If we can uncover the full range of causes, then we might be able to overcome suffering.
Suffering is either self-imposed or imposed on others. Buddhism holds that all life is suffering; that this suffering is caused by selfish craving, aka, thirst, desire, longing, and greed, which I take to mean the craving of both oneself and others; and that selfish craving can be overcome through the Noble Eight-fold Path of:
- Right view
- Right resolve
- Right speech
- Right action
- Right livelihood
- Right effort
- Right mindfulness
- Right concentration
One does not have to be a Buddhist to see that any of these practices can alleviate suffering: they come quite naturally with old age); but, jointly, they can overcome it.
@Olivier Serrat
RE: Suffering is either self-imposed or imposed on others. Buddhism holds that all life is suffering; that this suffering is caused by selfish craving, aka, thirst, desire, longing, and greed,
Not much counsel for those in burn units or cancer wards....
It is important not to conflate pain and suffering. Pain being a bodily response from external stimuli and suffering being a refusal to move on from the pain experienced. If I am hungry I know this because of the sensation of hunger pains and I move on by seeking food. By focusing on the pain and repeatedly stating that I am hungry I begin to suffer by not moving on from the cause of pain. Burns cause pain, failing to seek medical advice and focusing on the pain will cause suffering. Pain can be seen as an essential survival attribute while suffering is something that we cause and is superfluous.
Suffering is not necessarily "self-imposed", nor a "refusal to move to on from the pain experienced". If it were, that would certainly be a novel way of refuting Bentham's claim that the capacity for suffering is the essential characteristic entitling an animal to moral consideration, since it would imply that non-human animals can't suffer because they are incapable of the requisite "refusal to move on".
"The question is not can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But can they suffer?" (Bentham, J. 1789. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Chapter xvii.)
Sorry Prof I have no generalized /humanity related answer, except it is man-made or nature bestowed at times and we label it as fate ...
Dear Colleagues, Good Day,
"The Five Causes of Suffering
....
The 5 causes of suffering
1) Lack of self-acceptance
2) Lack of connection
3) Lack of meaning
4) Lack of fairness
5) Lack of safety."...
Please, go to the attached website link to for more details,...
http://www.magnificenttruths.com/the-five-causes-of-suffering/
The basis of Buddhism is a doctrine known as the Four Noble Truths. The First Truth is that all life is suffering, pain, and misery. The Second Truth is that this suffering is caused by selfish craving and personal desire. The Third Truth is that this selfish craving can be overcome
1. Asmita, the ego.
2. Raga, wanting what we don't have.
3. Dvesa, a sense of rejection.
4. Abinivesa, fear.
The Buddha identified three kinds of suffering: the dukkha of physical and emotional pain… The first kind of dukkha is the obvious suffering caused by physical discomfort, from the minor pain of stubbing a toe, hunger, and lack of sleep, to the agony of chronic disease. It is also the emotional suffering that arises when you become frustrated that things don’t go your way, or upset about life’s injustices, or worried about money or meeting others’ expectations. [The second kind] is the suffering caused by the fact that life is constantly changing. Doesn’t it often seem as though the moment you have found happiness in life, it disappears almost at once? … In truth, no moment is reliable because the next moment is always coming along fast on its heels. It is like a constant bombardment of change undermining every state of happiness. The mind never finds a place to sit back and enjoy life without fear… Furthermore, every day, even during the pleasant moments, do you not experience an underlying unease about the future? This worry and anxiety is a manifestation of the third type of suffering the Buddha identified—life’s inherent unsatisfactoriness due to its intrinsic instability.
I consider the cause of suffering to be physical and emotional pain. Derived from this is the pain of the separation of loved ones and objects considered valuable. Therefore it is very difficult to overcome the attachment to life, comfort, our belongings and our affections.
Considero que la causa del sufrimiento es el dolor físico y emocional. Derivado de ésto, está el dolor de la separación de los seres queridos y de los objetos considerados valiosos. Por tanto es muy difícil vencer el apego a la vida, a la comodidad, a nuestras pertenencias y a nuestros afectos.
When I suffer from a severe toothache, it doesn’t help me to be told that “personal desire is the very cause of suffering” or that “suffering is caused by selfish craving and personal desire”. Thank goodness that such fatuous generalizations aren’t the basis for dental treatment and preventative practices.
Such remarks remind me of the quip that "starvation is God's punishment for those who have little or no faith in capitalism".
Dear Subhash C. Kundu
What you say is so. To address that matter more broadly, though, I think it would also be good to point out that upsets that occur when " things don’t go your way " OR because things change both are very much related to having yourself ( A SELF ) too much "in the picture". This is a major cause of hanging onto things (including thoughts) inappropriately. In fact it is a fundamental cause of craving and grasping and attachment, making that a fundamental source of Dukkha ("suffering"). Also, having too much of a self, you imagine your involvements in causation clearly to an extent or level that is delusion (delusion being one of the "three evils" -- and, with ignorance, it is a (and in a sense: THE) pervasive cause of suffering). It is causation itself which one wants to come to see -- and YOU are not involved in the processes / series of processes there -- they being true, but ultimately just as they are and understandings that develop as one comes to "see things as they really are".
[ Delusion is consistently present with the other two core evils: greed and hatred, along with, or being a major part of, the attachments involved (other major attachments due to ignorance, at the root). For more, I encourage people to visit and read my site, https://mynichecomp.com -- a comprehensive summary of what many believe to be the full collection of the words of the historical Buddha, the Pali Canon. ]
P.S. To "Western 'man' " : please do not try to list all the causes of suffering -- that is really a height of delusion. (You likely add to the list in the process of believing you can do that, ad infinitum. If you lack that insight, it seems scary what else YOU might simply believe -- but that does display the nature of a core problem. Words do not signify a thing, or at least a constant, unchanging thing; words are tools, and even concepts are similar and similarly tools. )
According to some, Heaven consists in endlessly singing and praising and such.
That would however unavoidably guarantee a sharp backsliding - a retrogradation - of general intelligence and understanding, owing to a lack of opportunities to exercise intelligence through choices, learning, confrontation with new situations, the necessity to make informed choices, and so on.
Let's try it here on Earth: measure our IQ on some random day, then spend the next six months doing nothing but singing and hymning (spending waking hours in churches and temples if needed), and at the end of the process measure our IQ again: it has already fallen by a few points.
Into an eternity of time doing that, just imagine what we have become. A mindless automaton, unused to thinking, to being a grown-up, to making choices, someone who has even forgotten even how to learn and certainly how to “grow in wisdom” - to quote the Harvard frontispiece carving. But should not eternal life have to do with keeping on growing? Becoming better, smarter, closer to godhood itself?
And that is why suffering exists : make us more intelligent, and closer to the light.
Dear Colleagues, Good Day,
"The Real Cause of Suffering
By: Sri Swami Atmaswarupananda
As human beings, we all want to be happy. And one of the ways to be happy is to feel that everything is okay. The world is okay, and I am okay. But the trouble is, the world doesn’t seem to be okay, nor do we seem to be okay. Therefore, in order to be happy, most people live in some form of state of denial or escape.
This was not the teaching of the Eastern sages, at least on this level. They declared that this life is fundamentally suffering, and, therefore, if you want to be happy, you have to find another solution. Sometimes that solution was to get to heaven or to have a better birth.
But that’s in the future. We want to deal with our situation right now. And if we do, we have to try to understand one fundamental fact. Suffering could be said to have two aspects—one that we can’t do much about, and one that we can do something about. For example, if we have chest pains, those pains are suffering. But the real suffering is not the pain; the real suffering is worrying that we are having a heart attack. In other words, suffering is caused by our interpretation of our situation.
The same applies to almost everything around us. Suffering is caused by birth, death, sickness, old age and pain according to the philosophers, but the real suffering is caused by our attitude. If we see birth, death, sickness, old age and pain as natural phenomena, there is a minimum of suffering. If we have a different attitude, it can cause great suffering.
Fundamentally if we look at our inner self, we will discover that it is what we think about ourselves that determines how much suffering we’re undergoing. That frequently causes a state of anxiety; perhaps anger is always there, perhaps jealousy, perhaps greed, perhaps sadness. Something is there that is our real suffering and determines how we meet life. It is not the outer things that are the cause of our suffering, but how we react to them. What is left over when there is no outer stimulus is what is important.
The key to solving the problem is to recognise that these inner negative states, which seem to be at the core of our being, really are not at the core. There is something within us that is more fundamental, that is aware of all these states. It has the ability, not necessarily to get rid of these states, but to objectify them rather than identify with them.
Normally we do this by offering everything to God, by surrendering, by repeating God’s name or through introspection. The objective is to not tackle these things directly, but rather to identify with that which is aware of them. This is the purpose of all our spiritual practices. And the more we go to this deeper depth of ourselves, the less power these negative states will have over us.
So, we can say that life is fundamentally suffering, but at a deeper level it is all divine. And the scriptures tell us that not only is Divinity beyond all suffering, but that That is what we are. So our solution is not so much at the physical and mental level as it is at the level of our identity: Believe the scriptures and the gurus when they tell us that we are That. Recognise that we are the witness of all these states, and allow the healing to take place."
Please, see the website link as reference.
http://www.dlshq.org/messages/suffering.htm
1200-50; Middle English suff(e)ren < Latin sufferre, equivalent to suf- suf-+ ferre to bear; compare Old French sofrir < Vulgar Latin sufferīre
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/suffer
Suffering is a bad feeling needs support. Suffering is multifactorial acute/chronic feeling may come from ourselves or from people around us. If around us strategies are followed to lessen suffering that depends on the situation and things to avoid to avoid suffering. There several degrees of suffering the chronic one may need a medical support!
Best regards
Aly R Abdel-moemin
The basis of Buddhism is a doctrine known as the Four Noble Truths.
The First Truth is that all life is suffering, pain, and misery. The Second Truth is that this suffering is caused by selfish craving and personal desire. The Third Truth is that this selfish craving can be overcome. The Fourth Truth is that the way to overcome this misery is through the Eightfold Path. The Four Noble Truths is a fundamental concept taught by the Buddha.
Lack of fairness, impatience, disappointment, stress, pain, misery
I support most of the opinions of colleagues, I consider suffering to be the accumulation of influence of habits, civilizations and cultures that differ in impact and influence since birth. The deepening of cognitive, scientific and religious awareness sometimes increases the efficiency of endurance and mood modification, thus increasing immunity and resistance to most causes.
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