the four noble truths in Buddhism

[Mason Riggle]

@Someone here I think this is a translation issue.. 'cessation' isn't really 'ending'.. it's more like 'letting go'.

When you are hungry, the hunger is the suffering.. if 'being hungry' is causing you to suffer, then you are suffering from the suffering.  By accepting that you are hungry, you do not suffer from 'being hungry', although the 'hunger' remains. 

Something like that. 

[snowyowl]

Suffering is resistance to what is, so there's the formula: suffering = pain x resistance. So a highly developed person still feels physical pain but don't suffer because they accept the inevitable. 

[Someone here]

13 hours ago, snowyowl said:

Suffering is resistance to what is, so there's the formula: suffering = pain x resistance. So a highly developed person still feels physical pain but don't suffer because they accept the inevitable. 

I don't believe there is a distinction between pain and suffering. 

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

I don't believe there is a distinction between pain and suffering. 

Therein lies your confusion. Pain, physical or mental, will arise dependently on some immediately identifiable condition. Suffering can arise independently of such conditions.

For example, you may suffer something today that you experienced 10 years ago that caused you a lot of pain, simply by reliving the memory and identifying with that pain. That process is independent, because there is technically no limit to how much you can keep repeating that experience in your head. 

To reiterate, the pain that is remembered and that occured in the moment itself, that pain was dependent on the situation (e.g. the actuality of stubbing your toe or losing something you value), but the process of remembering it, identifying with it and then suffering it may happen independently of that type of situation.

So even though suffering can happen independently, suffering may indeed include the experience of physical or mental pain (or be triggered by such pain through association), but then that pain is dependent on the situation caused by the suffering (namely the recall of and self-identification with a memory).

The end of suffering simply means that you end the repetitive, compulsive and mental reconstruction of and identification with past events in such a fashion that it no longer enslaves your current state. This is through the progressive relinquising of attachments and desires through spiritual development.

Edited July 23, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[Mason Riggle]

@Someone here when a body builder enjoys the intense muscle ache (pain) after a grueling workout, his he/she suffering? 

Edited July 23, 2021 by Mason Riggle

[snowyowl]

@Someone here how about painful situations which are wanted, like going to the dentist to cure my toothache? I suffer from the pain of the toothache which I resist, but I accept the pain from the dentist's drill. The physical pain is similar but my state of mind is different. 

We can take pain easier when the bigger picture is good.  Suffering may be less, when the motivation to accept it is there. 

Edited July 23, 2021 by snowyowl

[Someone here]

23 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Therein lies your confusion. Pain, physical or mental, will arise dependently on some immediately identifiable condition. Suffering can arise independently of such conditions.

For example, you may suffer something today that you experienced 10 years ago that caused you a lot of pain, simply by reliving the memory and identifying with that pain. That process is independent, because there is technically no limit to how much you can keep repeating that experience in your head. 

To reiterate, the pain that is remembered and that occured in the moment itself, that pain was dependent on the situation (e.g. the actuality of stubbing your toe or losing something you value), but the process of remembering it, identifying with it and then suffering it may happen independently of that type of situation.

So even though suffering can happen independently, suffering may indeed include the experience of physical or mental pain (or be triggered by such pain through association), but then that pain is dependent on the situation caused by the suffering (namely the recall of and self-identification with a memory).

The end of suffering simply means that you end the repetitive, compulsive and mental reconstruction of and identification with past events in such a fashion that it no longer enslaves your current state. This is through the progressive relinquising of attachments and desires through spiritual development.

 

23 hours ago, Mason Riggle said:

@Someone here when a body builder enjoys the intense muscle ache (pain) after a grueling workout, his he/she suffering? 

 

22 hours ago, snowyowl said:

@Someone here how about painful situations which are wanted, like going to the dentist to cure my toothache? I suffer from the pain of the toothache which I resist, but I accept the pain from the dentist's drill. The physical pain is similar but my state of mind is different. 

We can take pain easier when the bigger picture is good.  Suffering may be less, when the motivation to accept it is there. 

Great examples, guys.  I think I changed my mind. There might be a fine distinction between the two. 

[Someone here]