How is suffering imaginary?

[TruthFreedom]

I've heard that suffering is imaginary.

I've been accepting solipsism recently which is helping me so much.

But I would like to understand this idea of suffering being an illusion, if anyone can explain.

[theoneandnone]

Because if everything is imaginary in the grand scheme of things your suffering isn’t inherently real. In a dream you hurt etc but it wasn’t truly real. 

[Hojo]

Its all your will. All you have to do is agree with what happening.

Edited Friday at 05:14 PM by Hojo

[theoneandnone]

2 hours ago, Hojo said:

Its all your will. All you have to do is agree with what happening.

Sounds like cope to me

[Hojo]

@theoneandnone cope for what? Ego? The video explains that everything is Gods will. Your suffering is the cope that you are God and your suffering is the cope that things happen inside of you that you don't like. Once you surrender the ego to God it can't be cope its whats happening.

Edited Friday at 08:59 PM by Hojo

[theoneandnone]

1 hour ago, Hojo said:

@theoneandnone cope for what? Ego? The video explains that everything is Gods will. Your suffering is the cope that you are God and your suffering is the cope that things happen inside of you that you don't like. Once you surrender the ego to God it can't be cope its whats happening.

I say it’s cope because it’s basically saying all the good and bad is just part of God’s will etc sounds like a blanket term.

[Hojo]

@theoneandnone There is something above what you think you are creating it. Its creating it in a specific way for your greatest good. you decohere from the will by saying its bad. If you stop deciphering the dream you will start crying everyday that your will is being created. You are allowed to do everything that God wills cause you are creating it. You fight with the will cause you think its getting you nowhere when its getting you to your highest good. Whats happening is what you want and will get you your manifestations if you agree with your own will.

 

You are saying not this way to whats willing your greatest best life based on accusations and feelings from other people telling you its not how it works.

Edited Friday at 10:17 PM by Hojo

[theoneandnone]

1 minute ago, Hojo said:

@theoneandnone There is something above what you think you are creating it. Its creating it in a specific way for your greatest good. you decohere from the will by saying its bad. If you stop deciphering the dream you will start crying everyday that your will is being created. You are allowed to do everything that God wills cause you are creating it. You fight with the will cause you think its getting you nowhere when its getting you to your highest good. Whats happening is what you want and will get you your manifestations if you agree with your own will.

Okay lol whatever you say 

[theoneandnone]

4 minutes ago, Hojo said:

@theoneandnone There is something above what you think you are creating it. Its creating it in a specific way for your greatest good. you decohere from the will by saying its bad. If you stop deciphering the dream you will start crying everyday that your will is being created. You are allowed to do everything that God wills cause you are creating it. You fight with the will cause you think its getting you nowhere when its getting you to your highest good. Whats happening is what you want and will get you your manifestations if you agree with your own will.

 

You are saying not this way to whats willing your greatest best life based on accusations and feelings from other people telling you its not how it works.

So according to your logic all my suffering is my fault and I should instead enjoy it?

[Hojo]

@theoneandnone Just try for one day to say to yourself this is Gods will. Every interaction thats awkward, every minute detail that you disagree with. You wont have to think except this is Gods will for me. God the most unconditionally loving entity in the universe is creating my best life and this is its will. You can still disagree and get angry but you aren't doing it Gods will for you is.

For instance if you are setting table in a restaurant you give someone a knife with a water stain on it. You decohere with the dream and think I need to get a new knife for this person. Instead you just say this is Gods will. If someone gets angry thats Gods will.

Every little detail is Gods will. You say something people disagree with. Gods will. You feel awkward thats Gods will.

This will stop you from arguing with your solipsistic dream and you will flow.

Your suffering isnnt your fault its Gods will for you. There is no you to suffer its God.

'You' are the decoherance in Gods infinite will.

Edited Friday at 10:42 PM by Hojo

[theoneandnone]

27 minutes ago, Hojo said:

@theoneandnone Just try for one day to say to yourself this is Gods will. Every interaction thats awkward, every minute detail that you disagree with. You wont have to think except this is Gods will for me. God the most unconditionally loving entity in the universe is creating my best life and this is its will. You can still disagree and get angry but you aren't doing it Gods will for you is.

For instance if you are setting table in a restaurant you give someone a knife with a water stain on it. You decohere with the dream and think I need to get a new knife for this person. Instead you just say this is Gods will. If someone gets angry thats Gods will.

Every little detail is Gods will. You say something people disagree with. Gods will. You feel awkward thats Gods will.

This will stop you from arguing with your solipsistic dream and you will flow.

Your suffering isnnt your fault its Gods will for you. There is no you to suffer its God.

'You' are the decoherance in Gods infinite will.

I will keep an open mind and respect your perspective. I apologize if I came off rude. Thanks hojo!

[Hojo]

@theoneandnone np. I'm pretty positive that it can make a big positive change in a person's life to do this. Leos videos are top tier. I ask God for help and he show me that video and I understand that everything is Gods will. No reason to fight. Fighting is going against God's highest best will for you as it loves you unconditionally. You just have to let it by stopping decoherance.

Not fighting with others thats fine just stop fighting with your own dream. If you want to fight people do it just know its Gods best will for you when you do it.

Edited Friday at 11:21 PM by Hojo

[Natasha Tori Maru]

There are elements to survival that create suffering that are harder to understand.

So it might be easier to seperate this into the suffering we self generate as a result of, say, the social domain. 

Mostly, suffering is generated within the mind as a result of resisting an experience. The illusory self is the source of this - and most of the time this suffering is generated through the 'imagining' of an experience. Past/future imaginings.

Pain is not the same as suffering.  But it is when you think about the future, the past, or yourself that you suffer. When you seek or wish to avoid an outcome. Desire.

It might be hard to understand this topic unless you have realised your true nature - the illusion of the self/ego. It is not enough to understand the concept, it has to be realised. Without this, you might think this explanation lacerates you from your humanity: 

https://youtu.be/694aosiIiIg?si=UTvblsXJiS1-J2ml

 

[Yimpa]

3 hours ago, theoneandnone said:

I say it’s cope because it’s basically saying all the good and bad is just part of God’s will etc sounds like a blanket term.

2 minutes ago, theoneandnone said:

So basically you see it as all the good bad and ugly is part of Gods will yes? Also you speak of God as someone outside me but at the same time could be interpreted as I’m god doing all this so fighting these situations is fighting myself essentially? I don’t know I’ve seen God spoken about many different ways here. 

On 4/4/2025 at 2:53 PM, Yimpa said:

Edited Saturday at 01:22 AM by Yimpa

[UnbornTao]

Well, suffer something minor now, deliberately. Generate some form of suffering. (Not physical! I'm talking about mental-emotional suffering, like comparing yourself to an ideal self-image, or simply imagining the lack of something you desire.)

OK, now that you've done that successfully, what went on in your experience such that that particular form of pain could arise? What did you do? How did you interpret and make sense of events?

That's the gist of it. A lot of this is the equivalent of poking your own eye and then attributing it to external causes. Of course, that's a simplistic analogy, but it makes the point: we aren't aware that we are, in fact, "poking our own eyes." We don't make the connection (experientially) between our actions - broadly defined to include what we think, believe, interpret, and so on - and their consequences.

The main thing is to recognize that this activity is what one is doing, even though it appears that the suffering is caused by circumstances.

An exercise:

What are you not suffering right now?

Create a contrast between your current experience and one in which a new form of suffering is ocurring.

What does that contrast reveal?

Edited 21 hours ago by UnbornTao

[Aaron p]

Ok cool, I've been studying this. The reason Buddhists call loads of things "delusions" is because it is all connected to the primary delusion that you actually exist. Think of it like this, on your death bed, would you still feel the same about whatever is causing trouble. Whether it's family issues, taxes, bullies at school, life situations. If your on your death bed, things lose a certain importance and thus cause less suffering. The same could be said of positive things, if someone hands you 100k in cash, while your dying you'll not be filled with joy if you know your truly dying. At most you'll just focus on the person's kindness but the cash itself has about the same amount of value as a lump of soil. I don't know if it would be accurate to say that suffering is an illusion, it's still quite real...but it is build on illusions, primarily the illusion that you will live forever.

Taking it further, you never actually existed and all pain you feel is not something that is actually yours, it's disconnected from you because there is no you. The ego will react violently and painfully to pain, but if you pay close attention you will realise that that was never you. You remain untouched by pain.

Certain calibres of pain and fear actually cause this recognition...which is why you have phrases like "I was so scared I was beside myself." Or "I nearly jumped out of my skin."

It's not you who's suffering

The only caveat id add here is that you do still need to allow the ego to deal with certain pains if, for example, it's too much and it can't function normally. In these situations you do need to take action, sometimes powerfully. And be gentle with the lower self and avoid mentally blocking yourself from the pain. It will take intuition and skill to differentiate between what I'm describing and normal denial/repression. Ater and even before enlightenment occurs, you will need to connect with the ego to stay healthy, just keep in the back of your mind that the ego you allow yourself to continue to fully connect with, is not you 

Edited yesterday at 10:57 AM by Aaron p

[Jehovah increases]

Suffering is not a prerequisite of God, but if you believe that is your life, then go for it. You create your own Suffering humans. What is the difference between imaginary and so-called real? You have to work that one out for yourself. And you're right, just because you awaken does not mean you will not suffer. Consciousness is always there and always will be.

Edited 20 hours ago by Jehovah increases

[Princess Arabia]

You won't like my answer but here goes.

Suffering isn't imaginary, the sufferer is. Suffering is just suffering just as everything else is it's own complete 'thing'. The person senses itself to be separate and now everything is in relation to it and it claims and owns everything. My suffering, my anger, my happiness; when, in fact, it's just suffering, anger and happiness arising energetically. It constructs stories around the suffering it feels and believes it to be them suffering when it's just energetic tension in the body. There's no one there, but there's a felt sense of that being the case, so therefore, the suffering isn't imaginary, the person is because the person isn't really there. It's a visceral felt sense and not some thought or idea. 

 

[Aaron p]

I think I'll revise my statement about connecting with the ego after enlightenment. I think this probably still stands if you have what most people consider "enlightenment" but enlightenment proper, no ego left to connect to. I'd assume (I'm not enlightened)

[UnbornTao]

You don't need to be enlightened to stop doing your suffering.