Well, if you're always tiptoeing through the tulips, it really doesn't make much sense to adopt anything. Some aren't so lucky and there's a need to find something, some way to deal with where they find their self.

It's a matter of fortune. It's a matter of degree.

if life doesn't suck badly you're either not doing it right or you're in denial... hahaha

For what it is worth "life is suffering" is incorrect, though traditional.

It is a denial of the third and forth noble truths, namely the cessation of suffering and the path to the cessation of suffering, neither of which require death.

A more correct Buddhist position would be ignorance is suffering.

It is not so much that life IS suffering, but that life holds some amount of suffering for each of us -- along with the joyous and beautiful experiences, as you point out. If life were nothing but continual happiness and joy, forever, there would be no need for anything like Buddhism... but we all know that this is not the case, for anyone. The essential insight of the Buddha in this matter is summed up in the Four Noble Truths:

www.thebigview.com/buddhism...uths.html

The "Cessation of Suffering" does not mean that Buddhists never feel pain, grow old, get sick, or die -- it means that one comes to understand profoundly that these things are not an objection to life -- that life is, as you say, a beautiful gift even though it comes wrapped in these things...

There is no escape from suffering - at least not as long as there is any suffering anywhere in the Universe.

The idea that there is "my suffering" and "your suffering" is an illusion. There is just suffering - and we all feel it. This is especially clear, in my opinion, in Mahayana Buddhism - but Mahayana has no monopoly on it. It is inherent in the teaching of "anatman" - "no self".

The Buddha was raised by his father to be completely removed from all direct personal suffering - he eventually learned about suffering only by observing the suffering of others. That was his first clear glimpse into the "truth of suffering".

Sooner or later, we all will suffer. If you accept that truth, then you can peacefully accept your suffering.

If you reject that truth, then not only do you suffer once, but you suffer again for rejecting truth.

The most peaceful path is to accept that you will suffer.

"to be able to experience the beauty of a sunrise, to hear the laughter of a child, to smell the hint of earth on the first rain, etc etc."

Passing...temporary pleasures. But is there not also worry, anxiety, fear, discontent, etc. in your life? If so...that is what is meant by suffering.

Life is beautiful, but it is our minds that create suffering...continuing the cycle of pleasure, suffering, pleasure, suffering, etc.
Life itself is not suffering.

Namaste,

~ Eric Putkonen
www.awaken2life.org

Rax,

Suffering is a condition of life, for all beings in the world sentient enough to know the reality of it.
But from a fundamental point of view, there is no suffering and no not-suffering. Why?
Because those conditions are developed from man-made thinking, and thinking is
an endless dualistic exercise where we are constantly compelled to label, name, and explain the phenomena around us.
The other things you mention are also conditions of life equally so, yet we collectively determine that love and beauty are not suffering, and so forth. But the dualism derived from thinking, something that we live with everyday, is faulty thinking. The opposites that we collectively name and label, for example, ugly is the opposite of beautiful, good is the opposite of bad, love is the opposite of hate, are actually "opposites" that come from one and the same source. Hate and love are passions of the mind, and are closer to each other than one might "think". How about the guy who says to the police, "I loved her so much, I just had to kill her". Mercy killing is when we kill someone, or something, because we we cannot stand to see them suffer. In that case, is killing "good", or "bad"? It is one's point of view and opinion
that makes the difference. But entire wars and other disasters are caused because someone has a different opinion and point of view.

It is our mind consciousness(thinking) that makes these "opposites" appear different. But, in a purely fundamental way, ugly is the same as beautiful. If there was no "ugly", how could there be "beautiful"? If there was no "hate", how could there be "love"? And so forth. It is our minds and the way that we think about the world that makes these distinctions. But Buddhists(from the Yogacara school) say:
"Form is emptiness and emptiness is form". The phenomena we see, taste, touch, hear, smell, and the consciousness of our minds, attach meaning to the world of phenomena. We attach to our ideas and concepts, feelings and experience, such as this is suffering, and that is not suffering. This is good and that is bad, etc. But the experience is different for everyone (unless we collectively agree), and depends on one's mind state, experience of the event, and other conditions. We may think of death as a bad experience, but others may not feel and think about it the same way. We may love the strong winds and storms coming off the ocean, but the same storm may devastate a farmer's crops 100 miles inland. My girlfriend is beautiful to me, but another may not feel the same way about her. The persecution of the Tibetan people causes suffering and hardship, but those in the Chinese government may not feel so. This is the reason why there is suffering in the world.

Okay. Then you are asking, how do we not suffer? The historical Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree and figured this way about it: 1. Life means suffering. 2. The origin of suffering is attachment. 3. The cessation of suffering is attainable. 4. There is a path that leads to the cessation of suffering. I suppose he knew just as well that we can experience a beautiful sunset, or the love of another human being. But when he looked around, he saw that people don't suffer in those particular ways, people suffer in other ways, and he made a vow to help them.

But the Buddha in his profound Enlightenment also saw that there is suffering and no-suffering. There is negation of the truth, and affirmation of the truth. In other words, both aspects of reality exist, and do not exist. When you empty the mind and experience "nothingness", these conditions do not exist. When you live life conscious (thinking) of the aspect that there is a condition called suffering, it does exist. So there are two sides to reality, Ying and Yang, dark and light, being and non-being, etc. The wisdom that comes from the enlightened mind understands that the two aspects are actually Oneness, and it is only our habit of dualistic thinking, living with distinctions and discrimination, that makes it appear as two separate things.

This was a pretty radical observation, the Buddha thought. How can I suggest to a man whose house just burned down, that lost his family in the fire, that there is no suffering? If we stay on the side of negation (nothingness), we cannot life in the world of phenomena(affirmation).
Because we have bodies and a mind that thinks, we will experience all the conditions that go along with the territory. In other words, we will suffer. Thus, he said...life is suffering. He explained it this way to the masses because to dwell constantly on the side of negation(Enlightenment, Satori) was beyond the experience of most people. Enlightenment to the truth of what he experienced cannot be put into words or thought. To try and do that is to attach to what the mind and its habits of making distinctions and discrimination wants to constantly do. One can become attached to the concept and idea of "enlightenment" too. So, he was a spiritual genius. He said the things he did to try and get the message out. It may seem puzzling, but it is deep, deep wisdom. My teacher always said, the enlightened mind is like a gate, it can swing one way into the realm of negation, and it can swing back the other way into the realm of affirmation. So, to say suffering does not exist is like a man carrying a board on his shoulder. He only sees one side. If he says there is only suffering, he also sees only one side. The thinking mind is what makes it appear one way or the other.

John

I don't know, maybe it's a mistranslation

but it always seems to make more sense to me to say:

" in life there is a certain degree of suffering"

that is to say: with life , there comes suffering.

question is : Why?

and, can we move beyond unnecessary suffering?

In one of his lectures Alan Watts said that a Zen Master once told him that the reason that the Buddha taught that "life is suffering" was to correct the misconception that life ought to be pleasureful.

Dukha, usually translated as suffering, is the first noble truth because it is the first step to enlightenment. If there were no suffering then it would be impossible to develop renunciation of samsara.

According to the Buddhist tradition, all phenomena other than Nirvana, (sankhara) are marked by three characteristics, sometimes referred to as the Dharma seals, that is dukkha (suffering), anicca (impermanence), and anatta (non-Self).

According to tradition, after much meditation, the Buddha concluded that everything in the physical world (plus everything in the phenomenology of psychology) is marked by these three characteristics:

* Dukkha (Sanskrit duhkha) or unsatisfactoriness, 'dis-ease' (also often translated "suffering," though this is somewhat misleading). Nothing found in the physical world or even the psychological realm can bring lasting deep satisfaction.
* Anicca (Sanskrit anitya) or impermanence. This refers not only to the fact that all conditioned things eventually cease to exist, but also that all conditioned things are in a constant state of flux. (Visualize a leaf growing on a tree. It dies and falls off the tree but is soon replaced by a new leaf.)
* Anatta (Sanskrit anatman) impersonality, or non-Self. The human personality, "soul", or Self, is a conventional appellation applied to the assembly of physical and psychological components, each individually subject to constant flux; there is no central core (or essence); this is somewhat similar to a bundle theory of mind or soul.

There is often a fourth Dharma Seal mentioned:

* Nirvana is peace. Nirvana is the 'other shore' from Samsara.

Together the three characteristics of existence are called ti-lakkhana, in Pali; or tri-laksana, in Sanskrit.

By bringing the three (or four) seals into moment-to-moment experience through concentrated awareness, we are said to achieve Wisdom - the third of the three higher trainings - the way out of Samsara. In this way we can identify that, according to Sutra, the recipe (or formula) for leaving Samsara is achieved by a deep-rooted change to our world view.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thre..._existence