In Tumfo Tu, we use numerous mantras to encapsulate simple but powerful concepts. These mantras serve as guideposts that our minds can fall back on when we encounter a challenge or feel confounded. One of these mantras states that “suffering is necessary; it separates and it ennobles.” The training path of Tumfo Tu guarantees that students will start to understand the meaning of this mantra in the first several months. Students encounter suffering in the form of fatigue, pain, and frustration constantly in training. Students also encounter suffering in daily life, but it is sometimes easier to find distractions and ways to relieve the suffering in daily life. On the training floor, there is no escape. Every student must face their suffering.
In daily life, we are constantly encouraged to take shortcuts to alleviate our suffering. When we have a headache, Advil or Aspirin are the first things offered to us. A headache usually indicates that we need water, food, or sleep, but none of those alleviate the feelings as quickly as pain meds. This unfortunately also takes away the purpose of the suffering: to indicate that there’s a problem that needs to be addressed. Avoiding suffering rather than responding to suffering is a bad habit that is incredibly easy to pick up and reinforce. However, there are myriad lessons in suffering, and we need to practice learning from them. When we lean into suffering rather than shy away from it, we build our character, resilience, and are ennobled.
Learning how to suffer well also does a lot of separating, as the mantra states. A person who accepts their suffering for what it is and responds to the need it points to does not seek a comfort zone. They will not be inclined to cope using vices like alcohol or resort to mindless scrolling as a distraction. Their social circles will adjust accordingly. They will seek out and be sought out by like-minded individuals who will reinforce their growth rather than entice them into bad habits.
Aside from separating one sort of person from another, it also separates the sense of self from external identities. Who you are is not a product of what you like, what you do, and where you spend your time. It is rather discovered in the course of learning from the adversity that caused the suffering. The person who learns to suffer well knows themselves far better than someone who turns to comfort whenever possible.
The environment of Tumfo Tu is designed to reinforce good habits and empower people to face suffering. Some of that suffering happens on the training floor, but most of it happens in life. When students see that they are truly capable of withstanding adversity and rising to the occasion, they become inclined to treat every hardship in life this way. Tumfo Tu is truly a life-long journey, and it begins and ends with you.
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