Pain is a Path to Spiritual Bliss

“Follow your bliss” is a popular ideal, but you have to follow your pain first. I mean there can be no true bliss to follow if it’s buried under the boulders of your unresolved pain. Bliss is the end result of a deepening, maturing spirituality. Pain is the path you must blaze in order to mature spiritually. Pain-- be it physical, mental or emotional— awakens the empty spaces inside of us. If we are present and open to our pain, it will take us to the very places where we need to find spiritual healing. Pain invites us to truly take a soul-journey.

This journey into the inner-areas of the soul is beautifully portrayed in the 2008 Japanese film Departures. The film centers on the life of Daigo Kobayashi, a cellist in a Tokyo symphony orchestra, who carries a dark burden in his heart. That burden centers on his relationship with his father, who Daigo hasn’t seen in 30 years. When Daigo was six years old, his father-- who operated a coffee shop-- ran off with one of the waitresses. Daigo only knows his side of the story, along with whatever his mother confided in him. But he has no knowledge or understanding as to why his father abandoned the family.

As a result, Daigo has filled-in the missing pieces by projecting his own story onto his father. And Daigo’s story is similar to that of any six year old who somehow came to feel responsible for their parents’ behavior. Daigo has always believed that dad left because Daigo wasn’t a “good enough” son, or cellist. He had received his first cello from his father. Daigo was in kindergarten at the time and he was learning to play the instrument when his father left. Thirty years later, Daigo is still carrying this burden in his heart, and It becomes apparent when he loses his job with the symphony orchestra.

The orchestra is dissolved by the owner because of poor public support. When Daigo informs his wife, Mika, she sympathizes with his loss. Then she tells him he’ll find work with another symphony. But Daigo retorts “No. I’m not good enough.” It’s almost as if he thinks he alone was the real reason why the entire orchestra fell apart. You can see the pain in his eyes. It’s the pain of a six year old who still believes that the entire world revolves around him, and who thinks that he is responsible for everyone else’s behavior. Daigo still believes his Dad left because Daigo was a personal disappointment to his father. If he has just been a better son, a better cellist, his Dad never would have left him and the orchestra would still be in business.

The pain of losing his orchestral job touches on all of the wounded spaces inside of Daigo that involve the loss of his father. Thus begins Daigo’s tremendous soul-journey. He and Mika move back to his hometown. His mother had died recently and left them the house Daigo had grown-up in. On returning, Daigo discovers his long left behind childhood cello. He also finds the stone letter that his father had given him prior to his leaving. The only memory Daigo has of his father involves the exchange of their stone letters.

One evening, when Daigo was six, he, Dad and Mom were on the shores of the river near their home. His dad told him that in the days before written word, people would exchange stone letters. He then explained that you could read the letter by feeling it. The size and texture of the stone told you what the sender was feeling. So Daigo and his Dad searched through all of the stones along the river banks that evening until they each found a stone that expressed how they felt. They then exchanged the stones. Daigo found a stone that was smooth, round and small. It expressed his feelings of love, lightness and joy, and so he gave it to his father. In return, Daigo’s father gave him a stone that was rough, jagged and large. It expressed the heavy pain and great sadness his father felt, knowing that he was about to run away and leave his son behind.

Essentially, the stone letter Daigo received from his father did express Dad’s great love for Daigo. It said his father did indeed love him because he felt great sadness at knowing he was about to leave Daigo behind, but Daigo never understood this. He always believed the opposite to be true. He was left behind because he was unlovable to his father.

As the film returns to the present, Daigo examines the stone and then pick up his childhood cello. The cello takes on great spiritual significance in Daigo’s healing soul-journey. Music is the voice of Mystery: The great spiritual Mystery that we all call by various names. As he places his bow to the strings of the cello, the song that emanates from his heart is one his father taught him. The melody takes him inside the empty spaces, reawakens the pain of abandonment and paves the way for healing as Daigo faces and fully feels that pain. He comes into deeper contact with his personal pain after accepting a job as a funeral director’s assistant. Grieving the sense of loss that is universal between all humans who lose loved ones, helps Daigo to walk through his deepest, darkest feelings.

By allowing himself to follow his pain, Daigo develops a deeper understanding and appreciation for life itself. Life has a new sense of freshness and purity. He journeys to a deeper love for Mika, for nature and for music. Rice tastes better, warm water feels more soothing against his bare skin, snow looks whiter, geese are more wondrous to watch and the sound of the cello is more comforting and beautiful to his soul.

Daigo’s spiritual journey from pain to bliss finally reaches its climax when he receives word that his long estranged father has died. He and Mika travel to the fishing village where his father had been living unbeknownst to them. At fist, Daigo is still harboring many resentful feelings toward his father. He is still wrongly believing that his father found him to be unlovable as a son. But as Daigo examines his father’s body and his few belongings, he begins to have empathy and compassion for his father.

Love overtakes Daigo as he begins to prepare his father for burial. At first it is the familial bond, but it quickly grows into much more. His father’s right hand is clasped-shut very tightly. And as Daigo struggles to loosen the grip of his father’s right hand, something comes falling out of the hand: It’s the stone letter Daigo had given his father 30 years prior. And that stone letter is testament to the fact that Daigo’s father had always loved him; that he had loved Daigo so much that he even died with the stone letter in his hand; clutching it tightly as he gave up his spirit to the next world.

Moved to tears, knowing now that his father did indeed love him, Daigo picks up the stone letter, places it in Mika’s hand and then presses her hand and his to her womb, where she is pregnant with Daigo’s very first child. There are tears of sorrow and of joy in both Daigo’s and Mika’s eyes. There is also a new lightness, renewed hope and the shear bliss of eternal love. They have a baby on the way and Daigo will now be able to love that child with all of his mind, heart and soul—now that he is free from the burdens of the past. He has followed his pain to its ends and he is now free to follow his bliss.

(Departures won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. The movie starred popular Japanese actor Masahiro Motoki as Daigo Kobayashi.)