Transforming Suffering
into Awakening
In my late twenties, a near-constant thought looped in my head: I wish I’d never been born. Whether waking up for work, trudging through the snow, or lugging grocery bags on the bus, this unfriendly phrase was my closest companion.
I can recall a dark moment when a frozen pizza I’d bought wouldn’t fit in the tiny freezer of the tiny fridge of the tiny apartment I coined “The Gloom Tomb.” In a rage, I shrieked a string of curse words that I suppose were meant to articulate the question: Was I born to suffer? I proceeded to hit the frozen pizza against the wall until both the box and pizza were pulverized into a smaller formation, allowing me to shove the cold, crumpled mass into the freezer.
I laugh at this memory now and my comedic level of existentialism, but at that moment, I hated everything. I hated myself, the pizza, the freezer, the city I lived in, and the friends I had. I even hated my parents for having me. Objectively, I knew others had it worse and that there were much larger problems to be had than the puzzle of fitting a too-large pizza into a too-small freezer, but at the time, I was enthralled with my pain and the question of suffering.
Now, as a parent myself, I sometimes catch myself worrying if I’ve brought another being into this world to experience suffering. Have I doomed another to the same pain and frustration that inevitably comes in life? So far, Buddhism has provided the only adequate answer I’ve found to the question of suffering, an answer I could potentially give my son if he ever comes to me with the question: Why do we suffer?
Suffering, I will tell him, is the first step on the path of knowledge — it’s right there in Buddhism’s four noble truths. The concept of suffering, or dukkha, is pivotal in understanding and embarking on the path to waking up. Without it, we’d never be invited to courageously face our own vulnerabilities and explore the labyrinth of attachment, unmasking the roots of our inner struggles. Suffering isn’t merely a phenomena we’re trying to escape through Buddhist practice, but the threshold through which we must pass to begin the journey. The Buddha emphasizes that understanding suffering is central to his teachings and the journey toward awakening. "I teach suffering, its origin, cessation, and path,” he once remarked. “That's all I teach."
Suffering serves as the first step on the Buddhist path because it propels individuals to seek answers beyond the transient pleasures of life. By acknowledging the reality of suffering, we become motivated to understand its cause and transcend them. The three teachings below offer insight on the truth of suffering and how we can enrich our lives by facing it with compassion and understanding.
—Ross Nervig, Associate Editor, Lion’s Roar
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The Buddha laid out a four-step path to freedom from difficult emotions. The secret, says Anyen Rinpoche, is understanding why our emotions cause us so much suffering. Once we know that, the path to freedom becomes clear.
In the Buddhist teachings, we call strong emotions like anger, attachment, jealousy, and arrogance “poisons.” They poison not just our own happiness but also our connections with loved ones, friends, coworkers, and our local community. Sound familiar? That’s because we are human beings, and the truth of suffering cannot be avoided. When we actually take a look at all of the problems our emotions cause us, we might be surprised. We usually put the blame for our unhappiness on things outside of ourselves, such as when we are treated or spoken to in a way we don’t like. In that situation, our ordinary reaction is to resent the person we feel has wronged us. But we should take some time to examine the truth of the matter. No matter how another person treats us, how difficult a situation might be, or which of our personal needs we feel wasn’t met, we actually have the power to transform our own state of mind from resentment to peace and contentment.  |
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Narayan Helen Liebenson, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, and the late Zenkei Blanche Hartman share their thoughts on what to do when the suffering of others makes you feel helpless.
Narayan Helen Liebenson: I remember being surprised when I first learned that the Buddha had defined compassion as “a trembling of the heart” and “a pleasant sense of care.” Until then, I had always thought that compassion meant “to suffer with.” The Buddha’s words helped me to see that being compassionate means being vulnerable and yet very strong. To me, a trembling of the heart means encouraging our hearts to stay open in the face of suffering. And a pleasant sense of care implies confidence and capability, the ability to hold the distress of others in such a way as to be effective in our efforts to help. |
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Norman Fischer explains why it’s suffering that gives us the incentive, vision, and strength to transform our lives.
The most astonishing fact of human life is that most of us think it’s possible to minimize and even eliminate suffering. We actually think this, which is one reason why it’s so difficult for us when we’re suffering. We think, “This shouldn’t be this way,” or “I’m going to get rid of this somehow.” I think many of us believe that since suffering is so bad and so unpleasant, if we were really good and really smart, it wouldn’t arise in the first place. Somehow suffering is our own fault. If it’s not our fault, then it’s definitely someone else’s fault. But when suffering arises, we think we should surely be able to avoid it. We should be able to set it to one side and not dwell on it. We should “move on,” as they say, go on to positive things, do a little Buddhism, meditate, get around the suffering, and go forward. |
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