Spirituality and Suffering

Abstract

Could spirituality help free us from suffering in an increasingly secularized and secularizing world? If spirituality can help us toward this goal, are we talking of merely individual spirituality, or is there room for collective spirituality, and so for activism? To answer we consider the historical significance of spirituality, and its meaning(s) in contemporary society, focusing on the growing interest in “secular” spirituality. Such “secular spiritualities” differ from traditional religious spiritualities in that they neither invoke, nor rest on, an “external” or transcendent supernatural foundation. We consider broadly Marxist, Buddhist and Existentialist spiritualities.

Keywords:

• Spirituality
• suffering
• existentialism
• Marxism
• Buddhism

Notes

1 Whilst acknowledging the western origins of the “spiritual-but-not-religious” designation (see Wong & Vinsky, 2009).

2 An alternative formulation of the Four noble truths is this: all existence is suffering; the cause of suffering is desire; freedom from suffering is nirvana; nirvana is attained through the “eightfold path” of ethical conduct, wisdom, and mental discipline (including meditation) (Stevenson, 2010, “Buddhism”).

3 As Medhidharnmapom (1995, p. 3) points out, Sartre’s existentialist theory of consciousness was a result of his challenge to Husserl’s egology or “science about the ego.” For Husserl the ego is the subject of consciousness. In 1936, Sartre wrote an essay entitled The Transcendence of the Ego (La Transcendence de l'Ego) in which he held that the ego is an object of consciousness. In 1975, Sartre says in an interview: “I maintained that point of view even ·in L'Être et le néant: I would still maintain it today.” 2 Thus Sartre’s treatment of consciousness consists of two aspects: the negative and the positive. Negatively it is a rejection of Husserl’s doctrine of the tran-scendental ego, and positively it is a formulation of Sartre’s own theory of egoless consciousness (Medhidharnmapom 1995, p. 3).