How not to take on human suffering. Stop! How to get rid of love suffering

— Working with people experiencing various crises, we noticed that some of them linger in a dysfunctional, suffering state and do not even seem to particularly strive to get out of this state. That is, they can say that this condition does not suit them, but in fact they do almost nothing really to overcome it. What is the reason for this behavior?

“They seem to be blocking their ability to act.”

Why do they do this?

This could be, for example, something learned in childhood. model of passive behavior in tense situations. The child cannot take care of himself and he finds ways to influence adults to encourage them to satisfy his needs and desires, including crying and demonstrating in every possible way how bad he is.

And having already become big, he, without realizing it, uses this learned model - if he suffers and suffers, maybe someone big and strong will come and fix everything. Naturally, the tendency to this type of reaction does not contribute to the development of either persistence, initiative, or any active and useful skills, which further strengthens this model.

Perhaps these are people who low tolerance to discomfort, lack of positive experience of overcoming difficulties in the past on which they could rely. This behavior can also be supported by the so-called secondary benefit when in this way a person receives attention and care.

— Can you describe in more detail the last two mechanisms - low tolerance of discomfort and secondary benefits?

- As they say, it is not the things themselves that oppress us, but our judgment about them. This is understandable; we often observe that the same events cause very different reactions depending on our interpretation of them. The same applies to states of uncertainty, negative experiences, physical or mental pain.

There is internal discomfort, and from above there is always an attitude towards it, its assessment, for example, as something unpleasant, but still tolerable, not interfering with the ability to live and act. And increased anxiety, suspiciousness and self-pity perceive the same signal as unbearable and all-consuming suffering.

I remember a case from practice. A client came with psychosomatics, who had been visiting doctors and hospitals for several years. And by chance it turned out that she was accompanied by a sister who had a more serious illness according to objective parameters, and at the same time she worked, took care of her family and took care of that sister.

How can it be “beneficial” to suffer?

First of all, it must be said that almost always when this benefit exists, it is unconscious.

Apparently, once suffering paid dividends, the survival program remembered this method as satisfactory, suitable.

Suffering attracts attention, other people begin to pity, sympathize, be horrified, etc. Especially in children, it is clear how much they need attention, and at any cost. They can indulge in mischief and misbehavior in order to achieve at least a negative manifestation of attention to themselves, which is still better than none. Illness is also a way to feel attention and care. Suffering can be used to make an impression. Let us remember how they begin to measure themselves not only by who has achieved what, but also by all their misfortunes. With the help of suffering, you can cause a feeling of guilt in others and protect yourself from their claims.

There is an example on the topic in D. Enright’s book “Gestalt Leading to Enlightenment,” where he talks about two boys he observed at different times. Both of them were running, fell and broke their knees. But the first one was then with his mother, he clung to her and cried. And the second one ran after his friends. The second one looked at his knee, looked back, stepped carefully a couple of times on his wounded leg and, limping, ran to catch up with the other boys.

Enright wrote about what thoughts might have been in their heads.

1st boy: “Oh, how painful it is! S-yy, perhaps, if my mother thinks that things are bad, maybe she will feel sorry for me for a minute - she was in a hurry, so maybe she will feel guilty now and hold me. Y-yyy!”

2nd boy: “Oh, how painful it is! Hmmm, they don't care - it's good that they at least let me come with them, usually they leave me at home. If they see that I'm hurt, they'll leave and say I'm a sissy and they'll never hire me again. I'd better get by somehow! Hmm, this is how you can run!”

And - an important factor that I have already mentioned - “the lack of positive experience in overcoming difficulties in the past.” This is the so-called “learned helplessness”, when a person gets used to the fact that nothing depends on him, on his actions and he cannot do anything. what to influence.

— What other mechanisms exist for our attachment to suffering?

— To one degree or another, we all have a tendency to get stuck in suffering. At another, more fundamental level, the reasons for attachment to suffering are ignorance, that is, lack of understanding of the mechanisms of the structure and functioning of consciousness, fear, and distrust of existence.

Here is an excellent description from M. Fry:

“Today we transplanted fish from one aquarium to another.

During the abuse of animals, the following everyday rules were once again confirmed:

- resistance to fate is the main cause of stress;

- if it seems to you that fate is treating you rudely and mercilessly, this does not mean at all that they wish you harm. You just took a position that was uncomfortable for her;

“If you are passionate about what you love (for example, sucking on a piece of driftwood), you can even miss the apocalypse.”

Life is trying to transplant us into “another aquarium,” but from “our aquarium” it seems to us that we are simply being pulled out of our usual familiar comfort zone, who knows where. This could be the loss of relationships, work, money, it could be illness and any unusual, unknown and therefore frightening events and situations.

Life is a stream of continuous change that will always pass through us and the environment around us. And what scares us most of all is the new, the unusual, we are afraid to trust and flow with life, we want to keep everything under control. And therefore we resist with all our might, clinging to the walls of the “old aquarium”, trying to stay there, enduring all the accompanying, but familiar torments. “The mice cried, injected themselves, but continued to gnaw the cactus.”

Even if that “old aquarium” actually no longer exists, we disagree so much in our souls with this loss that all our resources are spent on this resistance and not letting go. All strength, all energy is directed there.

When do we suffer? When we resist and do not accept fate, instead of accepting, direct those forces that went to fight to cooperate with it.

— Is the “suffering position” an acceptable solution to the problem, or should such a person still try to change his usual reactions and free himself from suffering?

- If these suffering states completely take over a person, his life loses its attractiveness, nothing pleases him anymore. There is a disruption in his energetic interaction with the world. The energy that should go outside, into active interaction with others, no longer moves there, but begins to oppress him.

Often this imbalance manifests itself as pathological attachment and dependence. Charles Tart once at his seminar invited participants to look at an ordinary paper cup for a couple of minutes and perceive it as something of their own, a part of themselves. And then, when he suddenly crushed it, many people experienced unpleasant sensations. And this is just about a paper cup. And when we become attached, we invest ourselves, our essence, in some external objects, circumstances, statuses, people, etc., then we become dependent on them and cannot let them go. For example, how much suffering, even reluctance to live, comes from so-called “unhappy love” - pathological attachment to another person.

This imbalance can also take the form of an existential crisis, when a person suffers because he cannot find the meaning of his life, cannot find the answer to the question of why and for what it is all. At a time when inspiring meaning helps overcome the most serious problems. “He who knows the “why” of living will overcome almost any “how”” (Nietzsche).

Difficulties, dead ends, uncertainty are a normal, natural part of life. In general, the expectation that is present somewhere deep down in the soul that life should be easy and comfortable is a big misconception that will constantly disappoint as not corresponding to reality. But the reality is that all people, no matter what we fantasize about them, solve their problems, which only from the outside may seem easy.

The way out is to learn to perceive everything that comes from the outside as a challenge to us, as tasks requiring solutions, and to transfer them from the area of ​​suffering to the area of ​​interest.

 ( Pobedesh.ru 40 votes: 3.95 out of 5)

Previous conversation

1. Vow of the Great Vehicle
Ho, souls of living beings,
What rises and sinks
In the ocean of the Cycle of Existence,
Drawn by all kinds of illusions,

Like a reflection
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May they all rest peacefully in Mahayana -
In limitless freedom
And absolute happiness.
Turning the soul into Four
Great Immeasurable States,
I make a Vow to the Great Chariot!

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There is no happiness in the world, but there is peace and will
A. S. Pushkin

Buddhism and its eightfold path stand on the four noble truths, or rather, on the first fundamental truth about dukkha (suffering), from which, like a stove, Gautama and all his followers dance. The main flaw in this truth, which prevents most people from accepting it and, therefore, following them, is disagreement with the statement that life is, one way or another, suffering.

Fixing this flaw is now easy. It is enough to understand that every person is constantly filled with suppressed sadness due to the fact that the world and himself in it are not as we would like, and suppressed anxiety, that is, fear that things will continue to be the same, if not worse. /A more accurate translation of the Pali word “dukkha” is “restless dissatisfaction”, restlessness is a synonym for anxiety, dissatisfaction is synonymous with sadness./

Suppressed negative emotions are not realized, but this does not make their negative effect disappear. The constant nature of this action is addictive, and only when a person gets what he wants or gets rid of what he was afraid of, the effect of sadness and anxiety suddenly stops and he experiences short-term relief and joy. But they quickly go away, the pressure of negative emotions is restored. This is why happiness and joy are so fleeting. After all, a person is almost always in a state of unconscious, intangible suffering. So no matter what, everyone suffers, although they are used to it and are not aware of it. And something needs to be done about this. Now, having accepted this truth, you can move on to the next one.

The cause of suffering is desires (thirst - tanha, trishna). Indeed, the source of sadness is unsatisfied desires. The source of fear and anxiety is also desire, only with the opposite sign - the reluctance to receive the unwanted - pain, loss, fear, death. The way to stop suffering, sadness and anxiety is to get rid of these desires. This is the third noble truth. And the fourth is that there is a path on which one can get rid of desires and suffering: the eightfold path. Now let's move on to it.

We will not pay attention to the common religious interpretation of the eightfold path, which turned his list of commandments into monastic prohibitions, but will consider it from the position of the spiritual school that he once was, corresponding to the eightfold divided prakriti from the Bhagavad Gita:

(two preliminary stages)

1. Correct ideas, ideas, views (ditthi), where the choice of the Path begins (earth).

2. The right goal, determination, intention, aspiration (sankappa), from which the Path itself begins (water).

(three preparatory, cleansing directions of the Path)

3. Correct speech (vacha), the beginning of the Path in the mind, its conscious, thinking part (fire).

4. Right action (kammanta), the beginning of the Path of the body, purification of the body and will (air).

5. Correct life and death (ajiva), the beginning of the Path of the Heart, purification of emotions (ether).

(three practices of the main part of the Path)

6. Correct effort (vayama), in the volitional part of the mind (manas), for example, by methods of retention and shamatha (stopping, see the corresponding rules of Naqshbandi)

7. Right mindfulness (sati, smriti), in the conscious part of the mind (buddhi), which includes all practices of concentration and concentration

8. Correct contemplation (samadhi), in the perceiving part of the mind associated with individual consciousness (ahankara), for example, by the Vipassana method.

It is clear that this is the path of the Mind, and this is a complex thing. It is not surprising to get confused here, which is what Buddhism, as a Path, did, breaking up into many directions and interpretations, losing the simple and clear truth brought to the world by Shakyamuni. So how did he propose to get rid of desires? Through what specific practice of working with the mind, meditation, can one achieve the notorious enlightenment, nirvana?

You will not immediately find a clear answer to this question, and this is considered normal. Practice, they say, under the guidance of those who know, and in a mysterious way someday, perhaps, the ineffable and unpronounceable, clear and calm understanding of everything will open, and desires and every wavering darkness will disappear without a trace. The only problem is that all the bodhisattvas who have achieved samadhi, enlightenment and nirvana have disappeared somewhere, and I don’t want to try after the losers with a guarantee of failure.

Let's try to reconstruct the events ourselves. A description of dhyana, the meditation that Gautama used while sitting under a ficus tree to awaken and become Buddha, can be found in the Bhagavad Gita; it is no different from yogic, except for the absence of turning to God. A state of mind in which there is no attachment to the fruits of deeds and objects of the senses and, ultimately, there is tranquility and detachment from desires - this is an understandable, desirable launching pad for the Buddha, his context, and not the result of the final practice.

Such a result could only be an explosive awareness of the absence of “I”, Ego, the false center of being and the mind of a person, the belief in the existence of which is the main support of the command-volitional, unconscious part of the mind, in which all the ideas and values ​​of the mind are concentrated, with the help of which it evaluates , judges reality and makes decisions. The exit of Gautama's consciousness beyond the limits of this conditioned mind, liberation from it, de-energizing it, merging with the perceiving part of the mind and the entire surrounding and existing reality in enlightened contemplation (samadhi, yarn), without the distorting filter of the command mind, connection, merging with the energy of consciousness higher planes transformed Gautama into a Buddha and allowed this energy and new vision to begin to be transmitted to the students, forming the sangha, the school community.

Then this fundamental discovery of Buddhism was interpreted in different ways and expressed in different schools as non-division and unified consciousness (alaya-vijnana, tathagatagarbha), initially perfect presence (rigpa), as non-duality (advaita), empty ground (shunya), anitya ( impermanence), and most importantly - anatmavada (absence of Self and soul), anatman. Actually, the main and cardinal difference between Buddhism and Vedanta was this fundamental denial by Buddhism of the soul - atman, atma and, accordingly, Brahman, God. In this regard, the picture of the world and the goal of Buddhism began to smack of suicidal traits of the desire for absolute suicide, dissolution into the peace of nothingness, and how else can one interpret the position about the main goal as the need to calm the interdependent excitement of dharmas, besides which, according to Buddhist understanding, there is nothing . In fact, Buddhists simply removed all obstacles in their minds to destroy the Ego; this is a practical exercise, nothing more.

Buddhism as a school is completely tied to Gautama and to the transmission from teacher to student, without which it is impossible to advance far along this Path. This need for transmission has been preserved in all remaining schools and in the religion of Buddhism, the essence of which is to spread among people the desire to get rid of desires, train attention, and, if possible, not cause unnecessary pain to the living. And the Buddhist way to get rid of desires - the destruction of one's Ego - is kept implicitly, as it were, a secret - both because it is incredibly difficult and because it is unattractive to followers.

Why did Buddhism, despite some successes, decline everywhere? Buddhism, as a teaching of practical work with the body of the mind, as the Path of the Mind, unfortunately, never became the Path of Consciousness. The practice of focusing attention on objects, the practice of concentration, helped to clear the mind, but not to go beyond it, and this was precisely the ultimate goal of the practitioners. A relatively simple, gradual way to disidentify with the mind through work with the expansion of consciousness was not available to Buddhists. They always followed the difficult path of storming the limits of the mind through concentration and volitional retention of attention, and this super-effort occasionally gave an instant breakthrough in enlightenment, and in other cases, that is, almost always, nothing but increased mental discipline and detachment.

However, today, when the understanding of the nature of the mind and consciousness has seriously advanced, those following the paths of Buddhism only need to add our modern mindfulness practices to their practices, increase awareness of the body and emotions - and breakthroughs to enlightenment will no longer be the exception to the rule. Buddhism and its various schools are perhaps the least aggressive spiritual schools of our time, and the peaceful dissemination of certain discoveries of our School among them could make a revolutionary revolution in the effectiveness of their spiritual work on themselves. Why not, on occasion, if the Lord allows, to breathe into these old, the oldest existing wineskins - a new wine of conscious enlightenment? Although the conditioning of the mind of modern Buddhists, littered with all sorts of ancient practices, concepts and texts, is off the scale, the absence of a real result, being suddenly realized, is also a result. There is only one goal - to emerge from your river into the ocean of unified consciousness and awareness, into nirvana. And there, in the ocean, it will no longer be possible not to see the Lord - even for a Buddhist.

Is it necessary to try to get rid of any pain, how to console someone who is presenting an account to God, and why a person always cries “for a reason” – theologians and psychologists discussed

On December 14, the conference “Suffering and the peculiarities of providing assistance to suffering people in church and secular practice” was held at PSTGU. The central speeches of the conference were two reports - by the dean of the Faculty of Theology of PSTGU, Archpriest Pavel Khondzinsky and Doctor of Psychological Sciences Fyodor Efimovich Vasilyuk, who discussed the topic of deliverance from suffering from different angles.

Anesthetized man

The report of Archpriest Pavel Khondzinsky, “The Anesthetized Man,” was dedicated to the impact that the invention of pain relief had on the worldview of modern man.

For quite a long time, suffering was perceived in the Christian tradition as a gift, the acceptance of which “as a necessary condition for approaching Christ was not questioned either in the East or in the West.” Archpriest Pavel recalled that back in the 17th century, Blaise Pascal perceived grief as a voluntary sacrifice of a person: “It is not shameful for a person to surrender to the power of grief, but it is shameful to surrender to the power of pleasure. Grief does not at all try to tempt us, does not lead us into temptation, it is we who bow to it of our own free will, recognize its power and therefore remain the masters of the situation, we are submissive to ourselves, and only to ourselves, while, enjoying, we become slaves of pleasure. The ability to manage and control oneself always exalts a person, slavery always covers him with shame.”

The speaker also recalled the saying of the Apostle Peter that unjust suffering pleases God. “It pleases God if anyone, thinking about God, endures tribulations, suffering unjustly” (1 Pet. 2: 19).

“This statement, strange for a modern person, can obviously be interpreted as follows,” reflects Fr. Paul. - Fallen man is doomed to suffer; in the scroll of his life, according to the prophet Isaiah, sobbing, pity and grief are written. Moreover, these sufferings, being a consequence of original sin, cannot in any way be called unjust. Only Christ, in the proper sense of the word, suffers unjustly (innocently), since He is like us in everything except sin. However, His redemptive suffering, without destroying the community of the law of suffering, at the same time creates the possibility of innocent suffering for those who have joined them through the Church. Now the one who suffers unjustly, thinking about God, suffers in this sense innocently and thereby draws closer to Christ.”

Thus, from the point of view of Christian anthropology, it is unjust suffering that can be called a person’s voluntary sacrifice, bringing him closer to God.

However, by the 17th century, the view of the problem of suffering was changing. From now on, unjust suffering is perceived as a reason to reproach the Divine. Thus, the need to justify God arises, and in parallel, the corresponding genre of theodicy arises.

More than a hundred years later, the situation is radically changed by technological progress. On October 16, 1846, at the Boston Clinic, William Morton for the first time successfully performed an operation to remove a tumor in a patient's neck using anesthesia.

“It was then that the damage to fallen human nature was, as it were, proportionately compensated by the achievements of technical progress. Man did not cease to be fallen, but seemed to have regained (or rather decided that he had regained) the properties of the primordial Adam,” says Fr. Pavel Khondzinsky.

The church's assessment of the new discovery did not appear immediately: “Only in February 1957, Pope Pius XII confirmed that “the Christian duty of renunciation and internal purification is not an obstacle to the use of anesthesia.” The Eastern Church did not make a conciliar assessment of anesthesia.

However, the advent of anesthesia had a profound impact not only on medicine, but also on the worldview of modern man in general. “Anesthesia has firmly taken possession of not only the physical, but also the mental and spiritual nature of man, as evidenced by the countless number of antidepressants and other drugs of the same kind offered to modern man in one form or another that anesthetize mental pain,” noted Fr. Paul.

Having experienced living under anesthesia, modern man actively tries to avoid any suffering at all.

Hence many modern problems - loneliness, inability to compassion, suggested Fr. Paul.

“An act of contact (physical or mental) is always potentially fraught for me with either my own pain or the need to take into account the pain of others, that is, co-suffering, which in turn is suffering for myself. It is now quite clear that from the point of view of the “anesthetized person,” if it is impossible to anesthetize the act of communication, then it is better to abandon it completely.”

According to the speaker, the most important characteristic of the “anesthetized person” was impatience.

“There is no life according to the commandments without patience, there is no patience without grace. However, for the modern person who does not know and does not seek grace, this gift is replaced by anesthetized impatience, the flip side of which, obviously, should be the ever-shortening periods between doses of anesthesia and the increasing inability to do without it.”

Many modern problems arise, according to Fr. Paul, precisely because of such impatience:

“Teenagers commit suicide after receiving a bad grade in their diary or not finding enough likes on their photos on social networks. According to WHO, by 2020, depression will take first place in the structure of morbidity and will affect 60% of the population, and mortality from severe depression, often leading to suicide, will take second place among other causes of mortality.”

In the end, the idea of ​​anesthesia, according to the speaker, replaced the idea of ​​anastasis - resurrection.

Paradoxizing the topic, Fr. Paul introduces the concept of “an anesthetized person”: “An anesthetized person” is a person who knows no remorse, is not responsible for his desires and actions, has no patience, is lonely and afraid of love.”

Does this mean that Fr. Does Pavel oppose the use of painkillers? No. “To the question, is it necessary to alleviate people’s suffering? - there should be an unequivocal answer - of course, it is necessary: ​​both by relieving them of physical pain and co-suffering, which is the sharing of suffering with the sufferer.”

Suffering seeks meaning

Doctor of Psychological Sciences Fyodor Efimovich Vasilyuk highlighted the topic of suffering from the other side - how to help a person survive suffering.

The suffering of another person confronts us with the need for compassion. In this situation, according to the speaker, three reactions are possible - theodicy, asceticism and consolation of the suffering. Psychologists and priests are close in the need to console the suffering. At the same time, experience, according to the psychologist, is not just an emotional state, but a lot of mental-structuring work.

“Experience as the experience of loss is the work of finding new supports and building suffering.

In general, the word “suffering” comes from the word “strada” - according to Dahl, “hard crowbar work, strained labor.”

At the same time, the psychologist who helps the client survive suffering is not in the position of a naturalist, he is involved in compassion. M.M. Bakhtin spoke about the existence of three forms of compassion - assistance, advice and sympathy. The psychologist is unable to do either the first or the second; he is left with counseling.”

Of course, when consoling a person, you need to remember that often he himself creates the situations from which he suffers. We need to entrust him with the zone of proximal development. We must allow him to endure the pain that he is able to endure. However, often any expression of love from others at this moment becomes support for people and helps them survive the pain easier.

“Experience,” said Fyodor Vasilyuk, “seeks meaning. A meaningless experience is one thing, an experience filled with meaning is another. We all remember Soviet-era dentists' offices, which looked more like torture rooms. But the pain on the way to the dentist and on the way from him are different pains.”

Sometimes finding or constructing meaning makes it easier to survive physical pain.

“I remember one grandmother - she was over ninety, she could hardly see anything, and her leg hurt very much. At moments when the pain became especially unbearable, she said: “Let it hurt even more, but let the granddaughter be fine with her husband.”

Obviously, she thought that the family’s suffering was somehow shared jointly: if some had more, then others less - let’s forgive her for this delusion. But it gave her suffering meaning.

I also remember Father Dmitry Ovsyannikov talking about a prisoner who believed in prison. And so, on the advice of his confessor, he turned his cell into a cell and began to learn monastic prayer. Outwardly nothing has changed - only his attitude has changed.

This is not an escape from suffering, but a situation where it ceases to be an enemy and serves as a means of helping loved ones or prayer.”

In addition, according to the speaker's observation, experience is always dialogical. A person always cries for a reason, he cries to “someone”. Sometimes an incomprehensible address distorts the relationships around a person; he needs to be helped to understand it himself.

“For example, one day a man without a nose came to me. He had certain disorders due to schizophrenia, which also left an imprint on the situation. He was once in love, but his chosen one rejected him. He considered that the reason for this was his appearance, and had plastic surgery, then the second, third, and on the fourth, he simply had to remove his nose.

But now he came with another problem: “I read the entire “Bible” several times, I traveled a lot to monasteries and pilgrimages. The Bible says that God does not give trials beyond one’s strength, but I am exactly the person to whom he gave such trials.”

I felt that this man came not with a defense, but with an accusation. If I had uttered some standard admonitions, he would have simply stated that in one other place he had not been helped. But I also felt that everything said was not addressed to me. And then I said:

Did I understand correctly that you suffered a lot, searched for meaning, turned to God with this question, but did not receive an answer?

Yes,” my client answered, after thinking, “God is silent, life passes, and I’m scared.”

In his understanding, nothing has changed, but he came out of the position of general accusation, and dialogue became possible.”

Also, according to F. E. Vasilyuk, the relationship between the mental and spiritual in help is important.

A cold call to pray is inappropriate for a wounded person; his pain must first be alleviated.

As an example, the speaker cited an episode from Dostoevsky’s novel, when a woman who had recently lost a child came to Elder Zosima. The usual admonitions that the baby was certainly with the Lord had no effect on her. And then the elder said: “Do not be comforted and cry! But remember that every time your son looks at you and points to the Lord. And this maternal cry will be enough for you for a long time. And in the end it will turn into quiet joy.”

The woman was acquitted of the charge of impious suffering, and her suffering was even shown respect. She was allowed to suffer, but a branch of prayer was grafted onto the tree of suffering. The perspective of suffering changes - not “you look at the sky,” but “the son is looking at you from there.” As a result, the situation of grief “opened up”, began to be perceived in a broader perspective, and communication with God turned out to be possible.

Descent into Hell

Talking about suffering is important, but also painful. How can I give advice here without having my own experience of suffering? Theoretical conversation is important, but it can turn out to be like a sharp knife, causing unnecessary pain. “Whoever has not suffered himself should not prescribe suffering for others,” Fr. Pavel Khondzinsky.

In conclusion, we would like to quote the words of a deceased priest who helped children with cancer and their parents - Fr. Georgy Chistyakov. Father George, it seems to us, places the most important emphasis in this conversation:

“In our churches, among the holy icons, the “Descent into Hell” occupies a rather prominent place - Jesus in this icon is depicted descending somewhere into the depths of the earth, and at the same time into the depths of human grief, despair and hopelessness. The New Testament does not speak about this event at all, only in the Apostles’ Creed there are two words about it - descendit ad inferos (“descended into hell”), and quite a lot in our church hymns.

Jesus not only suffers himself, but also descends into hell to share the pain of others.

He always calls us with him, telling us: “Come for me.” Often we really try to follow him. But here...

Here we try not to see someone else’s pain, we close our eyes, plug our ears. In Soviet times, we hid disabled people in reservations (like, for example, on Valaam) so that no one would see them, as if pitying the psyche of our compatriots. Mortuaries in hospitals were often hidden in the backyard so that no one would ever guess that people sometimes died here. And so on and so forth. Even now, if we consider ourselves non-believers, we try to play “cat and mouse” with death, pretend that it doesn’t exist, as Epicurus taught, fence ourselves off from it, etc. In other words, in order not to be afraid of death, we use what - kind of like an analgesic.

If we consider ourselves believers, then we act no better: we say that it is not terrible, that this is God’s will, that there is no need to grieve for the deceased, because by doing so we are grumbling against God, and so on. One way or another, like non-believers, we also fence ourselves off from pain, shield ourselves from it instinctively, as if from the blow of a hand raised above us, that is, we also use, if not a drug, then at least an analgesic.

This is for yourself. And for others we do even worse. We try to convince a person who is in pain that it only seems to him, and it seems because he does not love God, etc. and so on. And as a result, we leave a person who is ill, hard and in pain alone with his pain, abandoning him alone at the most difficult place on the road of life.

But we should just go down with him to hell following Jesus - to feel the pain of the one who is nearby, in all its fullness, openness and authenticity, to share it, to experience it together.”