Suffering & Illness

Daozen

Buddha says that the causes of our suffering are craving and ignorance.

But what about illness? When I am sick, isn't the cause of my suffering simply the ailment itself?

Bunks

It depends if you are "suffering" while you are ill.

Daozen

Tell me more!

fivebells

You don't escape all suffering through Buddhist practice. The Buddha had a bad back. He grew old and fell ill.

With respect to the "Four Noble Truths" model this kind of suffering into really only makes sense if you accept that there is rebirth from life to life. From the perspective of that belief, the craving which caused the illness is the same craving which led to your current rebirth.

vinlyn

I look at the reduction of suffering (I am as yet unconvinced it can be eliminated before death) as a step by step process in which you continually increase your ability to set a degree of suffering aside.

person

There are examples of masters who have been sick and dying and remained palpably calm and peaceful.

fivebells

Yes, but the Buddha was quite explicit about sickness and death being suffering.

Bunks

fivebells said:

Yes, but the Buddha was quite explicit about sickness and death being suffering.

For himself or for the unenlightened?

vinlyn

Did Buddha eliminate sickness? No.
Did Buddha eliminate death? No.
Did Buddha enable followers to "work around" pain and suffering during their lives? In my view, yes.

fivebells

Bunks said:

For himself or for the unenlightened?

Suffering is suffering. Self concept has no bearing on it.

pegembara

For physical pain you have medical treatment; for mental pain the Dhamma gives the possibility of complete freedom. You can be in physical pain and not "suffer". The converse is also true.

"When an untaught worldling is touched by a painful (bodily) feeling, he worries and grieves, he laments, beats his breast, weeps and is distraught. He thus experiences two kinds of feelings, a bodily and a mental feeling. It is as if a man were pierced by a dart and, following the first piercing, he is hit by a second dart. So that person will experience feelings caused by two darts. It is similar with an untaught worldling: when touched by a painful (bodily) feeling, he worries and grieves, he laments, beats his breast, weeps and is distraught. So he experiences two kinds of feeling: a bodily and a mental feeling.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.nypo.

music

If there is pain, like it or not I am gonna suffer. How can I be in pain and not suffer? Isn't that impossible?

vinlyn

@Music, that's why my view is that Buddha teaches us how to deal with suffering.

nlighten

I agree with @pegembara

From what I understand sickness is a physical ocurrence and suffering is only an interpretation of what that means in relation to your ego.

It is possible to be sick and not suffer. If you are free of cravings and ignorance.

For example craving for physical pleasures and ignorance of nonself.

music

vinlyn said:

@Music, that's why my view is that Buddha teaches us how to deal with suffering.

He says be aware of the pain. But we're already aware of the pain, which is how we recognize it in the first place. So it seems like he tells us what we already do.

pegembara

music said:

If there is pain, like it or not I am gonna suffer. How can I be in pain and not suffer? Isn't that impossible?

So if you have abdominal pain and the doctor says it is cancer. Some time later you are told there was a mistake and it was just appendicitis.

Which diagnosis causes more suffering and why?

Pain is unavoidable but "suffering" isn't.

Zero

music said:

He says be aware of the pain. But we're already aware of the pain, which is how we recognize it in the first place.

There is a difference between attached involvement (perhaps akin to your already being aware) and mindful awareness - with wisdom, one's relationship to suffering and the responses to suffering are transformed

driedleaf

Suffering originates in this psycho/physical entity that we identify as ours. What would suffering have to latch on to if we have already detached from this psycho/physical entity, and we see through clear insight that it is not ours?

seeker242

Daozen said:

Buddha says that the causes of our suffering are craving and ignorance.

But what about illness? When I am sick, isn't the cause of my suffering simply the ailment itself?

Not necessarily IMO, if you put craving for non-illness on top of the illness, which most people naturally do. If you were to get cancer and you say "I wish I did not get cancer, this is so bad! I don't want to have cancer!" If you do that you now have additional suffering caused by craving for no cancer. But if you say "Hmm, I have cancer. That is ok, no big deal really" and you really meant it, would you then be suffering?

karasti

You can definitely view suffering and pain differently. When you focus on your pain and discomfort, it takes on a different form of suffering than if you just recognize it for what it is,and don't look at it as good, or bad. It can be a hard concept to grasp, but it's easier if you start with less challenging notions.

For example, last night when I went to bed, our bedroom was really cold (probably like 60F). I sat on the bed and my first thought was "Oh I hate being cold!" which of course leads to more thoughts of how much I hate being cold, and more suffering while I wait to warm up under the blankets, and irritation and dread for the upcoming winter. Instead, I reminded myself that first of all, 60F isn't cold. It's just a different temperature than the rest of the house. Then I laid there just experiencing the sensation of the cool sheets, and paid attention to how it felt and how I could feel the temperature changing as my body heat warmed up the bed and blankets. Being chilly/cold isn't bad. It just is what it is. I can either focus on my perception that it is bad and suffer because of it. Or I can accept it as neither good or bad, experience it for what it is. Once you can start to do that with lesser instances, it is easier to apply it to other, larger and more difficult challenges, such as minor illnesses, then major illnesses and pain, etc.

Jeffrey

It's very hard to practice with a big pain. But there is not much else you can do as a Buddhist. For example I have drugged sleepiness because of my medication and I have abusive psychotic voices talking to me sometimes even in my sleep and I wake up with that kind of sleep.

So what can I do? One thing I can do is to link in that hurt and find the heart that longs for a relief. So suffering in sickness can be your ally in finding the awakened heart that is a tender spot that is hurt by the sickness. And kind of breath in the sickness. Allow it to be there.

Another strategy is to observe your mind and find that soft spot cannot be destroyed in the quality of awareness. So you observe your mind both in and out of meditation. You see what is there. Immediately you judge things. But in meditation you let go of your judgements.

In pain there are all kinds of judgements. Anger at the world/God. Denial. Resentment. Fear. In meditation you can find that all of these judgements and things we try to use to reject the sickness are let go of. And the remainder is calm yet still sickness.

DairyLama

seeker242 said:

But if you say "Hmm, I have cancer. That is ok, no big deal really" and you really meant it, would you then be suffering?

In the suttas old age, disease and death are part of the standard formula for dukkha ( suffering ), so the answer isn't straightforward.

DairyLama

pegembara said:

You can be in physical pain and not "suffer". The converse is also true.

"When an untaught worldling is touched by a painful (bodily) feeling, he worries and grieves, he laments, beats his breast, weeps and is distraught. He thus experiences two kinds of feelings, a bodily and a mental feeling. It is as if a man were pierced by a dart and, following the first piercing, he is hit by a second dart. So that person will experience feelings caused by two darts. It is similar with an untaught worldling: when touched by a painful (bodily) feeling, he worries and grieves, he laments, beats his breast, weeps and is distraught. So he experiences two kinds of feeling: a bodily and a mental feeling.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.nypo.

I'm not sure it's that simple. Yes, the first dart is bodily pain and the second dart is the mental pain arising, but the first dart still hurts. And bodily pain is an example of dukkha, suffering.

Jason

Daozen said:

Buddha says that the causes of our suffering are craving and ignorance.

But what about illness? When I am sick, isn't the cause of my suffering simply the ailment itself?

There are two kinds of suffering, stress, unsatisfactoriness, etc. The first is that inherent in conditioned things, i.e., there's some amount of stress involved in things that arise and persist for a period of time, whether from the strain of holing together or the process of changing itself.

This kind of stress or suffering isn't something we can really change or control. If the body, which is conditioned, becomes ill or injured, we can treat it to the best of our ability, but we can never fully heal it or prevent these things from happening. It's the nature of the body to be afflicted by "cold & heat & hunger & thirst, with the touch of flies, mosquitoes, wind, sun, & reptiles" and things like ageing, illness, and death (SN 22.79, AN 5.57).

The second kind of suffering is caused by the mind's attachment to the five aggregates, and this kind of suffering is optional. When the mind attaches to these five processes or phenomena, they become like heavy burdens, and the suffering that arises is due to this grasping at a subtle level of the aggregates as 'me' or 'mine' (SN 22.22). The physical suffering we experience in this case is two-fold, the bodily pain and suffering we initially experience and the mental pain and suffering we add on top, which the Buddha likens to being pierced by two darts (SN 36.6).

When the mind is able to let go, however, these five processes or phenomena, while stressful in and of themselves by the fact of being conditioned, are no longer a heavy burden for us to bear, and when we experience bodily pain and discomfort, we are only afflicted by one dart, not two:

"But in the case of a well-taught noble disciple, O monks, when he is touched by a painful feeling, he will not worry nor grieve and lament, he will not beat his breast and weep, nor will he be distraught. It is one kind of feeling he experiences, a bodily one, but not a mental feeling. It is as if a man were pierced by a dart, but was not hit by a second dart following the first one. So this person experiences feelings caused by a single dart only. It is similar with a well-taught noble disciple: when touched by a painful feeling, he will no worry nor grieve and lament, he will not beat his breast and weep, nor will he be distraught. He experiences one single feeling, a bodily one.

"Having been touched by that painful feeling, he does not resist (and resent) it. Hence, in him no underlying tendency of resistance against that painful feeling comes to underlie (his mind). Under the impact of that painful feeling he does not proceed to enjoy sensual happiness. And why not? As a well-taught noble disciple he knows of an escape from painful feelings other than by enjoying sensual happiness. Then in him who does not proceed to enjoy sensual happiness, no underlying tendency to lust for pleasant feelings comes to underlie (his mind). He knows, according to facts, the arising and ending of those feelings, and the gratification, the danger and the escape connected with these feelings. In him who knows thus, no underlying tendency to ignorance as to neutral feelings comes to underlie (his mind). When he experiences a pleasant feeling, a painful feeling or a neutral feeling, he feels it as one who is not fettered by it. Such a one, O monks, is called a well-taught noble disciple who is not fettered by birth, by old age, by death, by sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. He is not fettered to suffering, this I declare.