Is Suffering Real or Not?

Bad luck doesn't overtake you; you create it. Success isn't the result of hard work; it's the result of right thinking.
Andersen, Uell S.. 


Does Suffering Exist?

Also since I began this study of Three Magic words I was finding the suggestion that we should deny the negative  difficult very difficult to digest.  I write and speak and dwell  a lot on the first noble truth of Buddhism: Suffering Exists. If the negative includes those painful human experiences that  cause or lead to suffering, how can we deny it?  More importantly: Why would we want to?

Part of the learning I write about is that this "suffering" can be the catalyst that takes us inward to a higher understanding...that can help us heal once and for all.  When we understand what causes suffering...our minds...more specifically our mental response to painful experience , we can set ourselves free once and for all.  Finding the true source of suffering...will lead us to healing from it once and for all. To deny it and not look at those "negative experiences" that come our way seems counterintuitive to this healing or transformation that seems so necessary for the human race.

Yet I know what Andersen is saying...we can bypass the need to learn to transform suffering  if we simply learn that suffering is so unnecessary ...if we don't create it in the first place.

My Path to Understanding and Freedom from Suffering

In my approach, which echoes the Buddhist approach, we create suffering in our minds.  We react to Life with resistance and struggle instead of simply allowing it to be.  Once we see what we are doing and start planting positive seeds...our internal lives will change and therefore will our external lives.   We will eventually learn to use the mind  with the approach of looking at suffering and seeing it for what it is, to transform it into a higher level of awareness.

• We have a perception that our worlds are negative and painful
• We recognize and accept the sense of suffering as very real
• We see that painful life circumstance is not the cause but our reaction to it is
• We see the mind as the source of suffering
• We learn to control the mind
• We plant and water  seeds of peace, happiness, joy, compassion and love
• Suffering gives way to Love and the Ultimate Reality

Do We Need to Learn From Suffering Or Can We Bypass that Step?

In Andersen's approach , we are asked to deny the first bullet.  Instead of "perceiving" the world as negative and painful...don't give those experiences that seem negative and painful any of your attention. Don't focus on the negative.  If you walk down the street and you see someone crying in pain on one side of the road and another person laughing with joy on the other side...ignore the one crying and focus on the one laughing.

This is very counterintuitive to the Buddhist teachings of "Suffering Exists' and the importance of service and compassion. Still...does it offer a more direct route to the Ultimate truth?

Life : Not The Cause of Suffering

What if we were to skip those first two bullets in my approach all together,  and go right to "We see that painful life circumstance is not the cause of suffering but our reaction to it is". This takes us right to Andersen's main point: The first cause is always mental. What we are doing in my approach is coming to the realization by going through the negative experience  that the life experience is not causing me suffering...my response to it is.  When I respond mentally and emotionally to life circumstance that is the problem. 

What if we came to that realization without actually having to go through a painful experience? Andersen also says that the life experience is not the cause of suffering...the life experience came from mind, as a result of it rather than our thoughts being simply a reaction to it.

Both approaches state clearly then...that the mind is the source of suffering, not life and what it gives us to deal with. If we learn to control the mind and start planting and watering healthy seeds we will have a healthy life.

Indirect Route to the Same Truth?

My approach, however, seems to be the long way around the pond in comparison to Andersen's. Andersen tells us we do not need to learn from suffering if suffering was never anything we had to deal with in the first place beacsue it was never anything "real". If we stopped believing in it and knew it wasn't real. His focus says we do not need to recognize suffering, accept it, or learn from it if we see that it is all just an illusion  in the mind.  We can go right to learning that our life is what we plant in our minds. We just need to plant healthy and real  seeds instead of negative ones (unreal, only illusion)  and we will never have the illusion of  painful experience to learn from.  We already learned what needed to be learned.

According to ACIM: that would be...

Nothing real can be threatened

nothing unreal exists

Herein lies the peace of God.

 

Hmmm! complicated, I know. I am not sure if this teaching his led me away from my present approach to understanding suffering but it certainly made me question.  I need to think more on this.

 

 

All is well!

 

 

ACIM ( 2007) A course in Miracles: Combined Text. Foundation For Inner Peace.

Andersen, Uell S.. Three Magic Words . BN Publishing. Kindle Edition.