SUFFERING

SUFFERING

There are 2 kinds of suffering:

The suffering which leads to more suffering,
The suffering which leads to the End of Suffering.

The first is the plain grasping after fleeting pleasures and aversion for the unpleasant, the continued struggle of most people day after day,
The second is the suffering which comes when you allow yourself to feel fully the constant change of experience - pleasure, pain, joy and anger - without fear or withdrawal.

The suffering of our experience leads to inner fearlessness and peace.
We want to take the easy way out, but if there is no suffering, there is no wisdom. To be ripe for wisdom, you must really break down and cry in your practice at least three times.

Monks do not become monks or nuns to eat well, sleep well, and be very comfortable, but to know suffering:
how to accept it...
how to get rid of it...
how not to cause it.
So do not do that which causes suffering, the indulging in greed, or it will never leave you.

In truth, happiness is suffering in disguise but in such a subtle form that you don't see it. If you cling to happiness, it's the same as clinging to suffering, but you don't realize it.
When you hold onto happiness, it's impossible to throw away the inherent suffering. They're inseparable like that.

Thus the Buddha taught us to know suffering, see it as the inherent harm in happiness, to see them as equal.
So be careful! When happiness arises, don't be overjoyed, and don't get carried away.

When suffering comes, don't be despair, don't lose yourself in it.
See that they have equal value.
When suffering arises, understand that there is no one to accept it. If you think suffering is yours, happiness is yours, you will not be able to find peace.

People who suffer will accordingly gain wisdom. If we don't suffer, we don't contemplate, no wisdom is born. Without wisdom, we don't know. Not knowing, we can't get free of suffering - that's just the way it is.

Therefore we must train and endure in our practice. When we then reflect on the world, we won't be afraid like before. It isn't that the Buddha was enlightened outside of the world but within the world itself.

Sensual indulgence and self-mortification are 2 paths the Buddha discourage.

There is just happiness and suffering. We imagine we have freed ourselves from suffering, but we haven't. We just cling to happiness we will suffer again. That's the way it is, but people think contrarily.

When people have suffering in one place, so they go somewhere else. When suffering arises there, they run off again from suffering, but they are not. Suffering goes with them.

They carry around without knowing it. If we don't know suffering, then we can't know the cause of suffering, then we can't know the cessation of suffering. There's no way we can escape it.

Students today have much more knowledge, than students of previous times.
They have got all the things they need, everything is more convenient. But they also have alot more suffering and confusion than before.

Why is this ?

Do not be a Bodhisatta; do not be a Arahant; do not be anything at all.
If you are a Bodhisatta, you will suffer; if you are an Arahant, you will suffer; if you are anything; you will suffer.

Love and Hate are both suffering, because of desire. Wanting is suffering; wanting Not to have is suffering too.

Even if you get what you want, it's still suffering because once you got it, you live it fear of losing it. How are you going to live happily with fear?

When you're angry, does it feel good or bad? If it feels so bad, then why don't you throw it away? Why bother to keep it? How can you say that you are wise and intelligent if you hold onto such things? Some days the mind can even cause the whole family to quarrel or cause you to cry all night. And, yet, we still continue to get angry and suffer. If you see the suffering of anger, then just throw it away.

If you don't throw it away, it'll go o causing suffering indefinitely, with no chance of respite. The world of unsatisfactory existence is like this. If we know the way it is, we can solve the problem.

A woman wanted to know how to deal with anger. I asked her when anger arose whose anger it was. She said it was hers.

Well, if it really was her anger, then she should be able to tell it to go away, shouldn't she? But it really isn't hers to command. Holding onto anger as a personal possession will cause suffering. If anger really belonged to us, it would have to obey us. If it doesn't obey us that means it's only deception.

Don't fall for it. Whether the mind is happy or sad, don't fall for it. It's all a deception.

If you see certainty in that which is uncertain, you are bound to suffer

The Buddha is always here teaching. See for yourself. There is happiness and there is unhappiness. There is pleasure and there is pain. And they're always here.

When you understand the nature of pleasure and pain, there you see the Buddha, there you see the Dharma. The Buddha is not apart from them.