detachment. By being detached from the material world, one frees himself from suffering. That is the reason why Buddhist monks never have anything material and live entirely on their own, versus with other monks, like it would be in Christianity.
Buddhism, just like other religions (for example, Taoism) considered the existence of people to be a part of the whole universe, and thus, not very important. For Buddhists, just like for many ancient religions of Asia and the Middle East, the afterlife was way more important. Everything that happened with a physical body didn’t matter. The reason of life was to find peace with nature and oneself, and achieve nirvana (freedom) from dukkha (suffering) in order to get out from the endless cycle of dying and being reborn again. In fact, Buddha was famous just because he was the only person who managed to achieve complete nirvana. Buddha is never reborn anymore. This is the ultimate goal of all Buddhists.
Dunne’s theory is very similar to that of Gautama Buddha. He also talks about suffering and explains the fact that it cannot be escaped. Suffering can only be accepted and made an essential part of one’s life, because through suffering one becomes open for forgiveness and compassion. These two are actually the two types of suffering that are introduced by Dunne. First off, he introduces compassion and explains why it is a suffering. As I already said, every feeling is a suffering. Compassion is suffering, because when they are compassionate, people feel the pain for other people. Through compassion, people relate to each other and create and unbreakable bond. And as I said, any bonds are not healthy for one who wants to get free from all the unneeded earthy pleasures and ties. Compassion causes pain, because when we are compassionate, we share other people’s pain, and that is not a teaching of Buddha, but more of a Christian doctrine. Buddha didn’t teach to share the pain and relate to other people’s problems. Relating to others’ problems could cause the connection, plus the compassionate person constantly remembers his or her problems that connect the two even more. While remembering his or her own experience, everyone becomes upset, and suffering grows.
Compassion, however, is a good thing in other traditions, such as Christianity. It is known that Christianity found compassion to be one of the most essential parts of people’s lives, and only through compassion could people spread peace and kindness. Dunne, however, more on Buddha’s side when it comes to compassion. He doesn’t say suffering is bad, just like Buddha never calls dukkha bad (it’s not bad, it’s just a part of one’s life). And he never claims that we have to fight compassion and stop being compassionate. Maybe that is what Buddha would say, because for him, everything that caused bonds was burdening. But Dunne says that compassion, just like forgiveness, which I am going to discuss later in the paper, are just parts of people’s lives that has to be sighted and accepted. There is nothing one can do about suffering, according to Dunne. One can just acknowledge that it is there and let go. By acknowledging something we cannot change, we approach freedom.
Interestingly enough, Ho calls the life of Buddhists an “inherent misery” (120), which means that Buddhists didn’t enjoy any earthy pleasures. It is very easy to compare Buddhism to ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian religions that also considered earthy life pretty dark and wanted to get out of it as soon as possible. They spent their entire lives getting prepared for death, which sounds absolutely terrifying to a contemporary reader. And if we look at Indian clothes, jewelry and the way those people spend their holidays, we will never want to call them miserable. All their lives, people struggle for freedom after their deaths. They lived and followed the teachings of Buddha just to be free in their afterlives, because being reborn over and over again meant being trapped. Dunne agrees. He thinks that people who are able to be compassionate suffer from two things simultaneously – from others’ and their own pain.
Compassion is also suffering, because it is so extremely hard to develop this feeling. It doesn’t mean that if one is not able to feel compassion, he is free. However, if one is able to be compassionate, it may save him from other sufferings, according to Dunne. Compassion is such a powerful thing, and it is been known that compassion or a right word at a right time may save many lives. People saved each other by being compassionate and by willing to relate. Compassion is suffering, but simultaneously it is something that may get you out of suffering.
Dukkha, or suffering, can be avoided. In fact, The Four Noble Truths teach us how to understand and treat suffering. The Third Noble Truth actually tells that once the detachment is overcome, suffering ends, because there is nothing left to suffer about. Just like in Christianity, where one should love only God (he can love his family, but God has to be on the first place) to be accepted into Heaven (suffering will end), a proper Buddhist should love and rely on a higher realm and not to worry about anything that connects him with the Earth.
So, why would forgiveness be called suffering? Forgiveness is a pretty strong thing that helps one look into his enemies from a different angle. In fact, this teaching of forgiving enemies can be encountered in almost every contemporary religion that exists nowadays. This supports kindness as without kindness, the humanity will die out. If we don’t forgive each other, the evil is going to grow, and there will be nothing to paralyze it. Only imagine what the world could be like if every single person forgave his enemies and loved ones! This is also connected to Buddha’s teaching of letting go, because forgiveness in some way is letting go. Once we forgive, we free ourselves from the burden of anger, which is repressed deeply underneath.
As I already said, everything that happens on Earth is not important for Buddhism. Buddhism is interested in things that are bigger than that. Buddhism goes for a higher realm, and Buddhists are too busy to be concerned about the earthy problems. Dunne agrees. He also ties forgiveness to letting go and claims that forgiveness brings inner peace and freedom, which Buddha would call nirvana.
People are never happy or satisfied. The state of happiness is so short that we barely notice it when we live our daily lives. We barely realize when we are happy, because we don’t have time to stop and think about it. In fact, happiness cannot be an eternal state of mind. People always come back to being unhappy, because there are too many things that upset them. For example, when a woman expects a child, she does enjoy herself. She likes how she looks, and she likes to imagine what life will be like when she finally gives birth. But what is her life like most of the time? We know that most of the time it is extremely hard for a pregnant woman to walk or perform any kind of movement. She does have the state of happiness from time to time, but it immediately changes by something that brings her down. And that is what happens to all the people.
Another example of suffering would be death and aging. We used to see our parents young and full of strength, and we used to think that they were going to never get old. But as we age, our parents age too. And, of course, we don’t see ourselves aging, but we do see others aging. Aging is connected with death, and so we fear it. We suffer when we see something we don’t like (remember how Buddha ran away from his house and saw people who suffered from poverty and physical pain.) Because of our bonds with parents and the loved ones, we suffer when we see them aging. If bonds were absent, there would be no suffering.
Forgiveness is also an extremely hard thing to do. Not many people can forgive on an everyday basis. They get angry, and they keep their anger inside. It is known that staying angry for a long period of time is very unhealthy. A person gets destroyed by the repressed feelings. But again, what if there were no friends and enemies? No one would suffer, because it is our loved ones who hurt us most. Very often, former couples become enemies pretty fast, because they still love each other, and it is very easy to hurt each other in that case. For Dunne, forgiveness is something, which leads to nirvana. Although forgiveness is hard to do (and Buddha wouldn’t be happy with it either), it is an extremely important character trait, which makes the attitude to the world easier. By forgiving someone, we make ourselves stronger.
In this paper, I have looked into the book by Dunne called “Way of all the Earth”. This book impressed me with its connection to Buddhism, which I truly enjoyed studying. I liked to get to know this take on the topic of suffering, and the two sufferings that the writer brought up were unusual to encounter, but nevertheless seemed very accurate. Compassion is suffering, because it connects two people with a single problem. Compassion may cause a mental suffering. Compassion is also a suffering, which has to be undergone in order to achieve nirvana. One has to feel other’s pain to understand his own. Another suffering was forgiveness. Forgiveness has only one reason to be called suffering – because it is a very rare and difficult thing to do. Many people think that it is right to remember all of the insults they ever got and stick with them forever. Many people manage to stay angry for years, and they don’t even suspect that it destroys them (or brings them suffering.) Forgiveness is suffering too, because when one tries to forgive, he sacrifices something for that (would it be pride or the old approach?) He gives something up, because that is the only way to forgive. And many people don’t do it because they avoid suffering. Dunne has an interesting take on this: although forgiveness and compassion are both suffering, they are the only things that can help out get out of the everlasting cycles (suffering). It makes total sense, because only with strength can one destroy something that has been established in the culture forever.
Works Cited
Dunne, John S. The Way of All the Earth; Experiments in Truth and Religion. New York: Macmillan, 1972. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.
Ho, David. "Selfhood and Identity in Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism: Contrasts with the West." Web. 21 Feb. 2016.
