In a classic tale from ancient India, The Ramayana, there is a sentence that has powerful implications. After the hero, Rama, has undergone tremendous ordeals and successfully rescued his fair damsel, Sita, the divine couple returns to the royal palace to live “happily ever after.” But then comes a seemingly terrifying sentence: “But soon the well of suffering went dry, and new discontent had to occur.”
The well of suffering went dry!
In other words, Rama and Sita had upset the balance of content and discontent in the universe. How different this notion is from many Western tales in which “they lived happily ever after”!
In The Ramayana, to ensure that the world continues to turn, someone starts a rumor that Sita hadn’t been “blameless” while being held in captivity by Ravana, an adversary who had abducted her from Rama. King Rama has to punish Sita for a crime that she never committed; he banishes her from the kingdom, and the story goes on to more adventures and new realms of striving, suffering, and reconciliation.
The ramifications of this mythic tale are deeply disturbing. It implies that when we get too contented, some force wells up in the collective unconscious to turn reality in a different direction.
Other spiritual traditions similarly recognize a cyclical pattern. For example, in the liturgical year of the Christian church, Advent is a time of waiting and darkness, sometimes called ember days. This is followed by the light and glory of Christmas. Ash Wednesday ushers in six weeks of darkness, a time to honor the well of suffering with introspection, fasting, and prayer. The “dark” period culminates in Holy Week, when all the statues in the church are wrapped in purple cloth. On Holy Saturday the world is considered to be dead, and even the holy water is removed from the font. Easter Sunday is again the showing forth of the light.
Apparently, when the well of suffering goes dry, something emerges to bring the universe back into dynamic equilibrium. If this is true, then you must keep your discontent—as well as your contentment—in good shape! Of course, you don’t need to flagellate yourself. Discontent will come to you of its own accord, and when it does, it too must be honored. Trying to control contentment is like wanting Easter without Good Friday. When you start trying to repair or manipulate “what is,” then you only upset the natural order of the universe.
As long as you think in terms of this one or that one, you are still caught up in the world of the small, personal “I.” But, if you can stand to live in paradox long enough, then a transformation takes place and a new consciousness is born. This occurs when one has stopped trying to maneuver external reality so that it will work out as the “I” desires.
In one Buddhist tradition, when you finally receive enlightenment you have three days to tidy up your affairs because you are about to die. It may be that enduring contentment, in which all the oppositions that fill our daily lives are finally resolved, carries you beyond this world. Without the oppositions that produce discontent, there wouldn’t be a dance—life, as we know it, would stop flowing.
In the meantime, we have the wonderful guidance of King Lear, who sees suffering all around him and still learns to affirm life as the play of God. Since we—like Lear—are all in a cage of some sort, we might as well sing, dance, and say “yes” to the whole joyous and painful, miraculous and ordinary content of our lives.