On Sorrow

2 August 2023

On Sorrow

The Platonic tradition depicts the material world as an emanation of higher realities found in the noetic plane of existence, and beyond that, the One and the Good.  We are urged to turn away from sensory experience in order to ascend to the non-material source of material existence.

But there is not a lot of time spent on the reason we should turn away from material existence and sensory experience.  In general, the experience of noetic realities is depicted as very attractive, as is the experience of ultimate nature; the Good and the One.  And these transcendental realities, because of their attractiveness, pull us towards their presence.  But I think more can be said about material, sensory, existence and the more that can be said is that material existence is the realm of sorrow.

1.  For a long time, decades, I was involved with Buddhism.  I studied briefly abroad and for a lengthy time in the U.S.  My observation is that Buddhism places the sorrowful aspect of the material world front and center with the First Noble Truth, known in Pali and Sanskrit as ‘Dukkha.’  Dukkha is usually translated into English as ‘suffering,’ sometimes as ‘unsatisfactory,’ and sometimes other translations are used though the word ‘suffering’ seems to dominate.  I am suggesting that ‘sorrow’ is a helpful way of unpacking the meaning of ‘Dukkha.’

2.  When the Buddha was asked about the meaning of Dukkha, he didn’t define it; instead, he gave examples of Dukkha.  The classical list is: Birth is Dukkha, Old Age is Dukkha, Sickness is Dukkha, Death is Dukkha, the five aggregates (skandhas/sense bases) subject to clinging are Dukkha.  Since every living being will experience birth, old age, sickness, death, and clinging to sensory experience, Dukkha/suffering/sorrow is inevitable.

3.  But sorrow is present even in our ordinary experiences.  For example, two lovers are on a date at an upscale restaurant.  The food is great, the conversation flows with ease, they are enjoying each other’s company.  Then he says, “This evening is perfect. I wish it could last forever.”  That comment is the awareness of sorrow, or dukkha, rising in his consciousness.  It is an awareness that nothing in the material realm lasts forever.  It is an awareness of impermanence.

4.  On the spiritual path it is good to spend some time studying impermanence; and by ‘studying’ I mean deeply contemplating and unpacking the meaning of impermanence.  All things that appear in the realm of the senses, including things we see, touch, taste, hear, smell, as well as all mental constructions such as thoughts, feelings, and emotions, will pass away.  And by ‘pass away’ I mean that they will vanish from this realm of becoming and begoning, never to appear again.  But if we shift our attention away from sensory experience, to that which is both the source of material existence and transcends material existence, we can enter into that which is beyond becoming and begoning, that which is beyond the reach of ‘crazy sorrow.’

5.  The realm in which we dwell is a realm where sorrow is dominant and happiness is rare and vanishes quickly.  Wars, other forms of physical violence, injustices beyond counting, deceits, theft, abuse, plots against others, hatred, jealousy, envy, pointless arguments, fatal accidents, revenge, starvation, diseases, and strife of all kinds permeate daily life and occupy most of our newscasts and dominates a lot of our conversations.  In addition, natural calamities of all kinds such as floods, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, plagues, severe heat, severe cold, etc., means that life is fragile and subject to impermanence at any moment.

Knowing this, it is imperative that we turn to the transcendental, turn to that which is eternal, to the Good and the One, and leave the sorrowful realm of becoming and begoning behind.

6.  In the past, in the early period of Christianity, on into the Medieval period, there was a type of book written that often had in the title the phrase ‘De Contemptu Mundi’, which means ‘On Contempt for the World.’  These short books contained detailed lists of the negative aspects of life and urged people to follow an ascetic program in order to follow a path that brought one closer to God.

This kind of literature has no appeal today.  (I recall one youtuber reading a section from a version of ‘De Contemptu Mundi’ and just finding it hugely humorous and proof that Christianity was hopeless.)  The view today is that perfection is possible in the material sphere.  This is a view that, naturally enough, is held by materialists, but it is also held by the majority of religionists in the West today as well.  If you view the material world as perfectible then these kinds of thoughts, and dwelling on them make no sense.  Instead, you should use your energy to overcome the barriers to perfection in the material world rather than moan and groan about its drawbacks. 

But it is my view that there is a devouring shadow that inevitably follows every kind of material progress.  For example, the science of physics has given us many wonderful things, but it has also given us the capacity to destroy an entire city with a single bomb; these two are linked and cannot be separated from each other.

In contrast to modernity, Platonism views the material realm as the home of imperfection due to the material realm’s metaphysical distance from the One.  Because of this, perfection is found in the transcendental which lies beyond the material dimension.  In addition, the material realm is viewed as cyclic, which I call becoming and begoning, and for this reason all improvements in the material realm will pass away.

7.  There is beauty in the material world.  Plotinus writes about this in Ennead 1.6, On Beauty.  And there are scattered comments about beauty, and additional Enneads, throughout his writing.

In a sense the beauty of this world redeems material existence; almost.  I say ‘almost’ because the beauty found in material existence is not of, or from, or part of, material existence.  The beauty in this material realm is an emanation of that which is Beauty as such, of pure beauty, of transcendental beauty which is eternal.  Beauty in the material realm is transient, not because beauty is transient, but because the material realm is the realm of impermanence.

The beauty found in the world is a symbol of the source of beauty that lies beyond.  If we lift ourselves up from beautiful things, to beauty itself (as Plotinus suggests) then we enter noetic beauty, beauty as such.  In this sense, scattered throughout material existence are gates to the beyond, if we are able to take advantage of them.  These gates are a kind of grace that is due to the effulgent nature of the One and its omnipresent nature.

8.  I think Platonism has relied on the appeal that noetic experience brings to practitioners.  I think it is instructive that Socrates in Phaedo spends time leading his students to an awareness of the noetic and of the soul’s connection to the noetic.  Socrates does not spend a lot of time on the drawbacks of material existence and I suspect that is because he was so full of the wonder and bliss of noetic realities that he did not need to dwell on the negativities of material existence.  In addition, the injustice of Socrates’s imprisonment and execution make the negative aspects of the material world readily apparent to his students and do not need to be pointed out.  This makes sense to me.

On the other hand, we live in a highly materialistic culture and for that reason I think it is helpful to comprehend the negativities of material existence precisely because they tend to be ignored or downplayed.  Our culture tends to see itself as beyond the reach of these negativities, but thinking even a little about them demonstrates that this is not the case.

9.  Platonism offers us a path beyond sorrow.  It is not an easy path.  But it is a rewarding one.  Even a brief glimpse of noetic realities transforms our relationship to the cosmos.  Our life becomes an opportunity for transcending sorrow and dwelling at peace in the grotto of eternity.