Quotes about Suffering

Your life is supposed to feel good to you.

Who except the gods can live without any pain?

Pain is a message asking for our help.

A friend told me of visiting the Dalai Lama in India and asking him for a succinct definition of compassion. She prefaced her question by describing how heart-stricken she'd felt when, earlier that day, she'd seen a man in the street beating a mangy stray dog with a stick. “Compassion,” the Dalai Lama told her, “is when you feel as sorry for the man as you do for the dog.”

No right way is easy in this rough world. We must risk our lives to save them.

There is no estimating the wit and wisdom concealed and latent in our lower fellow mortals until made manifest by profound experiences; for it is through suffering that dogs as well as saints are developed and made perfect.

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

So don't ask yourself what people want. Ask instead, What is true? What really inspires me, excites me? What will really help people and take away their confusion and suffering? It's sort of a funny, crazy way to go, but I think it's the only way to bring water to the wasteland Joseph Campbell described. When I read something truthful, something real, I breathe a deep sigh and say, "Fantastic - I wasn't mad or alone in thinking that, after all!" So often we are left to our own devices, struggling in the dark with this external and internal propaganda system. At that point, for someone to tell us the truth is a gift. In a world where people all around us are lying and confusing us, to be honest is a great kindness.

The only way to see if it works is to try it. What have you got to lose besides suffering?

Most people tell you they want to get out of kindergarten, but don't believe them. Don't believe them! All they want you to do is to mend their broken toys. "Give me back my wife. Give me back my job. Give me back my money. Give me back my reputation, my success." This is what they want; they want their toys replaced. That's all. Even the best psychologist will tell you that, that people don't really want to be cured. What they want is relief; a cure is painful.

But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for.

Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream.

Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath.

The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind.

The end of suffering happens in this very moment, whether you're watching a terrorist attack or doing the dishes. And compassion begins at home. Because I don't believe my thoughts, sadness can't exist. That's how I can go to the depths of anyone's suffering, if they invite me, and take them by the hand and walk them out of it into the sunlight of reality.

I've taken that walk myself.

The only time we suffer  is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want.

You move totally away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer.

I am the perpretor of my suffering - but only all of it.

The healing of our present woundedness may lie in recognizing and reclaiming the capacity we have to heal each other, the enormous power in the simplest of human relationships: the strength of a touch, the blessing of forgiveness, the grace of someone else taking you just as you are and finding in you an unsuspected goodness. Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal. Becoming expert has turned out to be less important than remembering and trusting the wholeness in myself and everyone else. Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise.

"Oh, ancient god, whatever your name," whispered Ahmed. "Help this lost son of a good father, this evil boy who meant no harm but slept in school, ran errands slowly, did not pray from his heart, ignored his mother, and did not hold his family in great esteem. For all this I know I must suffer. But here in the midst of silence, at the desert's heart, where even the wind knows not my name? Must I die so young? Am I to be forgotten without having been?"

“Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear, and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom.”

The gift of the Truth beats all other gifts. The flavour of the Truth beats all other tastes. The joy of the Truth beats all other joys, and the cessation of desire conquers all suffering

Abstinence is a path of choosing between profound suffering or abject failure.  Moderation is a more humane choice.

Abstinence is a perpetual cycly of holiness, misery and corruption.  Balance brings more fulfillment and less suffering.

There are times I forget to be grateful
easier to see things that are wrong
as I dishonor the the gifts I've been given
with worry, angst and woe.

There are times I need reminding
of the things I take for granted each day;
my children, my home or a stranger,
sent to brighten my way.

Take some time to say thank you
for the blessings that color your day;
Those colors will form a rainbow,
and chase the darkness away.

Marianne Goldweber

Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.

Samsaric pleasures are like salt water, the more we indulge, the more we crave

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

Remember what I said about suffering...the suffering is repeated until the lesson is learned.

The world is a philosophical prison and Man is the philosophical prisoner.

If you want to end your suffering enter your pain.