We watched the movie, Shadowlands, last night.  It is based on the life of C.S. Lewis and his late-in-life love and marriage to Joy Gresham.  It is a tragedy.  He discovers her, or she him; she challenges him fundamentally to actually experience love, as opposed to intellectually consider it; and then she dies.  It also includes elements of Lewis’s theology, especially his understanding of the meaning of suffering.  The narrative is a test, of sorts, of his conviction that, indeed, pain is fundamental to redemption, as in this line:

The pain now is part of the happiness then.    

    As I pondered this thought (it made sense to me in light of my Catholic upbringing), I couldn’t help but wonder at a Taoist response.  First, I imagined a Taoist would ask the reverse question: is the happiness now part of the pain then?  That is a sad possibility.  Instead of the promise of an everlasting, and presumably happy, life, this question points to the chance of ultimate sorrow.  That might make sense to Lewis – since he said that he believed in heaven (in a Christian sense) then he almost certainly believes in hell (i.e. eternal damnation and all that).   But that is not what a Taoist would suggest.

      By raising the reverse question, a Taoist would mean to cast doubt on the initial distinction of pain and happiness.  Neither is an absolute state; each includes elements of the other; neither can ever completely overshadow the other.   There is, of course, no promise of final redemption in Taoism.  How, then, is pain and suffering understood?  Simply as pain and suffering.  They happen, as so many things happen in Way.  They come and go. They dominate only if we allow them to do so.  We might minimize their effects if we release ourselves from desires and expectations.  If we understand the fragility and fleetingness of our existence in Way, if we open ourselves to the inevitable ebb and flow of its unfolding, then, perhaps, as Chuang Tzu tells us “there can be no loss.”  Nothing is lost in Way.

      But what of pain?  Physical pain.  It seems so unnecessary, so cruel.  If it is the effect of human cruelty, then we must focus on that root, the underlying un-Way-like behavior of some people.  But if it is the pain that wells up from own own bodies how can we accept it or yield to it.  Its hurt repels us, we want to get away from it.  A Taoist would accept, I believe, palliative care, the treatment of discomforting symptoms, to allow a person to be in the world without physical pain.  Yes, pain may be the body’s signal that something is wrong, and the underlying condition can be treated.  But some conditions bring chronic pain and there is no need to live with it, when drugs can ease such suffering. 

     Other sorts of pain and suffering, the emotional hurt we feel when a loved one dies for example, do not need to be treated with drugs, but with mere acceptance.   That can be hard to do, but that is the Taoist response.  We will not meet them in a better heaven; all we can do is continue to be in Way now.

      I should add that Confucianism also does not offer after life redemption either.  After life is one of the “silences of Confucius,” the things he would not talk about.  Confucian redemption comes in the present.  Our response to pain and suffering should be an intensified focus on those who are experiencing the pain and suffering, especially if they are part of our network of closest loving relationships.  And through that care we create and reproduce Humanity in the here and now.  In this sense, Lewis acts in accordance with Confucian ideals: he cares for Joy, he works to ease her pain and suffering and, to a degree, he succeeds.  Most importantly, perhaps, he relieves her worry about her sons by raising them after she is gone.  She knows that as she dies and must have gained a certain peace with that knowledge.