Quotes About Suffering

Money is the most universal incitement of human misery.—Gibbon's Decline and Fall.

The devil, of course, was totalitarianism, in particular fascism and Communism, which promised its adherents heaven and brought them unmitigated hell.

This attachment to the body also deeply conditions our fear of death. The more we cling, the harder it is to let go.

We establish some stability and focus in our mind and see which elements in it lead to greater peace, which to greater suffering. All of it—both the peace and the suffering—happens lawfully. Freedom lies in the wisdom to choose.

Wisdom is the clear seeing of the impermanent, conditioned nature of all phenomena, knowing that whatever arises has the nature to cease. When we see this impermanence deeply, we no longer cling; and when we no longer cling, we come to the end of suffering.

Not Seeing Dukkha Is Dukkha

The meditative journey is not about always feeling good. Many times we may feel terrible. That's fine. What we want is to open to the entire range of what this mind and body are about. Sometimes we feel wonderful and happy and inspired, and at other times we deeply feel different aspects of suffering.

When we have too much faith, we can become dogmatic, attached to our own views. And we can see all too often how this blind belief leads to so much conflict and suffering in the world.

and the liberating insight into how suffering in our lives is born from ignorance and ends through wisdom.

There are ten actions—three of body, four of speech, and three of mind—that plant the seeds of our own future suffering.

The last of the ten unwholesome actions is wrong view, basic misperceptions that become the cause of difficulty and suffering in our lives.

As we walk the way of awareness, we see that the deepest purpose we all have is to perfect the qualities of our heart and mind. The spiritual path transforms our consciousness, purifying it of greed, hatred, ignorance, fear, envy, jealousy—those forces that create suffering in us and in the world.

The world is like that boat, tossed by the storms of greed and hatred and fear.

the five aggregates" (khandhas, in Pali) of experience: material elements, feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness.

In short, the five aggregates of clinging are dukkha.

Mind is the forerunner of all things. Speak or act with an impure mind, suffering follows as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox.     Mind is the forerunner of all things. Speak or act with peaceful mind, happiness follows like a shadow that never leaves.

So it is very helpful to begin to recognize this comparing mind, this conceit of "I'm better than" or "I'm worse than" someone else. When we do not see it clearly, it becomes the source of much suffering. It makes us feel separated and apart from others; we reinforce the contraction of self.

Look at all the things we become attached to, whether they are people or possessions or feelings or conditions of the body. Nothing we have, no one in our lives, no state of mind is exempt from change. Nothing at all can prevent the universal process of birth, growth, decay, and death.

Oh, I´m not complaining. I know there´s a war on. I know a lot of people are going to have to suffer for us to win it. But why must I be one of them?¨

The night was full of horrors, and he thought he knew how Christ must have felt as he walked through the world, like a psychiatrist through a ward full of nuts.......

All you've got to do is lie there a few minutes and die a little.

Yossarian was moved by such intense pity for his poverty that he wanted to smash his pale, sad, sickly face with his fist and knock him out of existence because he brought to mind all the pale, sad, sickly children in Italy that same night who needed haircuts and needed shoes and socks.

She reminded him of (...) all the shivering, stupefying misery in a world that never yet had provided enough heat and food and justice for all but an ingenious and unscrupulous handful. What a lousy earth!

You will hurt your foot.