Posted by raisinb on October 23, 2008, at 9:21:58
In reply to Pain is part of life, but suffering is a choice???, posted by Kath on October 22, 2008, at 19:40:16
Dinah's interpretation sounded just right to me.
On a personal level, I can understand that statement, because I eventually realized that I caused myself a lot of suffering with some deep-seated mental and emotional habits. The sentence sounds to me like pain comes from hurts we can't do anything about, but suffering is making a destructive belief about why the pain occurred.
The thing is, suffering *is* a choice, if you're living in an ideal world in which we all see clearly, had perfect upbringings, etc. As people,though, we bring to the table what we have been taught. And many of us were taught to believe in a world full of suffering, that we deserved it somehow, or that it was always our fault and would never change. So I think it's hard to make a choice that we can't understand exists--emotionally, anyway, even though intellectually we might get it.
poster:raisinb
thread:858817
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081018/msgs/858938.html