What is suffering?

The word ‘suffering’ seems to appear in every corner of Buddhism. And

generally, one would tend to associate suffering with pain, anxiety, agony, sadness,

dissatisfaction and all sorts of negativity in one’s lifetime. Unfortunately, this is

not the case in the eyes of the Buddha. In the Buddhist context, the dependent

nature is known as samsāra. Samsāra literally means ‘continuous flow’- referring

to a repeating cycle of birth, life, death and re-birth. When there is samsāra

arising, dukkha would arise concurrently. And the meaning of dukkha or suffering

would be to ‘bear with’ in the Buddhist context. Any circumstances that would

involve one to continue with; to persevere with; to soldier on with; to carry on with;

to undertake with; to go through with would mean suffering. Literally, it is not

correct for one to put much attention onto the conditions of pain, anxiety, agony,

dissatisfaction, joyfulness or happiness - for these conditions merely reflected as

the consequences of dukkha arising. To ‘bear with’ is to suffer and the antonym

of it is to ‘let go.’ So stop submitting oneself to the conditional circumstances

and one would be freed, be liberated and be neutralised! Let us cure the cause,

not the symptoms!