Value of Adversity

  Throughout Santideva's writings on patience, there is an emphasis on embracing struggle rather than trying to transcend it in a simplified way. In line 19 of "The Perfection of Patience", Santideva continues this theme when eh remarks, "Not even in suffering should a wise person disrupt his mental serenity, for the battle is with the mental afflictions; and in battle pain is easily obtained." (p.63) There are two points that stand out for me in this passage. The first is that Santideva characterizes the 'site' of battle as "mental afflictions", meaning that we are really only dealing with states of mind. In an earlier passage, Santideva uses the analogy of not having enough leather to cover the world, and thus using leather sandals instead (Chapter V, line 13). When I stop thinking that I need to conquer the world 'out there', and see the real enemy as the states of mind or attitudes, I no longer bite off more than I can proverbially chew. I am not trying to change the world to suit my own whims, but am rather working on adjusting unhelpful mental attitudes that might be causing me to suffer in that situation.
    The second part that interests me in this line is seeing that one should expect to feel pain in battle: hence, "in battle pain is easily obtained." I believe that this attitude applies especially to meditation practice, where a person literally experiences a whole gamut of struggles in trying to adopt the middle path between different extremes. I think a mistake I commonly make is to assume that struggle reflects a failure in meditation. In fact, as Santideva emphasizes in Part V especially, the mind is something that can be quite chaotic, and it's expected that one can never control what the mind does. By harboring the expectation of struggle, a person learns not to reject it but to abide peacefully in it, knowing that pain is an unavoidable part of a worthwhile battle or struggle.
    Line 20 has something similar to say to us about the relationship between pain, struggle and spiritual practice. Here, again, Santideva resorts of militaristic imagery to get his point across, when he remarks, "Those who conquer the enemy while receiving the enemies blows on the chest are the victorious heroes. The rest just kill the dead." (ibid). In other words, the most worthwhile things one can do are based on a problematic relationship with something else. Unless one is getting the enemies' blows directly while conquering them, there is not too much learning taking place: it is like, as Santideva suggests, killing people who are already dead! Santideva seems to advocate an ethics of embracing struggle in order to transform struggle, rather than being content with imaginary problems that have no substance or reality. In the midst of this theory of struggle is a faith that difficulties can help a person cultivate a clear and spacious mind, by giving the person a training space to cultivate the bigger mind.

Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (selected chapters only). Translated by V. Wallace and A. Wallace. Snow Lion, 1997.  .