End Struggles on Your Spiritual Path: Zen’s Radical Way to Turn Hell into Heaven

The Inner Struggles of the Path

Are you struggling with your spiritual practice?

There are a number of reasons why we struggle on a spiritual journey.

Maybe we are having a hard time staying consistent with our meditation practice. Or we are disciplined and have no issues putting in the effort to meditate regularly, but when we sit down to meditate, we struggle to be in a meditative mindset.

We may exert ourselves when unwanted thoughts or feelings come up, trying to control them.

Or we struggle because we "haven't found it yet."

"I finally want to be enlightened."

But we are not, and we are frustrated with ourselves.

"I am doing everything correctly, but I'm still not there.”

The Many Faces of Struggle

Struggle can come in many shapes and forms. Sometimes, it’s just a tiny struggle—like when we have to wait in a long line or when someone cuts us off while we’re driving. Small inconveniences that happen as we go through our regular life. Sometimes, especially when we are on a spiritual path, we may also experience a kind of existential struggle.

We already know that there is something more to life than what we've learned through the conditioning of our society. Instead of falling for the idea that we are separate selves who are born and will eventually die, vanishing into an imagined idea of nothingness, we know of the possibility to see our true nature—to recognize our true Self, which is infinite, which wasn’t born and will not die.

There are many examples of people who have reached this knowledge, who became enlightened, and who went on preaching this truth to people open enough to receive it. We look at them, and we think, "I want to be like that. I want to find this truth." And in the next moment, we see how flawed we are as human beings.

Instantly, we are confronted with our human nature, and we criticize it for not being perfect; we criticize others for not being perfect.

And we struggle really hard to keep it together.

The End of Struggle

So, how can we overcome struggle?

First, this question is already misleading, because from a Zen perspective, we could translate this question to “How can we struggle more with struggle?” Struggle itself means trying to overcome something with some amount of force or effort.

Whenever we try to overcome something, it means that we aren’t at peace with what is, and we want it to be different. This is also what Buddha called “Dukkha,” which means suffering or a certain unsatisfactoriness in life. We are not content with what is, and we want it to be something else. Until this “something else” arrives, we suffer—we struggle. And in doing spiritual practice, we take this to another level—we become conscious of this mechanism, but not conscious enough to see that trying to overcome this behavior just leads to more struggle.

There is a shocking Zen story that offers a solution to this struggle.

Joshu, an ancient Chinese Zen master, was asked by an elderly woman how she could be freed from the world of suffering, since she felt very sinful and ignorant.

Zen Master Joshu simply looked at her and said, “May all human beings be reborn in heaven, and may this old woman descend into hell forever.”

I read this story in the book "Radical Zen: The Sayings of Joshu," and below there is a note from the translator, where he states that once she is there, she won’t be troubled anymore about going there.

At first, this is a really shocking story. It’s an unexpected answer, and if people are not into Zen, they might misunderstand it. It’s not about deriving an intellectual answer, or Buddha forbid, a strategy about overcoming struggle or suffering from his reply.

Every attempt to do so will ultimately fail because these typical Zen stories do not aim to transmit a strategy or anything of that sort.

Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen, once described it as a transmission beyond words, directly pointing to the mind, so that one sees his own nature and becomes a Buddha, an awakened one. Joshu’s answer is exactly that. He doesn’t try to teach a fancy concept of overcoming suffering; he points directly to our minds, to our own nature. Instead of delivering an answer that tries to cope with suffering, he simply says, “SUFFER.”

The old woman has a suffering mind, a mind where she struggles because she feels too ignorant, too sinful, and instead of trying to make it into something else, he simply points to that. He simply points to her mind as it is, not how she wants it to be, or how he wants it to be.

Joshu accepts the situation 100%; his mind is like the vast, wide-open sky that doesn’t care about how many clouds may obscure it. It takes the greatest courage to simply be with what is, not trying to make it into something else. And when we do that, we have already overcome suffering or struggle. When we fully accept that we are in hell, we are already in heaven.

There is no more effort that forces us to be somewhere else. There is no more struggle that tries to get us from what is to what should be.

“May all human beings be reborn in heaven, and may we descend into hell forever.”

This is how we overcome struggle.

Freedom Beyond Suffering and Enlightenment

But please be aware that this teaching is very dangerous. It's dangerous because our minds will use it to make suffering go away. It's possible that the next time you suffer, your mind will remember what Joshu said and try to force you to think positively about your suffering.

Accepting suffering means suffering 100%, without trying to escape it or change it. It means being free enough, having a mind vast enough to look at it as it is.

Oftentimes, we mistakenly believe that the freedom we gain through spiritual practice means becoming free of all the "bad stuff." But it's not like that. True freedom means building the capacity to welcome everything into our lives. But we also don’t need to overwhelm ourselves with that.

Next time, when a feeling of struggle or suffering comes up, just look at it. Try to see how you are trying to resist it, how you are trying to suppress it.

Become really curious about it. How does it feel that makes you want to escape it?

Just become aware of the movements in your mind and body that accompany this feeling, and be really honest about them. Maybe there's even a feeling of hopelessness or despair that comes with it. Don't try to fight this feeling; don't try to impose your will over it or hide from it.

Just acknowledge it.

"Okay, I feel completely hopeless."

Usually, we try to find a strategy to avoid these feelings, but however we attempt to escape them, it means they control us, and we are not free. Being free enough to suffer, to feel despair, to feel helpless, is a greater skill than being free from suffering.

Also, when we think about our "spiritual goals" and become hopeless because we know we're not there yet, it's much better to be really honest with ourselves and acknowledge this hopelessness, instead of trying to force our way to enlightenment.

Because whatever enlightenment we get from forcing ourselves, is not the enlightenment the masters are talking about.

Surrendering 100% to what is— that's already beyond any idea of enlightenment.

Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn said, "When happiness comes, only happiness. When sadness comes, only sadness. Paradise is welcome, and hell is welcome too."

With that being said, I hope this inspires your spiritual practice.

Thank you very much, and I wish you a clear moment right now.

All the best,
Your friend of the way,
Bye!