Pain and Suffering

We often speak of pain and suffering in a single breath. I think this might come form our legal system where we hear about law suits for “pain and suffering” However, I then looked up the words in a few different dictionaries and found that they are often used a synonyms. There seems to be little differentiation.

I think that there is a significant difference between the two at least from a Buddhist perspective. First I want to define the “common” definitions that I came across:

Pain - An unpleasant sensation occurring in varying degrees of severity as a consequence of injury, disease, or emotional disorder.

Suffering – The condition of being in pain or the enduring of pain, trouble, or distress.

The way I see it, pain is physical experience. Suffering is our judgement of the pain. Just because we feel pain does not necessarily mean that we will suffer.

Pain can be actually followed by euphoria if the circumstances are such. An example: my daughter plays competitive soccer. Its amazing the amount of pain she can happily endure when she is in the middle of a soccer game. I would say that while she is in fact experiencing a physical Pain, there is not “Suffering.” However, if her brother runs into to her later that day, my daughter will scream “Adam! That REALLY hurt!” suffering from the injury.

Other examples more extreme can be found around the world. I watched a program of painful ceremonies around the world recently. In one Peruvian town, they break up into two separate groups and proceed to fight each other to rid “evil spirits. ” They individual fights draw blood and cause much pain. However, the participants smile during the event and hug and smile after they are done. There is definitely physical pain here but no suffering because they have a greater purpose behind the pain. Consequently, in this case, pain = happiness

We may not be able to avoid pain but we can avoid suffering. Suffering is a subjective decision of our thinking.

Many Dharma Blessings,

Geoff