How to overcome suffering in Buddhism

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is not. Suffering arises from grasping.
Release grasping and be free of suffering.

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Key Tenets of Buddhism
Buddhism in Practice
The Most Important Event in the Buddhist Calendar

Anyone who has had even the briefest introduction to Buddhist teaching is familiar with its starting point: the inescapable truth that existence entails suffering. This is called the First Noble Truth. But how difficult it is to fully embrace this truth. Of all the maps of Buddhist psychology, the Noble Truths, which teach the understanding of suffering and its end, are the most central. The whole purpose of Buddhist psychology, its ethics, philosophy, practices, and community life, is the discovery that freedom and joy are possible in the face of the sufferings of human life.The Four Noble Truths are laid out like a psychological diagnosis: the symptoms, the causes, the possibility of healing, and the medicinal path.

Whether we are healers, therapists, or friends, when people come to us for help, we are first a witness to their suffering. Whatever form that suffering takes—conflict, fear, depression, stress, obsession, confusion, mental illness, divorce, trouble with work or family or the law, unfulfilled creativity, or unrequited love—we must willingly acknowledge its truth.

We are also witness to their pain. Buddhist psychology makes a clear distinction between pain and suffering. Pain is an unavoidable aspect of the natural world. It is physical, biological, and social, woven into our existence as night is with day, as inevitable as hard and soft, as hot and cold. In this human incarnation we experience a continuous ebb and flow of pleasure and pain, gain and loss. Inhabiting our human society is the same: we encounter praise and blame, fame and disrepute, success and failure, arising and passing constantly. The Third Noble Truth offers us the way out, the end of suffering.

Suffering is different from pain. Suffering is caused by our reaction to the inevitable pain of life. Our personal suffering can include anxiety, depression, fear, confusion, grief, anger, hurt, addiction, jealousy, and frustration. But suffering is not only personal. Our collective suffering grows from human greed, hatred, and ignorance, bringing warfare and racism; the isolation and torture of prisoners; fueling the unnecessary hunger, sickness, and abandonment of human beings on every continent. This individual and collective suffering, the First Noble Truth, is what we are called upon to understand and transform.

The Second Noble Truth describes the cause of suffering: grasping. Grasping, it explains, gives birth to aversion and delusion, and from these three roots arise all the other unhealthy states, such as jealousy, anxiety, hatred, addiction, possessiveness, and shamelessness. These are the causes of individual and global suffering.

The Third Noble Truth offers us the way out, the end of suffering. Unlike pain, suffering is not inevitable. Freedom from suffering is possible when we let go of our reactions, our fear and grasping. This freedom is called nirvana. This is the Third Noble Truth.

The Fourth Noble Truth is the path to the end of suffering. This path is called the middle way. The middle way invites us to find peace wherever we are, here and now. By neither grasping nor resisting life, we can find wakefulness and freedom in the midst of our joys and sorrows. Following the middle path, we establish integrity, we learn to quiet the mind, we learn to see with wisdom.

The Four Noble Truths insist that we face our pain, the pain in our body and mind and the pain of the world. They teach us to stop running away. Only by courageously opening to the sorrow of the world as it is can we find our freedom. This is the demand placed on all who would awaken. As Joseph Campbell reminds us, “The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is in the recognition of the monstrous nature of the earthly human realm as well as its glory.”

Of course Western psychology also thoroughly acknowledges suffering. But in certain ways it leads us to simply accept our suffering, what Freud called our ordinary level of neurosis. As Freud said in his famously resigned terms, “The goal of psychoanalysis is to claim a little more ego from the vast sea of id.” Like Freud, the great existential philosophers Sartre and Camus also focused on the inevitability of our suffering. But a philosophical or psychological acceptance of normal unhappiness is a poor place to end the story.

The Four Noble Truths promise much more. They are a complete and systematic set of psychological principles and teachings that we can use to end the causes of suffering. Through their understanding we can realize freedom.

Photo by Lakshmi kanth raju on Unsplash

ukkha is commonly translated as “suffering”, “anxiety”, “stress”, or “unsatisfactoriness”. The concept of Dukkha set the foundation for Buddhism. The Truth of Dukkha is the first teachings of the doctrine of the Fourth Noble…

When Prince Siddhattha Gautama was young, he led a life of privilege in his kingdom located at the present-day Indian-Nepalese border, protected from all evidence of suffering.

Only when he was 29 years old, did he manage to step out of the palace. This led him to encounter four sights: an old man, a sick person, a dead body and a monk.

Realising that suffering exists, he decided to renounce mundane life to seek a spiritual path like the holy man that he saw.

However, despite meditating under the guidance of various teachers and following severe ascetic practices, Siddhattha could not find the answer to his quest.

He decided to take the path of moderation and avoid the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. Sitting under a bodhi tree, he vowed to stay there until he attained enlightenment.

Forty days later, he emerged from under the tree fully enlightened. Having gained insight into the deepest workings of life and found the solution to suffering, he took on the title “Buddha”, which means “Awakened One”.

Thereafter, he travelled throughout India to share all that he has come to understand with people from all walks of life. His teachings form the basis of Buddhism.

Key Tenets of Buddhism

Buddhism is a path of practice and spiritual development that leads to one’s ability to truly understand the ultimate reality.

Followers commit to Buddhism by taking refuge in the Triple Gem – the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.

They seek shelter in Buddha because his example and what he preaches are reliable responses to life’s sufferings.

To follow Buddha’s path to enlightenment, it is essential to understand his teachings, which are collectively known as the Dharma.

Practising the Dharma requires the support of a spiritual community, referred to as “Sangha” in the Pali language.

Venerable Shi You Wei, one of the youngest monks in Singapore is part of the Buddhist spiritual community known as the ‘Sangha’ .

The Four Noble Truths

Buddha’s foundational teachings start with the Four Noble Truths, the first of which posits that “there is dukkha”. “Dukkha” can be translated as “suffering” or “unsatisfactoriness”.

According to Buddha, suffering is an innate characteristic of human existence; we cannot find ultimate happiness in anything that we experience in this material world.

The Second Noble Truth states that “the cause of dukkha is tanha”. “Tanha” can be understood as “craving”, “desire” or “attachment”.

Our desire for things – which can be the enjoyment of sensual pleasures, the fulfilment of an ambition or even a wish to get rid of something – puts us at odds with the way life really is. Because nothing is permanent in life, having an attachment to the things of this world results in suffering.

It follows, then, that “the cessation of dukkha comes with the cessation of tanha”, which is the Third Noble Truth.

The Fourth Noble Truth – “there is the path leading to the renouncement of tanha and cessation of dukkha” – points to the method of freeing oneself from life’s sufferings to attain true bliss. It is by following the Noble Eightfold Path of right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

Buddhism in Practice

There are many facets to the practice of Buddhism.

Wisdom Practice

Meditation is an essential aspect of Buddhism because it is a form of mental development and training. While we have no control over many things in life, we can determine how we respond to life’s situations. By cultivating a calm and insightful state of mind, practitioners can arrive at a new understanding of the reality of things.

Another priority is the studying of the Dharma. Besides reflecting on the Dharma individually, some Buddhists also attend lessons, talks or join study groups to learn together with others.

Devotional Practice

Followers of Buddhism also show their devotion through ceremonies and rituals.

Buddhist ceremonies comprise three main elements: chanting – the recitation of verses that express the ideals of Buddhism, prostration to pay respect to the Triple Gem and seek repentance, and merit-making through the making of offerings that usually include flowers, candles and incense.

Buddhist ritual items and offerings

Ethical Practice

Lay-Buddhists also follow a code of ethics known as the Five Precepts – a call for devotees to refrain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, and taking intoxicants that cloud the mind.

As a nod to the first precept of not taking life, some Buddhists are vegetarians while others adopt a vegetarian diet on the first and fifteenth day of each lunar month.

The Most Important Event in the Buddhist Calendar

Buddhism has the largest following among all the religions in Singapore, with 31.1%1 of the population professing to be Buddhists.

Vesak Day is the most important festival in the Buddhist calendar.

On this day, which occurs on the first full moon of May, Buddhists in Singapore and worldwide celebrate the birth, enlightenment and nirvana of Buddha.

Devotees bring offerings of flowers, candles and joss sticks to the monastery, where the ritual of bathing the statue of the baby Prince Siddharttha is carried out.

*During Vesak Day, some Buddhists bathe the statue of the baby Prince Siddhartha, as it represents the cleansing of their spirituality. *

Much of the day revolves around performing good deeds, such as giving financially to the monastery and the Sangha, supporting social welfare needs and donating blood.

In the evening, candlelight processions are held, and the ceremony of “three-step, one-bow” is practised at some monasteries.

1 Based on a 2020 census.