The greatest contribution that Buddhism has made to the world, especially to the Western world, over the past 60 years, is its teaching on suffering. That is my opinion. Others might say that Buddhism and the great wave of “New Age Spirituality” that swept over the United States in the 60’s taught us the importance of compassion, meditation, mindfulness, and all the other changes in consciousness. But to me, personally, in practice, the distinction between pain and suffering was transformative and life-changing. Mainly because a proper understanding of the difference between pain and suffering leads to compassion which is essential to being a fully human person.

I share here a passage from “Zen Miracles: Finding Peace in an Insane World” by Brenda Shoshanna, Ph.D. On Page14, she writes:

                                       PAIN IS SIMPLY PAIN

When we let mental machinations go, pain is simply pain. It cannot be avoided in life. To try to avoid it is part of the sickness. The more we are able to experience and accept it, the sooner our suffering subsides. We do not need to explain away pain. We cannot figure it out. We can, however, receive it. In the simple receiving, pain transforms into something quite different. Not only does the pain transform, but more importantly, WE do. As we practice Zen, we see that pain is not bad. It is simply pain. If we spend our lives running away from painful moments, we shut out a great deal of what life brings us, both the pain and the joy. We can neither laugh when we’re happy nor cry when we’re sad.

In Zen, we learn how to feel and accept painful moments, to become larger than our pain. When we are willing to accept our experience, just as it is, a strange thing happens: it changes into something else. When we avoid pain, struggle not to feel it, pain turns into suffering.

There is an enormous difference between pain and suffering. Pain often cannot be avoided. Suffering can. As we learn the difference between them, many fears subside.

As we practice, thought subsides and we become one with the sound of the birds, the heat of summer, the smile of a friend, the feeling of soapy dishwater on our hands. Thinking takes us away from that. But direct experience will bring us all the healing, joy, and strength needed for everything.

Shoshanna says: “We can neither laugh when we are happy, or cry when we are sad.”. This condition describes depression. When we try to run away from pain, we turn off our ability both to feel pain AND feel joy. We can neither laugh nor cry. That is why the name for this condition has been changed from “depression” to “anhedonia”, a Greek word that means “the inability to feel pleasure.” In the state of depression, or anhedonia, we have turned off our ability to feel, so that we no longer feel pain, or joy. We lose our taste for life. We suppress the energy we need to get through every moment. As Shoshanna says: “When we avoid pain, struggle not to feel it, pain turns into suffering.” Depression is excruciating suffering, because we lose our natural ability to accept pain, and we fight and resent the pain, making it unbearable. Pain cannot be avoided, but suffering can, by choosing to fight the pain by simply accepting it.

Suffering is the attitude that we have toward pain. Suffering is the anger that we have when we cannot deny the pain anymore. The brain tries desperately to help us by telling us that pain can be avoided, and it feverishly seeks whatever escape it imagines possible: It could be denial, it could be a search for anything that distracts us from ourselves: alcohol, drugs, sexual addiction of any kind, workaholism. Suffering is the resentment that pain chooses me. “Why me?” Suffering is the “pain/body” that mindfulness teachers like Eckhart Tolle describe that haunts us from our past when one thing or another did not go well for us. We suffer because we allow the pain to torment us. We allow the hurt, the resentment, the indignation to suffocate us. By obsessing, we turn pain of any kind, whether physical, emotional, or psychological, into suffering. The pain could not be avoided, but the suffering could have been, but we threw away our ability to avoid the suffering.

The worst thing that happens to us is that our brain tries so hard to avoid all this pain that it becomes the disease of pain avoidance, pain intolerance. Then we have to train the brain itself which has become sick. As Shoshanna says: “Pain is simply pain. It cannot be avoided in life. To try to avoid it is part of the sickness.” She goes on to say: “Pain often cannot be avoided. Suffering can. As we learn the difference between pain and suffering, many fears subside. Life is full of pain. It cannot be avoided. But we can learn from day to day to live with it. The more we are able to experience and accept it, the sooner our suffering subsides.

“As we practice Zen, we see that pain is not bad. It is simply pain.”

One of my favorite stories is about an American who went to India to learn meditation. One of his first experiences was the worst toothache he had ever had in his life. He begged the Zen master to let him seek out a dentist, but the master refused and made him sit with the pain for 24 hours. Eventually, the pain subsided, and only then was he allowed to see a dentist. As Shoshanna says: “When we are able to accept our experience, just as it is, a strange thing happens: it changes into something else.” This is how we learn compassion.

Compassion is first experienced as compassion for ourself, and then compassion for others. All of this is best learned by a regular practice of meditation a few minutes each day. Whether you call it Zen, or contemplation, or centering prayer, you will eventually find out the difference between pain and suffering.

If you have any questions about this practice, you can ask them in the comments.