Do you agree that 'suffering is optional' and that humanity desires it?

We’re supposed to suffer. It’s acceptance of that fact which brings us equanimity, I thought.

I could be wrong, though.

I think that like most oft-repeated phrases, ‘suffering is optional’ is a broad complex idea that’s been watered down to make a snappy one-liner.

I do feel that most suffering is caused by our own view of a situation. For example, we went to the food bank today and left without food. Is this suffering? Perhaps. However bad that is- it would be ten times worse if I sat and had a ‘why me’ party for too long.

Some suffering cannot be obliterated, nor should it. Humans need a little pain to grow.

@gemiwing so there can be no growth without pain? or is the growth stunted? and does it have to be continuous pain?

I don’t think that humanity desires suffering. I do think that humans cause most of their suffering, however. I hate when people overlook the self-deprication of the human race and say that original sin renders us bound to suffer.

It is natural for people to die, species to go extinct, cultures and civilizations to die out. I think it crosses the boundary between natural “fate” and suffering when humans are the ones dealing the pain. I don’t necessarily mean physical pain, but moreso situational imbalance of easy living.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I do think that you need a wee bit of pain for growth, yet it shouldn’t be constant. When it becomes constant that’s when I know I need to take a look at how I’m interperating a situation and my pain.

As the philosopher Siddhartha Gautama suggests: Life is dukkha (suffering). It’s all in how we choose to lessen it.

We must suffer to create.

Though I do believe that mind over matter is extremely powerful and we can actually suffer less if we’re one of the lucky ones to be stronger than most.

It’s easy to say “suffering is optional” when you have a dynamic personality combined with hard work and good luck.

It’s not a truthful phrase, however.

I think that for the most part, we do have to suffer to learn. Honestly, think about it. Your parents can tell you how much it’ll hurt if you touch a hot stove, but will you really know unless you do it? Can you really appreciate love without ever having had your heart broken? I don’t think so.

You can’t find a canadian kid who didn’t opt for the tongue on frozen metal. I think that we all learned something there!!! But too many people are not going to learn anything from their suffering. they were born to it and will die in it. I don’t see any lesson in no food, no clean water and no medical help, and they didn’t opt for it. Reincarnation says it’s how you play the hand you were given but some of this world punishments are too harsh.

From a spiritual standpoint I believe that we can escape suffering though we do hold on to things that make us suffer.

Not sure if that statement has been muddled, isn’t it that desire is the cause of suffering. Why would one desire suffering other than in an S&M kind of way?

In theory, we can choose our reaction to any circumstance. We can live in a one room house with a dirt floor, and we can say we are suffering privation, compared to people in Europe or America. Or we could say that compared to cave men, we are living the high life.

Suffering is relative to your expectations. If I expect to be beaten and kicked all my life, and I think that’s normal, then it might not occur to me that I am suffering. It’s not a big deal. That’s just the way it is. If I expect the rights in the American Constitution, then I’m gonna be suffering big time. This is just wrong!

In that sense—in the sense that we choose our reactions to our circumstances, we can choose to suffer, or not. It’s all relative.

@mammal no, that statement did not get muddled.

In a way, desire causes suffering, for yourself and for others. If no one wanted anything they didn’t already have, they wouldn’t find a way to get it, and they wouldn’t have to step on other people. Then again, no progress would be made. If that makes any sense . . . it sounded better in my head.

Come, let me punch you.

Ow!

Something things will inevitably cause pain, either through reflex, or through the mysterious reasons of emotional wiring. Breaking up after certain relationships causes pain, no matter how we tell ourselves in the head that it didn’t matter, that’s in the past, etc. Still, ow, ow, ow.

However, through awareness, it is possible to be aware of the choices that we have in intepreting pain. I remember quite distinctly that once I was doing sitting meditation, and as usual, my legs were cramping up. Usually what happens is that the pain starts shooting up, it gets to a certain unbearable point, and then it subsides into a slow burn. What I realised, at one point, is that I was holding on to a particular attachment to the pain. That the pain exists, on a physical level; and then also there is my attachment (or not) to it, which I would call suffering.

So I would distinguish between pain and suffering.

I believe it is the same with emotional pain. Things happen, and we feel emotional pain. My grandfather died, it hurts. It may be possible to choose not to suffer, as in, you are aware that there are different ways to interpret the loss… but the pain still exists. And sometimes pain takes a while to run its course, and all you can do is to be present with this. I really don’t believe in “mental control: this pain is imaginary” ... of course not. And the more you deny it and pretend that it is not, the more likely it will burst out of the closet. What I would choose instead, is to be compassionate with my feelings and let it run it’s course. In this process, I discovered that it is possible to hold multiple emotions simultaneously. That I could be grieving and joyous and grateful and… whatever. It’s not like when I am sad, I am only sad.

I partially agree with @mammal. Desire certainly causes suffering. However, not all desire causes suffering and not all suffering is a result of desire.

Desire, manifested in the greedy, money-hungry, corrupt practices of those in power, causes suffering. @Simone_De_Beauvoir mentioned hunger, poverty, and disease. Africa (or at least many of its countries) is a host to much hunger, poverty, and disease. African countries export goods such as oil, timber, palm oil, diamonds and gold, and cocoa. The people in power become filthy rich, as such exports are lucrative. The masses, however, suffer.

Africa is not the only place where people suffer such misfortune. Either way—this is a good example of desire yielding suffering.

I don’t thank that all suffering is optional. You gave some pretty clear examples. Another would be grief. We don’t choose to feel horribly lost and aggrieved when we lose a loved one. Well many of us don’t.

I do think that some suffering is optional in that it is self-inflicted by addiction and poor life choices that are a result of the individual mostly moreso than society.

I also believe that some people enjoy suffering. Not that they enjoy the suffering itself but rather that attitude towards life and perhaps attention they get from it (ex: those people who make themselves horribly ill for attention).

I do think that desire can cause suffering, that wanting and wanting is not entirely purposeful or perhaps even natural. But when I think of suffering other things more immediately pop into my mind.

So I don’t think there is one answer for suffering. I don’t think it is always optional but in some cases it may be.

No pain, no gain. No crisis, no paradigm shifts. However, I believe that at some point in the future suffering as a result of a lack of basic needs can disappear. Basic needs include water, food, shelter, education and access to medicine. We will continue to face challenges with additional needs. They still allow humanity to grow, live long and prosper.