Pain vs. Suffering

Yes, I wouldn't separate the two contextually. Existential suffering, while more encompassing, tending to color all of experience, is really just one of many triggers of the same experience of suffering in the same context of human suffering. However, because of it's all encompassing nature, when existential suffering is resolved, it mitigates all psychological suffering regardless of the cause. 

Still, we can distinguish between psychological suffering of the existential variety from psychological suffering of the situational variety. The perpetual question seems to be, if the former is resolved, is it possible for the life situation to be such that the latter can occur? 

Indeed, if suffering is what's being felt, addressing it is what's required. To do otherwise would be very strange and would involve resistance to the natural impetus to alleviate suffering.

I'd like to see where you see 'distancing and renouncing' going on?

Indeed, the point has been made that just because there is a momentary 'pain' arising, does not necessarily mean that suffering must be happening. There is no denial in that. A moment of pain, sorrow, irritation, does not equal the presence of suffering.

If one is indeed 'miserable' then he's already very much decided that things are not okay. The mere idea that I am not those thoughts/feeling/emotions will have no bearing if they are merely thoughts/conceptions. One must actually 'realize' that thoughts/feeling/emotions are but empty arisings within experience to actually be free of their clutches. Actually being free of the clutches of arising feelings/thoughts has nothing at all to do with denial or avoidance. Being free means that the feeling arises and because it's not held to, it flows right on through, unimpeded.




If one truly knows who he really is, then the very idea of physically thriving or not, gets seen through, along with all other ideas. Absent a strong intent for perfect health or strong intent to cure the cancer that befell Niz, you cannot really conclude that he wasn't thriving. Indeed, we could say that a flower, as it nears it's life cycle and begins to wilt is 'not thriving,' but in the larger scheme of things, surely the wilting, shriveling of what was once a beautiful flower, could be said to be part and parcel of the thriving of nature itself.

You Reefs, continue to make the mistake of believing you can look on at another's manifestation to conclude whether or not he's 'in alignment' or not. You really cannot. One can be dying of cancer and be completely at peace, absent any resistance to what is. Stop looking to the manifestation itself to conclude state of being. You can only do that for yourself, because only you know how you feel about a particular manifestation, whether or not you are fighting/pushing against it or not.

Absent the sense of 'wrongness' regarding a manifestation, it's really just another arising condition...empty of substance, thus, if seen as such, no threat at all to the peace of Being.




A self help/self improvement plan hinges upon an existent sense of there being a separate someone who can control thoughts and feelings and behaviors so that a particular outcome will manifest. A self help plan also hinges upon a strong sense that there is a problem that requires solving.

Once that separate someone has been seen as illusive, once it's been seen that there is no separate 'me' who actually has control of arising thoughts, feelings or behaviors, that generally means the end of effortful action plans to enact change. Rather, if an intention for change is arising, it does so, unobstructed, unresisted by thoughts that would otherwise arise, due to the sense of being a separate some-thing/someone.

Unimpeded intention/interest/desire, requires no 'plan' to bring it into fruition.

It is possible to experience what others might regard to be 'imperfect bodily conditions' absent the sense that there is a problem that requires solving. I know for some that's very difficult to grasp, as for them, 'perfect bodily conditions' tops the list of their desires. The things is, we don't get to control our desires...if there really is no strong desire arising for things to change, there's really nothing that can be done about that.

There's a point where desires themselves shift and change, where they lose their urgency...where if something IS arising, there's alignment/agreement/allowance of that, as the underlying perfection of all colors all that is experienced. There's a point where desires lose their 'burning' intensity, where they become more the ilk of surface, immediate likes and preferences, and in that, there is a moment to moment flowing acceptance of whatever comes to pass. It's almost as though personal desire/preference aligns with "what is" arising in any given moment....perhaps better said; personal will gives way to the impersonal movement of life.

I think the subtlety that's missed by many is the extent to which existential suffering influences all of experience. Without it, nothing is the same. We can't separate existential from situational suffering, as Reefs did, because they are not separate. Folks ask me to define suffering and I say I can't because it's subjective. When you experience suffering, that's suffering. Doesn't matter if it's life threatening or a broken nail.

Yes, Reefs 'two kinds of suffering' is far more confusing....the pain/suffering distinction is clear. To see that the presence of pain need not equal the presence of suffering....that (as siftingtothetruth has so nicely explained) suffering involves 'an interpretation' is what's important.

Even Reefs 'thriving vs. not thriving' business is off imo. It's not that bodily health/condition no longer matters at all post SR, but absent identification with the body, it really does take a back seat in terms of importance and focus. Post SR, One's very definition of what it means to 'thrive' now has the seeing of underlying, all encompassing, inherent perfection coloring it.

An idea such as "Thriving" then, is no longer solely attributed to bodily state, but now includes the bigger picture. One who is identified with form will see a withered, drying flower as definitely not thriving, but one who is not, can see the utter perfection of all stages and states of physical life....and that the dying flower is not something wrong or aberrant at all in the larger scheme of things. And in that seeing, the 'experience' of thriving can be, even alongside cancer.

SR takes the focus off 'the personal'.....and in that, illuminates the fundamental perfection inherent in even something as personally distasteful as Cancer.