2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Obama nailed it. No need to sugar coat it. [View all]vlyons
(10,252 posts)When Buddha became enlightened, his 1st teaching came to be called the 4 Noble Truths, the first of which was the Truth of Suffering. We are all of us suffering. It's called the realm of Samsara, the realm of Suffering. We think that our egos are real solid things, and we blame external stuff as the cause of our frustrations, disappointments, failures, mistakes, rejections, abandonment, etc etc.
There's the suffering of suffering, such as physical and emotional pain and discomfort. The suffering of karma, experiencing the results and consequences of our bad and non-productive decisions and actions. And then a type of existential suffering, which is experiencing that everything that we desire is impermanent and ultimately unsatisfactory, as a means of gaining permanent happiness.
When we get in touch with our own suffering in its various forms, ideally it enables us to find compassion for the suffering of others. It is this lack of empathy and compassion for others that I find most alarming about the far RWers.