To Suffer or Not to Suffer

Some people think that suffering is just something we need to try to avoid or escape while others see it as a learning experience to help build our character. I think that suffering serves its purpose as to add meaning to our lives and to show us what is important in life. Although there are those who never learn from suffering and keep trying to run from it.

What do you guys think of suffering?

We can't avoid it so we have to live with it.

However, i do think it's unfair that some suffer more and others suffer less.

I think that life has a lot to do about sacrifice. We as a species must learn when as an individual, we need to give something up to build someone else up.. we have more than we could want

As a Christian, I have made past personal struggles and suffering a point of open discussion with my children. Truth is, whether you are a Christian or not, you should learn from each experience. What my children now know is at least two fold: 1) suffering can be experienced , caused, or both. In other words you can be the source or the recipient of such experiences and if I were to have a choice, I generally prefer NOT to be the one causing suffering for someone else, and 2) I believe God allowed me to have negative experiences throughout my life so that I can then carry a message forward to those around me (children) that such incidents can be overcome. Similarly, many can be completely avoided with better planning, preparation, or simply paying attention. Certainly with my kids, I prefer to be the one who has expeienced the heartache that poor choices, for example, can cause others. I have made my share of horrendous life decisions and caused a good deal of strife among those I love most, and if my kids and I have not learned from it, then that learning opportunity was 100% wasted. However, if my children can see the potential repercussions of such actions through my mistakes, hopefully they can avoid making the same ones. Maybe at the time it happened to me I could not see through the fog, but now I can, in a sense, make something positive out of it.

Finally, suffering will always be a part of the human experience. At my age, I have begun to consider the finite number of calendars I will see in my future. To me, that is an unknown possible suffering. I find solace in the fact that so many brave men, women, and children have faced that dark hour and seemingly did just fine. I learned from watching and it has helped me avoid some of the anxiety. I would recommend that anyone in the throes of personal suffering be cognizant that others are watching. Sometimes in sheer pity, sometimes in twisted satisfaction, or any number of emotional responses. There are many sayings that revolve around the concept that it isn't how much you have endured, it is how you endured so much.

I hope my children will be able to say they say good when I faced such things no matter how insignificant my trials may have been to others at the time.

So, do the best you can through suffering and therefore find the way to make something good come of it.

reply to post by Ralphy


I assume by 'people' who seek to escape suffering you mean Buddhists or 'religionists'. Buddhists seek to transcend suffering by not resisting it, or escaping from it, or intensifying it, but by embracing it unconditionally and understanding it. In that vigorous awareness and understanding, we are told, suffering disappears without a trace.

Every person seeks a solution to the problem of suffering, no one who has a healthy mind seeks to suffer more. Some seek more immediate but short-lasting means to this end by hiding from it temporarily inside of worldly sensations, others seek more long-lasting solutions by embracing it and studying it with hopes of transcending it for good.

The direction that suffering takes is totally up to choice. Suffering always leads to reward. Reward always leads to suffering. If you smoke, you take an easy reward. Cancer follows. If you suffer the work of education, you get a job and a paycheck. We can also suffer the choices of others. We can also reap the rewards of suffering done by others.

The Bible, in Luke 10, gives the ultimate meaning of this. Eternal life was revealed as loving God and loving your neighbor. In this chapter, your neighbor is defined as even your enemy. The Samaritan was the enemy of the Jew. A Jew had fallen on the path and other Jews passed him by. Only his enemy, the Samaritan stopped to help him, even going so far as paying his debts until he was better.

To love God we must be willing to love others by suffering what we do not like in them. Suffering always leads to reward. By hating others, we steal reward for ourselves. This is the only reward we get. Ultimately, hate can only lead to suffering.

It's our choice in life to create Heaven or Hell for ourselves. The direction we choose for suffering leads the way. This is why Jesus was the suffering servant.

Originally posted by Ralphy

Some people think that suffering is just something we need to try to avoid or escape while others see it as a learning experience to help build our character. I think that suffering serves its purpose as to add meaning to our lives and to show us what is important in life. Although there are those who never learn from suffering and keep trying to run from it.

What do you guys think of suffering?

Why do we suffer in the first place? What about, for example, breaking up with someone causes someone to feel torn? A lot of suffering happens because our Ego is hurt, and it's desperately trying to survive. We suffer because we see things from a perspective, but that's not to say all suffering is controllable. If physical harm came your way or you ate something bad and got food poisoned is a different kind of suffering.

Anything that happens to us really is a learning experience. We adapt, learning more and more from every situation. I personally believe, that to suffer, is to not understand (the emotional aspect).

i believe suffering is to teach our souls the lessons it needs in order to move on... when the soul can not learn any more or have accomplished what it needs, the soul will then move on.... but some times souls are put here to teach other souls through lose and sacrifice...

I look at it from the standpoint that this life is a test, we are put here to learn and to feel and to observe. To suffer is to feel the truest sense of what it is to be human, just as joy and sorrow go hand in hand.

Perhaps those who suffer greater than others have a bigger burden to bear, perhaps their role here on Earth is different and they are here for other purpose. Perhaps they are operating on a more advanced level and this level of suffering is what is required of them this go round.

Maybe we have different levels of lessons that must be mastered and overcome? Maybe we even choose what our battles will be before we incarnate into this life, and it is all meant to develope and to advance our consciousness?

All I can say personally is I have suffered a fair amount in the last decade, and I am nothing like the person I used to be. I guess the key is to learn from it and to grow as best you can. I dont believe pain is random and I have to believe there is some reasoning or some purpose behind what we go through here on this rock.

Sometimes I think this universe is not real, it can't be real, its too illusory and far-out and freaky.

Thus, "we" (whatever we "really" are) must be fooling ourselves with this kind of illusion.

The constant pain of life is a reminder of the ultimately unreal, pretend, and artificial nature of this life. It is a manifestation of the effort needed to simply keep this illusory cosmos going.

I no longer suffer, but believe me it's freakin hell. especially the kind that you can't control. you learn from it but for what reason? I was subjected to so many different kinds of suffering, the kind i'd rather not mention and one day it abruptly stopped. complete 180, now everything is great, preparing me for more suffering no doubt,.

If we were in control of our perceptions, we could live without suffering, if we were confident in our spirits, we would not fear death.

Ask the blacks during slavery what they learned by suffering or the Jews while they watched as their parents were taking away to the gas chambers.

Suffering teaches you nothing but how to hate. Breaking up with your girlfriend is not suffering. Watching your child die from cancer is.

There is no good quality gained from someone suffering.

Living is Suffering, once you accept this concept you will suffer no more.

As you can see animals hunt or look for food because they suffer from hunger, Plants grow taller because they suffer from lack of light. People hurt one another because they suffer from anger. Once it is accepted then you realize how simple it is. Life is that is

Through suffering, we come to know ourselves and others more deeply. It is the real way to enlightenment. Look at Jesus being crucified. The stigmata are granted to those saints who wish to know what he knew. Odin, in Norse myth, gave an eye for wisdom. We have to carry our cross. We must be willing to give an arm and a leg- or, just an eye- to reach that high level of consciousness shared by Buddha, Krishna, Jesus and Moses.

SeraphNB

Originally posted by SparkOfSparks6
Living is Suffering, once you accept this concept you will suffer no more.

As you can see animals hunt or look for food because they suffer from hunger, Plants grow taller because they suffer from lack of light. People hurt one another because they suffer from anger. Once it is accepted then you realize how simple it is. Life is that is

Living is not suffering. I live and have never suffered a day in my life. Sure I have bad days and things go wrong but for you to equate that to suffering means that your definition is very light.

reply to post by kro32


Your body is aging isn't it, it surely is suffering.