TruthFreedom

How is suffering imaginary?

43 posts in this topic

Let us try to point to suffering? 

I can find pain in my body - my fucken elbow is angry at me after it made contact (quite ungracefully!) with the doorframe. I can point to the pain sensation.

But if you try to point to suffering .... 


Deal with the issue now, on your terms, in your control. Or the issue will deal with you, in ways you won't appreciate, and cannot control.

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8 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Let us try to point to suffering? 

I can find pain in my body - my fucken elbow is angry at me after it made contact (quite ungracefully!) with the doorframe. I can point to the pain sensation.

But if you try to point to suffering .... 

What good is that beyond just being a word game?  I'm hungry right now and I can point to the place of bad feeling in my stomach. Call it suffering or pain or cheesecake doesn't matter .I have to eat something. 


 "When you get very serious about truth you accept your life situation exactly as it is. So much so that you aren't childishly sitting around wishing it were otherwise.If you were confined to a wheelchair you would just accept it as how reality is. Just as you now just accept that you are not a bird who can fly."

-Leo Gura. 

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22 minutes ago, Someone here said:

What good is that beyond just being a word game?  I'm hungry right now and I can point to the place of bad feeling in my stomach. Call it suffering or pain or cheesecake doesn't matter .I have to eat something. 

It points to the fact it is in the mind - and could, therefore, be illusory. It is prompting investigation. 

So combative aren't we?

All this shit is a word game. It is all just pointers. Nothing said - not even a word, is what it is. Light can mean so much without context - light weight, turn on the light, light sleeper, light shade. All words are just games and pointers, so what is your point? Hmmmm? :P

Edited by Natasha Tori Maru

Deal with the issue now, on your terms, in your control. Or the issue will deal with you, in ways you won't appreciate, and cannot control.

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8 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

It points to the fact it is in the mind - and could, therefore, be illusory.

So suffering can't be pointed to because it is in "the mind "? How about pointing to "the mind " 😂?  Obviously it's not the head or otherwise suffering can indeed be located in the body which makes your point false .

8 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

so what is your point?

What I just told you twice .:)


 "When you get very serious about truth you accept your life situation exactly as it is. So much so that you aren't childishly sitting around wishing it were otherwise.If you were confined to a wheelchair you would just accept it as how reality is. Just as you now just accept that you are not a bird who can fly."

-Leo Gura. 

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All suffering ties to self survival, without a self to maintain or protect, there is no suffering. 

 

Check out "Ending Unnecesary Suffering" by Peter Ralston- gave me a whole new grasp on what suffering actually is and that you are doing it , it's not happening to you


Pursue Reality 

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Just now, Someone here said:

So suffering can't be pointed to because it is in "the mind "? How about pointing to "the mind " 😂?  Obviously it's not the head or otherwise suffering can indeed be located in the body which makes your point false .

What I just told you twice .:)

Now you are back on track - as you are meant to ask these questions - so that IS the point!

My point was that suffering isn't physical. Do you think it is physical?

If it is not - what is it? 


Deal with the issue now, on your terms, in your control. Or the issue will deal with you, in ways you won't appreciate, and cannot control.

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5 minutes ago, BlessedLion said:

All suffering ties to self survival, without a self to maintain or protect, there is no suffering. 

 

Check out "Ending Unnecesary Suffering" by Peter Ralston- gave me a whole new grasp on what suffering actually is and that you are doing it , it's not happening to you

Exactly. That book explains it. We do it. 

The issue is people suffer huge ego backlash at the thought they might be responsible for it.

And don't get me wrong, suffering occurs because of survival - but there is A LOT of suffering generated as a result of the social domain that can be deleted.


Deal with the issue now, on your terms, in your control. Or the issue will deal with you, in ways you won't appreciate, and cannot control.

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3 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Now you are back on track - as you are meant to ask these questions - so that IS the point!

My point was that suffering isn't physical. Do you think it is physical?

If it is not - what is it? 

Suffering Is physical and its synonymous with pain. You step your toe on the bed and it hurts then that's physical Suffering. I flirt with the wrong girl and she kicks me in the balls then that's physical Suffering again ;)


 "When you get very serious about truth you accept your life situation exactly as it is. So much so that you aren't childishly sitting around wishing it were otherwise.If you were confined to a wheelchair you would just accept it as how reality is. Just as you now just accept that you are not a bird who can fly."

-Leo Gura. 

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Pain is physical for sure.

Suffering CAN be physical - as in it can be described as the broader experience that encapsulates pain - but you can have suffering without pain. So I would posit these are not synonymous. 

So are you sure suffering is totally physical?

If I suffer from sadness - what is going on there? Is sadness physical in its origin?

 


Deal with the issue now, on your terms, in your control. Or the issue will deal with you, in ways you won't appreciate, and cannot control.

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@Natasha Tori Maru Yes suffering is totally physical . Sadness is how you feel .it's an emotion that you feel . Caused by chemicals going out of wack in your so called brain.


 "When you get very serious about truth you accept your life situation exactly as it is. So much so that you aren't childishly sitting around wishing it were otherwise.If you were confined to a wheelchair you would just accept it as how reality is. Just as you now just accept that you are not a bird who can fly."

-Leo Gura. 

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@Someone here

Well you are doomed to suffer then, and in all the unnecessary ways we human beings cause.

I recommend 'Ending Unnecessary Suffering' by Peter Ralston.

Gluck


Deal with the issue now, on your terms, in your control. Or the issue will deal with you, in ways you won't appreciate, and cannot control.

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What turns a physical sensation of pain into something suffered? @Someone here

Edited by UnbornTao

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On 9/19/2025 at 9:16 AM, TruthFreedom said:

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.

If everything is Mind then pain is also mind.


 

Wisdom.  Truth.  Love.

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On 9/21/2025 at 11:38 PM, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I recommend 'Ending Unnecessary Suffering'

the-classic-patrick-wood-board-screensho

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A Direct Experience With Suffering and Healing

 

Several years ago, my house caught fire and both of my arms up to the elbows were severely burned. The doctors told me it was second-degree burns: the hair follicles were completely destroyed, the skin looked melted and flattened, almost as if it had been scorched beyond recovery.The medical advice I received was to constantly massage and move my hands—at least ten times a day—so that scar tissue wouldn’t freeze my fingers in place. When I returned home, I went far beyond what they prescribed. I massaged and moved my hands obsessively, sometimes dozens of times a day, shaping and reshaping them into form. Slowly, the hands began to regenerate. Not only did they heal functionally, but even the details—the hair follicles, the wrinkles, the texture returned almost as if nothing had ever happened. Today, no one who looks at my hands would guess they were once burned so severely.

What struck me most, however, was not the physical recovery but the experience of suffering itself. My husband, sitting beside me, seemed to feel the pain as if it were his own. Yet for me, the pain was strangely absent. I did not suffer the way one might expect. At that time, I didn’t yet recognize myself as God, nor had I fully realized the nature of consciousness. I had left Islam behind and no longer identified with Allah, but I hadn’t yet discovered the truth of what I am. And still, without knowing it, I directly experienced that suffering is not ultimately real. The fire, the burns, the medical prognosis—all of it was real in a relative sense. But the “suffering” was nowhere to be found except in the mind. What I discovered is that the mind fabricates suffering, and when one ceases to buy into it, even the most extreme circumstances can unfold without pain in the way we normally imagine.

 

This experience left me with a radical understanding: suffering is optional. Pain may arise, but the identification with suffering is created entirely in thought. Reality itself does not suffer.

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On 22/09/2025 at 8:21 PM, UnbornTao said:

What turns a physical sensation of pain into something suffered? @Someone here

I understand what ralston means even though I haven't read the book. He says your life can be full of stress and proplems but you can dissociate and realize you don't suffer emotionally .and I agree you can transcend emotional suffering to a great degree . But physical? Impossible.  If you are hungry you are suffering. And you need to eat or you will die from hunger and rot in hell .


 "When you get very serious about truth you accept your life situation exactly as it is. So much so that you aren't childishly sitting around wishing it were otherwise.If you were confined to a wheelchair you would just accept it as how reality is. Just as you now just accept that you are not a bird who can fly."

-Leo Gura. 

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1 hour ago, Someone here said:

 If you are hungry you are suffering. And you need to eat or you will die from hunger and rot in hell .

The book enquires deeply into things like this.

The post above by @Freshta is also a lovely anecdote illustrating it. @Sugarcoat linked a BRILLIANT youtube clip a while ago regarding pain and suffering from someone who suffers cluster headaches (one of the worst types of physical pain).

Consider this example found experientially:

The force of a large piece of concrete formwork pushes down onto some earth. The pushing force of the concrete down can represent pain. Physical, unavoidable pain. You want to stop this so you try to push the concrete off the soft earth. But as you push - you add a terrible shearing force laterally across the ground between the earth and concrete.

Now you have 2 sources of pain. The existing pain pushing down - and the lateral force you are exerting. Heat and friction are added to the downward crushing.

This lateral force is you resisting the pain, fighting the pain. This is the suffering component. You are the source of this force, which you exert with good intention - you think this force (suffering) will assist with the pain. But all it does is drain your energy. It actually makes the physical force of the concrete baring down harder to endure, because you are now wasting energy trying to push it aside. 

This is an example of how suffering and pain can be separate. And it is useful to interocept and self enquire to understand fully what mechanisms are at play internally, which ones we contribute to, and which are part of survival. I argue that you have not made this distinction - yet.

I understand you will just repeat your assertion and resist what others are trying to touch on in this thread. And within that resistance, you are actually creating suffering (much like pushing the concrete aside) - you are suffering us all telling you that there is some suffering that is imaginary and avoidable. 

Ironic, isn't it?

You won't get anywhere trying to argue on a forum if you won't even read that Ralston book.... 

Edited by Natasha Tori Maru

Deal with the issue now, on your terms, in your control. Or the issue will deal with you, in ways you won't appreciate, and cannot control.

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You are describing exactly what I said about suffering physically is unavoidable but you don't need to suffer mentally by thinking and concocting stories about your existence which I already said I understand and agree with . 


 "When you get very serious about truth you accept your life situation exactly as it is. So much so that you aren't childishly sitting around wishing it were otherwise.If you were confined to a wheelchair you would just accept it as how reality is. Just as you now just accept that you are not a bird who can fly."

-Leo Gura. 

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17 minutes ago, Someone here said:

You are describing exactly what I said about suffering physically is unavoidable but you don't need to suffer mentally by thinking and concocting stories about your existence which I already said I understand and agree with . 

Ah right okay - I think your usage of the words has twisted the meaning for me.

'Suffering physically' 

There is pain, and there is suffering. 

I sense that you want a cure for pain, suffering, or both. But it is just baked into reality. All we can alter are our perceptions of pain and suffering.


Deal with the issue now, on your terms, in your control. Or the issue will deal with you, in ways you won't appreciate, and cannot control.

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11 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I sense that you want a cure for pain, suffering, or both. But it is just baked into reality. All we can alter are our perceptions of pain and suffering.

Thank you for saying this . That's basically my point .


 "When you get very serious about truth you accept your life situation exactly as it is. So much so that you aren't childishly sitting around wishing it were otherwise.If you were confined to a wheelchair you would just accept it as how reality is. Just as you now just accept that you are not a bird who can fly."

-Leo Gura. 

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