Is there a difference between suffering and needless suffering?

[BanzaiBonnie]

There is suffering which I cannot do anything about.


I consider needless suffering to be that which I can eliminate or alleviate, whether it is my own or another's.


This seems to me to be related to One Grass Root's illusion discussion.

[BanzaiBonnie]

1. And does it make a difference ?

[SCarrington Smith]

15. Personally, I believe there is no needless suffering

There is suffering we could avoid, yes, and it is directly connected to ego and illusion. But, that being said, the suffering we bring upon ourselves, raises our awareness of illusion, and it is an important tool for the soul to clean house. It's all a part of learning, and Spirit sometimes really does work in mysterious ways -- because of our past programming, we are wired to respond more promptly to suffering than we are to happiness, so Spirit chooses the path of least resistance to bring some important lessons home. :)

[BanzaiBonnie]

20. I'm not sure I understand fully what you've said

I'm really not clear on what you're saying when you say that "the suffering we bring upon ourselves, raises our awareness of illusion."


I'm guessing you believe we bring suffering on ourselves? Is that what you're saying? That makes each of us both perpetrator and victim. Which philosophically I can agree with. And while that may be so, but it feels like the answer to that is much more entangled in the whole picture of humanity than in our individuality. Although it may be part of both. Since reading "Spontaneous Evolution" I'm looking at this life from what I feel is a much more complete perspective than I was even only a few months ago.


What I really want to address is actual action in our lives. What can we do? When are we powerful? And when do we accept that there may be nothing we can do. I believe that while some amount of suffering is inevitable, not all is necessary. Probably much suffering is needless.

Certainly, we cannot avoid suffering. But there are times we can do something about it. When someone is in pain, their brain response is triggering the activation of the amygdala, which is only about reacting, escaping pain and making sure one is safe. Only by bringing safety back into someone's life can they then move forward to find new solutions and new ways to live.

And when someone is without hope, we can hold onto hope FOR THEM, until they can get back to that place.

Since we are also hard wired for cooperation and compassion, when someone is stuck in their suffering we are free to offer assistance. They also have free will to accept or reject that assistance. So we cannot force someone to change what they are doing to stay in their pain. We can offer compassion and offer a way to get out of the pain, but we cannot force it on them.

That may mean food to ease their hunger, community which gives them connection with others, or empathy which which meets their need that someone understands.

Does that make sense?

[Celebration]

2. well that is interesting

I think needless suffering is the kind that we (or I) CAN do something about, but don't get the opportunity.......(as you say)

Suffering by definition includes needless suffering but also some suffering that doesn't into the needless category.

That is my take on it, but I thought I would throw it out there. I would draw a Venn diagram about this, but I don't think it is necessary...............suffering is the large category, and it is separated into needless, and not needless.

[BanzaiBonnie]

3. Okay, just one of those things that I wonder about

[Proud_Lefty]

4. This is an interesting question

When I was a born again Christian, many non-believers said they didn't believe in this all loving God because of all the needless suffering around the world. I never understood it until I began my spiritual path. People can't argue that the more they have suffered, the more they've learned, the more they've grown, and the more it has made an incredible impact in their lives. Suffering is also not always necessarily punishment/karma, but it normally does seem to serve some type of method of evolvement or growth.

However, a lot of people seem to experience a tremendous amount of needless suffering by playing the victim, and continually manifesting extreme hardship to themselves. And that can begin to spiral downward and out of control. I haven't been able to comprehend this being healthy or beneficial in any way, shape or form. I've tried to discourage people from playing the victim, but too many times, it has ticked people off more than helped. At this point, this definitely seems like what would have to be considered needless suffering.

I could be wrong about all of this, but these are my observations so far. :shrug:

[WolverineDG]

5. For some, the victim role is all they know

so they play it again & again & again. I did it myself, until I got so damn tired of it. Now I have little patience (bad dg, bad dg) for someone who keeps themselves locked in that role after someone's come along & tried to help them out of it. As Dolly Parton once said, get off the cross, someone needs the wood.

As for "I don't believe in God because of all the bad stuff in the world," well, problem with that is it's all fine & dandy to talk about "love your neighbor," "forgiveness," "justice," "compassion," if there aren't any situations to challenge you. This is where I feel that "Divine Planning" & "Free Will" meet up with each other. If you've never seen or experienced injustice, how do you know what "justice" is? For me, injustice "burns" me just around the solar plexus. (mebbe that's why I became I a lawyer?)

Same for mercy, forgiveness, & love? If you've never seen or experienced their opposites, how do you know what they are?

sorry, I'm rambling...hope this makes sense. I haven't finished my coffee yet... :hangover:

dg

[OneGrassRoot]

6. It makes perfect sense to me....

Not sure how to respond to the OP -- not sure I'm even at a place to evaluate such things so in depth.

But I'm with you on the victim thing. I start off with complete compassion, yet when I personally experience someone choosing to remain in the victim mode (consciously or not), I move into compassionate detachment.

And I also COMPLETELY agree with the rest of what you've shared. I call it the Contrast Effect.

Experiencing challenges and suffering not only enables us to have empathy for various situations, but it provides us with the contrast to know what we DON'T want to experience any more, and focus on what we DO choose to create and experience.

No doubt there is meaning and value to challenges and suffering, but I choose to evolve within this human experience so that such "teachings" are no longer necessary.

Have a good one. :)

:hug:

[WolverineDG]

8. well, I think the next step is to do your part to create a world

where the opposites of compassion, love, forgiveness, justice no longer exist. That means you have to fight them when you can & do your best not to create them in the first place.

dg

[OneGrassRoot]

11. Absolutely, I couldn't agree more.

When I suggest that people not focus on the ills/negatives, I don't mean to turn a blind eye AT ALL. I simply mean to address it by taking positive action. I'm all for "fighting against" injustices, so long as I'm also taking positive action toward creating an alternative.

As much as I love and appreciate DU, it is essentially a dark hole of negativity. I love the part where injustices and such are called out, with the spreading of awareness and information; I don't resonate with not taking action to alleviate them and create alternatives.

Incessant whining without positive steps to address the focus of the discontent is a waste of precious energy, imho.

And, yes, about being mindful to not create them in the first place.

:thumbsup:

:hi:

[BanzaiBonnie]

21. It's difficult to watch people keep

at the same pattern of behavior over and over and over, when it obviously - to us - is causing them to stay in a situation of pain.

That's why I must act with compassion toward them. It's not mine to judge. I have free will to act or not act in that situation.

What' I've found is that nonviolent communication has helped me immensely. If we can help meet the underlying need, then the pain stops for long enough for them to learn how to meet their needs through different strategies.

Most of us have learned very poor strategies to meet our needs. And until we learn new strategies, we keep using the ones we are familiar with even when they cause us pain. We have accepted the pain as just a part of life. Rather than a signal that is giving you information, pain is part of life has been the message.

And are pain and suffering are two different things? Yes?

[I Have A Dream]

13. I agree wholeheartedly, PL.

I think that there is suffering in general. This can be broken down into suffering that can't be helped (e.g., someone who is very ill and is receiving the best medical care available but is still in pain) and needless suffering. Needless suffering can be broken down into suffering that could be alleviated only by receiving outside help (e.g., someone who can't afford to buy food) and suffering that could be alleviated if the user truly wished to do so.

I have a wonderful friend who was dating someone who always tried to help her. At one point, he said that as soon as he removed a rock from her wheelbarrow, she added two more to make up for it. What a wonderful analogy! It was absolutely true, and she understood what he was saying. (It didn't change her behavior, but it certainly made her conscious of what she was doing.)

We can't do other people's work. If we do, we're enabling them. There's negative karma associated with doing that since we're interfering with their karmic lessons. I personally feel that those of us who help take on negative karma only if the person could resolve the situation through correct action or by working on their issues that are causing the suffering. I don't feel that there's negative karma for those who help to alleviate suffering when the person can't do anything to fix the situation him or herself or if it's such a large undertaking that the person can't believe that they can fix the situation on their own.

In the case where a person could alleviate their own suffering but the task just seems insurmountable to them, I am willing to help as long as I feel that the person is working to understand their part in causing the suffering and then takes actions to no longer do those things. If they get to the point where they are depending on me to always "fix" things for them but are not doing any work on their side, I have to back away. Negative karma then becomes an issue for the person who helps.

This is all my opinion, but I do feel very strongly that this is how things work.

:hi:

[Proud_Lefty]

14. It's a hard lesson, IHAD

Knowing when to help them, and knowing when to disengage and encourage them to do for themselves. You are so right. We can't interfere with someone's karmic lesson without a backlash. Fortunately, I always feel that backlash immediately when I don't seek or understand my boundaries. It puts a whole different take on compassion and giving of the heart. I've had to turn my back on people who looked to me for strength because I couldn't help them seek that strength from within themselves. Honestly, it's been a tough road, tougher than I could have ever imagined.

Thanks for helping me through it, Dream! :hug:

[Celebration]

7. kind of reminds me of my daughter's high school speech contests

My daughter used to enter speech contests where she wrote the speeches, which I think had to be five minutes long or something. So one year she wrote a speech on the meaning of suffering. Generally she refused to follow the standard format for speeches (make three main points, step here, step there, yada yada). Okay, that speech was really interesting because it basically separated out the speech contest judges (generally various parents or teachers, depending on the locale) into those that could understand her nuanced speech that delved into everthing from Greek mythology to the Holocaust, and those that were looking for some biblical references or at least something more familiar, with simplistic answers. :rofl:

She won a huge local speech tournament with her Sisyphus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus referencese, and her quotations from Victor Frankl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl, but failed to make the finals in the state tournament in Cookeville (Cookeville!!! seriously) where the WINNER of the high school speech tournament was an ANTI EVOLUTION SPEECH QUOTING THE BIBLE!! :rofl:

[WolverineDG]

9. good for your kid!!

Sorry she lost to an anti-evolution speech.

dg

[Celebration]

10. The perils of having the final

in Cookeville! I took one look at the crowd and had the result nailed without even listening to the speeches.

[eilen]

18. Wow, sorry! I know that area--

Too bad they didn't hold them in Nashville where she might have had a shot if Vandy was a sponsor.


"She won a huge local speech tournament with her Sisyphus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus referencese, and her quotations from Victor Frankl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl, but failed to make the finals in the state tournament in Cookeville (Cookeville!!! seriously) where the WINNER of the high school speech tournament was an ANTI EVOLUTION SPEECH QUOTING THE BIBLE!! "

[MorningGlow]

12. Oh, I think so

Too many people take to heart the incorrect interpretation of Buddhism's First Noble Truth, "Life is suffering." They think that means that life has to be miserable all the time. Look at some Christians--they think that it's necessary to suffer on Earth because that shows they understand the difference between the material world and Heaven, and they think happiness is a Heaven-only concept. :scared: :scared: :scared:

I personally have issues with the WORD "suffering" (darn those semantics anyway) because I think the term is now way too loaded, but I can understand why it's used. Compared to the perfection of Nirvana, yeah, humans are going to be unhappy in 3-D.

However, there most definitely is unnecessary suffering--people who wallow in their own personal pain without trying to alleviate it. That shit snowballs, too, and then you get the "forest for the trees" issue--all that "woe is me; my life sucks" when all they're really complaining about are minor inconveniences.

Then there's the "suffering" that's necessary to unknot some karma or learn various lessons we're interested in learning or fulfilling some element of our soul contracts (depending on what you perceive the purpose of our 3-D lives to be). Compassionate people have a hard time understanding that not everyone can be granted an easy road in every lifetime, because that would negate their life lesson. So even if we tried to alleviate their suffering, they might reject it, because it's their job this time around to experience that suffering.

And it's a very, VERY hard thing to remember that there's a big difference between callous disregard for our fellow humans and acknowledging that each person is on his/her own path and sometimes our assistance is limited because of those lessons that need to be learned. I think that's who Jesus was talking about when he said "The poor will always be with us"--he wasn't being callous; he was acknowledging that some people are fulfilling their soul contracts in ways that we can't understand and we can't help them with. I mean, we should help try to alleviate it, but if we fail, we shouldn't beat ourselves up (if it was a sincere effort) because there could be other, bigger forces at play that we don't know anything about.

Ugh, I'm rambling. It's such a hard thing to put into words--sorry!

[BanzaiBonnie]

16. THis might be an answer to what I was asking

Our visit to this planet is short, so we should use our time meaningfully, which we can do by helping others wherever possible. And if we cannot help others, at least we should try not to create pain and suffering for them.
The Dalai Lama

[Celebration]

17. could be

I heard someone say onetime that although it is good and fine to help others, there is no moral imperitive to do so. But to refrain from harming others is an imperitive. In the context of what was being said (and now I can't really recall the context), it made sense to me.

There are lots of indirect ways to help others. A direct way might be to find a poor family and buy them groceries. An indirect way would be to try to discover a more environmentally friendly way to generate energy. Another way could be to have a twinkle in your eye and genuine smile when you work in a retail outlet. I don't think you have to be a "do gooder" to do good!

[BrendaBrick]

19. Hi BanzaiBonnie - I must say....

...that I have been chewing on this for a couple of days now. Don't have a direct answer as such - (yet?) so I thought I would look up the legal definition between pain and suffering for starters:

http://www.centralnewyorkinjurylawyer.com/2010/03/central-new-york-personal-inju-1.html

There IS pain. There IS suffering. No two ways about that one - to be sure! I think it is important to maybe establish the groundwork between the two insofar as legalities are concerned.

Having said that - let me say this: See, there IS something called PTSD. In essence, basically and as far as I have come to understand it - means: Something/events which have happen(ed) OUTSIDE the realm of human comprehension - you know? (So just like - ponder about that for a minute...or two.)

You sometimes wonder why it might APPEAR TO YOU that someone is just not 'letting go of the past' of perhaps 'chooses to wallow in their own demise aka suffering' - I'm sorry - I beg to differ here a bit.

It's called 'cognitive dissonance'. At its core, I feel it is the unrelenting process for a person who has endured unimaginable acts to their souls and person hood brought upon by others and with nothing short of incredible tenacity and silent courage in trying to like....figure out (in their minds) just HOW in the world can I EVER fit something square into a round hole???? - as far as this is concerned?

You know what I'm saying here?

Sure - it is much easier to just say - Get over it already! - Pull yourself up from your bootstraps yadda - yadda - yadda - but the fact remains that some individuals are really and truly TORMENTED by their past and what adds insult to injury is to experience the REPERCUSSIONS for days, months, years - decades even...without ever really knowing - EXACTLY - for sure - the ROOT of it all - hence the term: "Traumatic Amnesia."

So, before you are ready to try and pass judgments upon such individuals because it just seems to you - as an outsider - that they are "stuck" in said "victim mode" - perhaps it might behoove you consider the fact that these individuals are really trying their ABSOLUTE darndest to try and make some kind of heads or tails sense out of a past event/trauma and experience in their lives because of this as a living friggin' hell which they so desperately try so hard to understand and eventually master!

Oh yeah - walk a mile in someone else's shoes....you must might learn somethin'!

....Officially stepping down from soapbox here!

[BanzaiBonnie]

22. I agree with what all you've said,

and would never dream of telling someone to "just get over it". There's a big difference between observation and judgement. I blogged this one last October:

The danger of snap judgments, is that you don’t know the whole story.

What do you think of that woman in your office who is so cruel and cold? She’s always saying horrible things about other people. What about that boy you were in third grade with, the one who smelled so bad no one wanted to be near him? And remember that girl in eighth grade who no one could stand because she was always showing off? She would do anything to get attention.

Then there was that boy with the nose that he hadn’t grown into yet. You remember, the nerd who played the violin. He was so shy and awkward he couldn’t talk to anyone, let alone a girl. What a weirdo.

We all do it. We like people who are similar to us. It’s easy to avoid those whose behavior or demeanor is suspect because it’s different or makes us uncomfortable. It’s also easier to go along when our friends make fun of someone as a way of shutting them out.

It’s easy to be kind and love someone who looks more like you than not. It’s easy to work alongside someone who understands the social rules. The rules you have learned and live under. But what if there are others who don’t understand those rules. What if the rules governing their lives were different. Or what if those rules just don’t fit them. Does that make them misfits? OR does it only mean they have a different place in the body human.

The problem is when we’re unkind to others, we are being unkind to ourselves. They are part of the body of humanity. And it’s time to see everyone through new eyes.

If we soften our stance and are kind and even tempered in our dealing with others we might have a chance to learn something. We might learn the rest of the story. Their story. And we need to know their story because ultimately, it’s OUR story. The human story.

The woman in your office? Every day growing up her father let her know that she was not his child, but the product of her mother’s unfaithfulness to him. She was a thing to him. An it. And her mother told her every day what a worthless person she was. How her mother wished that this daughter had never been born.

It tore at her heart to live with parents who were unable to extend even the kindness that they would to a stranger. SO now she makes her heart hard and cuts herself off from others as a way of self protection.

And do you remember that boy in third grade that smelled like something rotten. It was a horrible, gagging smell. The smell of pure filth.

His parents were both alcoholics. He lived in conditions that we wouldn’t allow our dogs to live under. There was no running water in the house. There was no plumbing. He had to relieve himself whenever he found facilities away from home or out away from the house. At school it was okay. He could use a real bathroom then. He did bathe once a week at his aunt’s house because she was only five miles away. But that wasn’t enough to keep away the creeping smell of poverty and slow death that hung in the air around him. Do you remember that when he was in sixth grade, he jumped to his death from the railroad bridge?

And the girl who tried too hard? Did you know that her uncle molested her from the time she was four until she was was twelve and old enough to tell on him. The problem then was, that when she did tell her mother, her mother slapped her for making such a vile accusation. Her mother did not believe her. And her mother? As a child, her mother was molested and raped almost daily by her stepfather. And what about her grandmother?

And the boy who played the violin? He was different. And one day someone played a terrible joke on him. But the joke wasn’t funny and the young man jumped from the George Washington Bridge… and he died. That young man had parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents who loved him.

He is missed.

And the whole of humanity is less without the contribution of these bright, shining stars. All of them. Whether they actually die or their spirit is shut down in some other way, who knows what their contribution to the whole would have been if they had been held in love by their communities. If they had been able… to not only survive, but thrive and grow to their fullest potential.

There’s danger in making judgements about others. You don’t know the whole story. And all of us have stories. And they are more alike than they are different for We Are One.

Practice kindness in all your dealings with others. Practice being kind to yourself. And always… always… be as kind as you can.

[BrendaBrick]

23. Thank you for posting this. It's beautiful & true.

LOVES
SOLVE

[jbnow]

24. If I can do this justice... oh who am I kidding. It's been 20 years

and I doubt I can get it across. But just before 1st Iraq war I took my grandmother to Mass. My mom had died the autumn before and grandma had requested a Mass for her. Coincidentally this was the day so that is how I ended up to hear this.

For a weekday morning it was very full because of the immanence of war. The visiting priest who gave the sermon had a lovely Island accent but was easy to understand.
The sermon was The Barriers to Peace and he said there was two main barriers,

The first was the unwillingness to suffer, to feel pain and it was the primary pain we did anything to avoid. In order to avoid facing and feeling this original pain we created and suffered through all sorts of secondary, created pains that could go on and on.
This primary pain when faced was redemptive suffering, could bring healing, transformation.
The pain we created to avoid facing the true pain was not redemptive or trans formative and just created more pain and took us further from ourselves. The pain might not seem self created but our inability to deal with it came from our not dealing with our primary pain. This was our unnecessary suffering.

The second barrier to peace was our fear/unwillingness to appear a fool in the eyes of others.

And it all made sense at the time. It was incredibly moving. I hadn't thought of it or tried to retell it in years but the subject as thread made me try.

I don't recall his words that make me remember that he wasn't talking about some primary pain of being human or original sin or anything... but that it would be unique to each of us...

anyway I hope someone finds a bit of meaning to it.

[BanzaiBonnie]

25. When you sit with someone and allow them

to feel their pain, when you acknowlege their pain without taking it on... isn't this a way to ease suffering?

And when someone is generous enough to do this for me, to hold safe space for me to feel my pain, I feel enormous relief and am so grateful. It also creates a deep connection and sense of community.


It takes trust to be vulnerable in front of others. When you show your soft spot, you are open to attack by the other. This all comes from broken trust. And it starts in our childhood with someone discounting our feelings and needs.

[BrendaBrick]

26. Yes!

...and the great thing about this, I think, is that one word need never to be uttered.

It is with the 'allowing' of someone to just expose their soft underbelly without the fear of reproach or judgement where all of this healing has a climate in which to take place. Naturally. Silently and with great unspoken compassion.

Deep down, in it's essence - gaining a witness. And really, don't we all need a witness anyways?

Silent or otherwise. To just know that we are not alone in our suffering and anguish?

To just be heard and felt is all?

Both strange and wonderful that so many of our own deep-down struggles can be almost washed away with just an understanding smile. An understanding hug. Truly.

....just to know sincerely from someone else...."I hear and feel you" ~

[Kind of Blue]

27. "...just to know sincerely from someone else....

'I hear and feel you' ~"
This really got to me because I have an image that's haunted me from childhood. When I was about 10years old, my mom and godmother took us kids to the beach. I'm not sure if it was Atlantic City but I remember the walkway being high above the beach and we could look up at people leaning against the rail.

Anyway, I looked up and there was a young woman silently crying her heart out. I'll never forget her short leather jacket, very blue bell-bottom pants, shiny long brown hair and white T-shirt. She didn't ask for help but just stood there leaning on the rail and looking at the sea, wiping away tears and blowing her nose with tissues from her purse. I kept telling my 2 mothers that we need to help her, but they told me to be quiet and stop looking. But I kept sneaking looks and wanting to run up there, but I feared disobeying those 2 women more. In my mind, she wasn't crying over the awesomeness of the ocean but was in serious pain.

I just felt somebody ought to do or say something. But after pondering this thread and this image for a week now, and what you just wrote, it hit me that here was a person who perhaps may have needed understanding and comfort and went to find it, but most importantly to me now - She owned her suffering and expressed it whether anyone took notice or not. Her image is always in the background always spurring me to do something, Especially when I see total strangers who I think need a hand - sometimes with crazy results :rofl: And God knows how many times I've been helped by the kindness of strangers or friends just reaching out. It's such a blessing that makes me thrill just thinking about it.

[BanzaiBonnie]

28. It's inspiring to be able to talk

about the subject of pain and know that there are some people who won't run away.

[Kind of Blue]

29. Interesting, never thought of it that way before, BonzaiB.

I guess this is part of what this thoughtful thread is about, because I think we have to face suffering without ignoring how it reaches one emotionally to assess whether we can do something about it or want to do something about it. And hence, I think the monthly Prayer Thread and this group as a whole. The Healing Group segment of our title really sticks out to me now :hug: :hug: :hug: