Good morning friend,
Suffering - The real cause of suffering is the reaction of the mind. We are all bound to encounter the sufferings of sickness and old age.
Suffering - Every living creature must face all these sufferings. The root of suffering is attachment. Suffering begins with the beginning of life. We have no conscious recollection of existence within the confines of the womb, but the common experience is that we emerge from it crying.
Birth is a great trauma.
Having started life, we are all bound to encounter the sufferings of sickness and old age.
Yet no matter how sick we may be, no matter how decayed and decrepit, none of us wants to die, because death is a great misery.
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Suffering Meaning
Every living creature must face all these sufferings.
And as we pass through life, we are bound to encounter other sufferings, various types of physical or mental pain.
We become involved with the unpleasant and separated from the pleasant.
We fail to get what we want, instead we get what we do not want.
All these situations are suffering.
These instances of suffering are readily apparent to anyone who thinks about it deeply.
But the future Buddha was not to be satisfied with the limited explanations of the intellect.
He continued probing within himself to experience the real nature of suffering, and he found that "attachment "to the five aggregates is suffering.
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Suffering Examples
At a very deep level, suffering is the inordinate attachment that each one of us has developed toward this body and toward this mind, with its cognitions , perceptions , Sensations, and people cling strongly to their identity --their mental and physical being --when actually there are only evolving processes.
This clinging to an unreal idea of oneself, to something that in fact is constantly changing, is suffering .
But which mental actions determine our fate?
If the mind consists of nothing but consciousness, perception , sensation , and reaction, then which of these gives rise to suffering?
Each of them is involved to some degree in the process of suffering.
However, the first three are primarily passive. Consciousness merely receives the raw data of experience, perception places the data in a category, sensation signals the occurring of the previous steps.
The job of these three is only to digest incoming information. But when the mind starts to react, passivity gives way to attraction or reputation, liking or disliking.
This reaction sets in motion a fresh chain of events. At the beginning of the chain is reaction ,sankhara.
This is why the Buddha said, the whatever suffering arises has a reaction as its cause.
If all reactions cease to be n there is no more suffering.
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Causes Of Suffering
The real kamma, the real cause of suffering is the reaction of the mind.
One fleeting reaction of liking or disliking may not be very strong and may not give much result, but it can have a cumulative effect.
The reaction is repeated moment after moment, intensifying with each repetition, and developing into craving or aversion.
This is what in his first sermon the Buddha called tanha, literally "thirst " the mental habit of insatiable longing for what is not, which implies an equal and irremediable dissatisfaction with what is.
And the stronger longing and dissatisfaction become, the deeper their influence on our thinking, our speech, and our actions --and the more suffering they will cause.
Some reactions , the Buddha said, are like lines drawn on the surface of a pool of water : as soon as they are drawn they are erased.
Others are like lines traced on a sandy beach : if drawn in the morning they are gone by night, wiped away by the tide or the wind.
Others are like lines cut deeply into rock with chisel and hammer.
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Suffering Quotes
They too will be obliterated as the rock erodes, but it will take ages for them to disappear.
Throughout each day of our lives the mind keeps generating reactions ,but if at the end of the day we try to remember them, we shall be able to recall only one or two which made a deep impression that day.
Again, if at the end of a month we try to remember all our reactions , we shall be able to recall only one or two which made the deepest impression that month.
Again, at the end of year we shall be able to recall only the one or two reactions that left the deepest impression during that year.
Such deep reactions as these are very dangerous and lead to immense suffering.
The first step toward emerging from such suffering is to accept the reality of it, not as a philosophical concept or an artical of faith, but as a fact of existence which affects each one of us in our lives.
Conclusion -
With this acceptance and an understanding of what Suffering is and why we suffer, we can stop being driven and start to drive.
By learning to realize directly our own nature, we can set ourselves on the path leading out of Suffering.
