“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In a recent military retreat, we taught about the nature of suffering. We shared the ~3,000-year-old wisdom of the “second arrow”.
Say I’m walking along and all of a sudden I get shot with an arrow in my right arm.
I scream out in pain! Who did this? Why did they do this to me? Why me?
I must figure out who did this. I must get revenge. I call the police and every day I bother them about the investigation. But the detectives can’t figure it out. Every day I yell at them and ask them to do more.
I decide I’m going to figure it out myself. I spend years searching and can’t get an answer. I swear I will not stop until I get revenge. I ignore my wife, my kids, my passions until they all fade away.
Eventually I decide there is no answer. So, I give up. But every time I touch my right arm. Or I drive past the spot where it happened, I’m filled with anger and righteous outrage.
Now – here’s the thing about all my suffering.
There was the first arrow sticking out of my arm. Yes – a lot of suffering there.
But the next ten years of anger, resentment, and suffering represent the second arrow — the one I stuck in myself.
Suffering is inherent in the human experience. But by our personalizing it, holding onto it, and failing to accept it, we get hit with a second arrow in the same spot.
After sharing this teaching, we pushed participants to go deep in small groups. They shared old wounds, second arrows, and pain they were holding on to. We asked them:
“What can you let go of?”
After the exercise, the most jacked, macho, no-nonsense top commander said, almost with tears in his eyes, “I can’t believe I just shared that with my boss”.
This process of reflection and sharing seemed to open a feeling of sacred connection within the group.
As I think about groups of the closest, most bonded people – it seems the most powerful bonding moments were times of sharing suffering. Maybe it was a hard loss as a team, maybe it was talking girl troubles with one of the guys, or maybe just going through some misadventure crap together. Maybe this is part of the reason that units in the military that see combat tend to become so close.
“A joy shared is doubled – a sorrow shared is halved”.
One of the most profound paths to connecting deeply with others is to share suffering. Practically speaking, this doesn’t mean you have to go to bootcamp together or intentionally get stranded in the wilderness or something. It’s more about curiosity and vulnerability. And being able to appreciate where people come from and what experiences may be below the surface.
And if we see the suffering that others are holding onto – it will give us much more grace in dealing with difficult people.
Imagine if the left understood that Donald Trump was raised by a man described as “brutal” with “very, very little emotional intelligence” who taught his son that there are only two people in the world: “killers” and “losers”. And that at 13 he was shipped off to military school where he was slapped in the face the moment he stepped out of line.
And imagine if the right understood that for every “socialist freeloader” there were families and single mothers entrenched in generational poverty trying to pull themselves up to a basic standard of living with some support from social services.
Would this change our political discourse?
Tara Brach gives the analogy that you’re out in the woods and you’re approached by a snarling, vicious, growling dog.
How do you feel?
Then you look down and see a piece of glass sticking out of the dog’s paw. Now how do you feel?
The truth is that every human being is like this dog. We all have second arrows of suffering we’re holding onto. And if we can see that in one another, we find shared suffering becomes the common ground of humanity.
Suffering is universal. And by sharing our suffering we more deeply touch the truth of interconnection and common humanity. Everyone is suffering – even the “worst of us” are like this growling dog with glass in his paw. Understanding the suffering of others helps us connect with our shared humanity.
Your happiness nerd,
Jackson K.