There is alchemy in the crucible of suffering, if you can surrender to it. I don’t say this glibly and acknowledge the scale of suffering many beings endure is unimaginable. Suffering though is a fundamental aspect of what makes us human. In the simulacra we’ve created with AI, we urgently need to know our humanity.
Many foundational stories speak of suffering. The teachings of Buddha centre around the intrinsic nature of suffering and its causes as part of the human condition and kindly offers us a noble path by which we may choose to liberate ourselves from it.
‘No mud, no lotus’ as the venerable Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh said.
I had my own moment in the mud recently and it reminded me of the importance of surrendering and our moral imperative not to be the cause of suffering and to ease the suffering of others whenever we can.
I went to catch up with friends over pizza at Clunes and instead ended up spending a gruelling seven hours waiting in hospital emergency to see a doctor. I tripped over an awkwardly placed umbrella stand and fell, hitting my head hard on the uneven stone pavement, smashing my glasses into my face causing a laceration above my eye needing stitches. I’ve also bruised, and likely hairline fractured, ribs.
The beautiful thing, the lotus in the mud if you will, as I lay there in pain shaking in shock looking up at the darkening sky filling with flying foxes, was the spontaneous kindness of people around me. I had no choice but to surrender and the salve of their care made the suffering bearable.
Time becomes otherworldly in those moments and acts of kindness like holding my hand, reassuring me help was on the way, placing comfort under my head, and covering me with a blanket made the world of difference. This is humans at their best, caring for a stranger in strife.
The wonderful paramedics arrived quickly and took me to Lismore Base Hospital. There the vibe changed, not because people weren’t kind, but because as we all know, the public hospital system, particularly in rural and regional NSW, is at breaking point. It’s a nightmarish situation for hospital staff and those needing urgent care.
Dozens of people were waiting, many elderly, worried parents with pallid children, some hacking and coughing, perhaps with influenza or Covid, all waiting on ridiculously uncomfortable chairs. It made a mockery of the pandemic restrictions jamming us all into a smallish space for hours.
For a country that prides itself on its universal health care system funded by our taxes, it’s a dismal failure of government that public hospitals are so stretched after years of neglect and an inexcusable lack of proper funding. Those on the right of politics would kill off public health care altogether if they could.
Because the waiting time was going to be hours, and we wanted to avoid also catching a virus, my partner drove me to Byron Hospital, where we were advised no one was waiting, but as happens, several ambulances arrived all at once with serious emergencies.
At Byron, I asked the triage nurse why the seating was so uncomfortable. She said it was to deter homeless people from wanting to sleep there. Not only is the government failing to care for homeless people, they’re also torturing sick people in the process.
There are immense challenges running a public health care system, adequate staffing being one of them. Tough talk on immigration by One Nation, and now the copycat Coalition, sends shivers up my spine. Imagine how much worse public hospitals would be without immigrant doctors, nurses, and cleaners.
I’m not going to lie, seven hours waiting in pain and discomfort, exhausted and hungry did not bring out my best self. I wanted to scream out of utter frustration. I could have kicked the noisy vending machine dispensing only junk. Has nobody at NSW Health been to Japan? Vending machines could stock warm blankets, small pillows and hot miso soup.
When my name was finally called at 3am, the medical care and kindness I received from the sole doctor on duty was exemplary.
The blessing in all this is the opening of the heart to the suffering of others. What do we become if we are inured to the suffering of others?
Look around. We can become monsters who want to livestream the execution of a prisoner, or people who turn a blind eye to genocide and children having limbs amputated without anaesthesia in Gaza. I’m lost for words.
Our humanness is inextricably bound with suffering. It tells us apart from AI machines that learn to speak our language, but do not feel our suffering or come to the aid of a stranger in need of human comfort.
♦ Jo Immig is a former advisor to the NSW Legislative Council and Coordinator of the National Toxics Network. She’s currently a freelance writer and researcher.
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