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Mindfulness meditation taught me something that Haruki Murakami describes well about running: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

nickthemagicman 8y ago
Just curious what the difference is? Suffering is your reaction to the pain? Like if you're stoic you acknowledge the pain but continue on with out suffering?
- kalid 8y ago
  Here’s the best analogy I’ve heard. Imagine you wake up and your back is sore. Getting out of bed is a struggle, everything aches and you must move slowly. Without other knowledge, you may get worried, anxious, feel distressed. If you remember you had a workout yesterday, you may actually enjoy the feeling. It reminds you of the effort you put in, the future progress you’ll make as muscles are repaired. The physical sensation is exactly the same.
  - mcculley 8y ago
    I like that example, but it breaks down. I have experienced plenty of pain in the muscles of my back in the form of both delayed onset muscle soreness that follows a good workout and the spasms of pain associated with a torn muscle. The former is pleasant. The latter is not.
    - kalid 8y ago
      Is it necessary for the realization you've torn a muscle to be unpleasant? (It's that realization you're reacting to, not the pain.) Ultimately, we're making a prediction: my life is guaranteed to be worse off because my muscle was recently torn. Is this true? https://sivers.org/horses https://sivers.org/horses
      - mcculley 8y ago
        I’m saying they are distinctly different kinds of pain.
        erikpukinskis 8y ago
        You’re saying it’s a different set of pain receptors firing, which are more uncomfortable? The fact that it feels different to you could just be that it’s a different context. Different “metadata” so to speak, with the same pain. Seems like GP thinks the metadata is making it worse, and you think the data is different. How would you tell the sifference?
        mcculley 8y ago
        I have no idea how pain receptors actually work or if there were different pain receptors firing. All I know is that I have experienced muscle soreness after workouts and I know I can ignore it. The first time I tore a muscle in my back and was carried to the hospital for a diagnosis, I experienced a new level of pain. (That was before my first kidney stone, which set the bar for me.)
- cammil 8y ago
  Suffering is a form of indulgence. The pain can exist and you can be fully aware of it, but if you don't indulge in it there will be no suffering. It just is. One of the components of this is desire for an alternative. This combined with reobservation of the pain leads to a cycle (indulgence) of the mind - the essence of suffering.
  - projektir 8y ago
    How does this make any sense in the concept of animals who are suffering because they're hurt, hungry, etc. What are they indulging in?
    - JeffreyKaine 8y ago
      They might not have the ability to ignore things quite as well as a human can, but the same concept applies. Many dogs will ignore their own pain to help another in need. Not indulging in pain takes a discipline of mind that most animals are incapable of in most situations.
      - projektir 8y ago
        The concept of indulgence implies that indulging agencies are at fault for their suffering, and indulging is a free decision. Which is why that term was used, and why I object to its use. How does it make sense to use this term for an animal? Me deciding to drink alcohol would be indulging. I know the consequences but I do it anyway. In this sense, the side effects of drinking alcohol would then be caused by me. But if I wake up one day with a huge cluster headache, why am I considered indulging in it? It makes no sense. I didn't ask for the headache, it showed up on its own. Rather, I may try to resist the headache, but I'm certainly not "yielding to a pleasurable experience", more like I am being attacked and I may attempt a skill check, or I am drowning in an ocean and trying to swim; for neither of these is the term "indulge" appropriate. And that's the core difference. The original poster used terms like "indulge" and "desire for alternative" to imply that suffering is generated, or manufactured, by humans, that it's a fake thing that doesn't have to exist. My example of animals clearly shows that this is not the case, as most animals do not have enough mental faculties to generate such things in the first place, yet we do not kid ourselves that animals do not suffer. Suffering is primary. Suffering comes first. "We let suffering happen to us" makes about as much sense as saying a victim is letting themselves get beaten by someone bigger. It's technically true, but not in any kind of useful sense, and the history of those kinds of statements is horrible. > Many dogs will ignore their own pain to help another in need. Examples like this are not useful here, because they are not situations of high control. The dog is not ignoring the pain, the dog is, rather, feeling something else that took priority. A human can similarly ignore lots of pain if they are high on adrenaline, but it is not because the human is controlling the situation and actively not "indulging" in pain, but that their body is not interested in supplying pain right the moment. But when the body goes back to being interested in supplying pain, it will come.
- ollerac 8y ago
  Think of it this way: Pain: My head hurts. This sucks. Suffering: My head hurts. It's not going away. Maybe this means something is wrong with me. Maybe it means I have some kind of disease or disorder. What if there's something wrong with my brain, like a brain tumor or a blood clot? What if I suddenly die next week? etc. etc.
  - locopati 8y ago
    Even "This sucks" is adding suffering. Pain: My head hurts. <curiosity and intimacy with the experience>
  - smileysteve 8y ago
    And even, Pain: My head hurts, but that's not going to stop me from having an awesome day. Suffering: I have a headache, this sucks, let me avoid things that might be fun even with a headache. Perhaps a better example is the stoicism, Steve Prefontaine famously won an Olympic qualifier with the stitches on his toe ripping; "Yes, my toe hurts, but I want to win, I can fix my toe after I finish."
    - erikpukinskis 8y ago
      And then he died at age 24 driving with a BAC of 0.16.
- wilburTheDog 8y ago
  I think the suffering is the result of your desire for things to be different than what they are. It's natural to feel like you want a headache to go away, but it seems to me that the more I accept that this is just the way it is right now, the more I embrace the pain and accept it as a part of me, the less power it has over me. And conversely the more I try to push it away like it's some kind of monster that's torturing me the more it becomes one. I have actually had that experience while meditating with a headache. Fully embracing and identifying with the pain makes it hurt less. It's a weird paradox because you can't start by thinking "I want this pain to go away so I'm going to embrace it". That doesn't work. You have to start with the attitude of "I'm going to be fully present for this moment, whatever it is". That is the path that leads out of suffering.
  - projektir 8y ago
    Suffering is not a desire that humans invent. It's hard-coded into every evolved creature so that the creature then goes on to do things to avoid said suffering. The source of these things that the creature is wanting is distinctly non-human. There was no council of people who have decided that moving animals need to consume energy in the form of food, and that they would feel pain if they do not consume enough of this energy in time. Yet here it is, and every creature is enslaved by it. Adult, well-read humans blessed with mental faculties are at times able to cheat the mental pathway and come up with ways to not have it show up at the forefront, but there's nothing self-inflicted about suffering, and assigning quasi-religious themes to this process is not doing us any favors.
    - adrianmonk 8y ago
      > It's hard-coded into every evolved creature so that the creature then goes on to do things to avoid said suffering. I like the theory that many emotions, especially negative ones, exist to spur us to some type of action. Anger means we need a way to resolve a conflict. Fear means we need to take steps to protect ourselves. Regret means we need some introspection to discover how we should do things differently in the future. Revulsion means we need to avoid something. (This applies in less abstract, more visceral ways too. Hunger means we need to eat. Physical pain means we are reaching our physical limits.) Anyway, a lot of suffering comes about because we don't take any action. When the situation continues to exist, the negative emotion continues to exist. This isn't to say we should just all act rashly to get rid of our negative feelings. Obviously the right action is important. But sometimes just getting started is enough to help feel better. And if you've already done what you could or should have, sometimes it helps to realize that or remind yourself of it.
- lalos 8y ago
  Suffering is a conscious decision, pain is triggered by an outside stimuli. Just like you can feel mad without punching a wall. Punching a wall would be an extreme example of somebody with zero self-control that reacts rather than act. It's normal to have pain or feel mad, it's not 'mindful' to react with the first impulse you get.
  - projektir 8y ago
    > Suffering is a conscious decision Do you think your cat won't suffer is you stop feeding it? Do you think it's making a conscious decision to suffer if it's hungry?
    - JeffreyKaine 8y ago
      it might be more accurate to describe suffering as an optional subconscious process. You suffer by default, but you can choose to not suffer with the right amount of mindfulness. As for the cat, again, the cat might not have the mental fortitude to set aside the suffering.
    - lalos 8y ago
      Interesting argument, with a broken premise. There's still debate on what level of consciousness animals have [0]. Is a cat conscious enough to predict that tomorrow it will have less food and save some for tomorrow to avoid feeling that hunger? Does a human have that degree of consciousness to do exactly that? Can a human differentiate itself from an animal by deciding to act instead of reacting like I proposed? Isn't that the one of the key differences between humans and animals? You know that animals are known to eat their own young [1]? Do you think its a conscious decision? Or they are just on auto-mode like a person that is less mindful is? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness [1] https://www.livescience.com/2053-animals-eat-offspring.html https://www.livescience.com/2053-animals-eat-offspring.html
      - projektir 8y ago
        My premise is that an animal in my care, if left hungry, will suffer, just like I would suffer. The cat's degree of consciousness, or whether or not it belongs to a species that eats its young, is not relevant to that premise. If you think that is a broken premise, I don't know what to tell you, but you might perhaps really enjoy reading Hume.
- CNJ7654 8y ago
  I like to think of it as follows: Pain is the throbbing headache, where suffering is wishing it would go away
HiroshiSan 8y ago
Is that true if your being tortured by someone other than yourself? I've seen the picture of the monk who set himself on fire while meditating in protest. I wonder if suffering is only optional if you inflict it on yourself.
- cammil 8y ago
  According to many accounts, suffering is indeed optional, and with some training within your power to control.
- philwelch 8y ago
  People do tend to have an easier time enduring things they inflict on themselves than things inflicted on them by others, but perhaps you can trick this mechanism by accepting what is inflicted onto you by others.
  - lez 8y ago
    Pain is feeding from fear, which can explain these: * you feel less pain if you cause it for yourself (you've already conquered fear) * mindfulness eases pain because of more knowledge / seeing, less fear
- mcculley 8y ago
  I can only speak to my experience. Mindfulness meditation gave me more capability to decouple pain from suffering, regardless of how the pain is inflicted. Your mileage may vary.
- projektir 8y ago
  At the very least, you could damage someone's brain faculties to the point that they can no longer philosophize their way out of suffering. And that is likely unnecessary, some drugs should suffice. "Suffering is optional" is a concept that dies immediately if you apply even a tiny amount of creativity to the question. It also fails if applied to animals. It's really only available to people in a specific range of situations, and often it's stated not because it's actually true, but because it makes people feel powerful in situations where they're rather powerless. Which is mostly the point of stoicism anyway, as it is a philosophy developed during a time when people felt that they couldn't change anything about the world. Of course, this means it's a poor philosophy to follow if your interest is in things improving, and not in just you personally not caring about them, something that many people already accomplish all too well...
dang 8y ago
That's a well-known Buddhist proverb but I don't know what the textual source is, or if there is one. This is the sort of thing one can email to the Quote Investigator. Maybe I will.
- sctb 8y ago
  Apparently the earliest known source is the book The Promise of a New Day (1983) by Karen Casey. https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/pain-is-inevitable-suffering-is-optional/ https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/pain-is-inevitable-suffering-is...
- burke 8y ago
  Not as pithy, but this is (probably) the original source: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.than.html https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.th... It's often phrased in terms of the "first arrow" (pain) and the "second arrow" (suffering in reaction to the pain): the second arrow is optional and self-inflicted.
- mcculley 8y ago
  In his book "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running", Murakami does not claim it as his own. I do think it captures both running and meditation well.
philwelch 8y ago
That's not a terrible one-line summary of stoicism.

nickthemagicman 8y ago

Just curious what the difference is? Suffering is your reaction to the pain? Like if you're stoic you acknowledge the pain but continue on with out suffering?

kalid 8y ago
Here’s the best analogy I’ve heard. Imagine you wake up and your back is sore. Getting out of bed is a struggle, everything aches and you must move slowly. Without other knowledge, you may get worried, anxious, feel distressed. If you remember you had a workout yesterday, you may actually enjoy the feeling. It reminds you of the effort you put in, the future progress you’ll make as muscles are repaired. The physical sensation is exactly the same.
- mcculley 8y ago
  I like that example, but it breaks down. I have experienced plenty of pain in the muscles of my back in the form of both delayed onset muscle soreness that follows a good workout and the spasms of pain associated with a torn muscle. The former is pleasant. The latter is not.
  - kalid 8y ago
    Is it necessary for the realization you've torn a muscle to be unpleasant? (It's that realization you're reacting to, not the pain.) Ultimately, we're making a prediction: my life is guaranteed to be worse off because my muscle was recently torn. Is this true? https://sivers.org/horses https://sivers.org/horses
    - mcculley 8y ago
      I’m saying they are distinctly different kinds of pain.
      - erikpukinskis 8y ago
        You’re saying it’s a different set of pain receptors firing, which are more uncomfortable? The fact that it feels different to you could just be that it’s a different context. Different “metadata” so to speak, with the same pain. Seems like GP thinks the metadata is making it worse, and you think the data is different. How would you tell the sifference?
        mcculley 8y ago
        I have no idea how pain receptors actually work or if there were different pain receptors firing. All I know is that I have experienced muscle soreness after workouts and I know I can ignore it. The first time I tore a muscle in my back and was carried to the hospital for a diagnosis, I experienced a new level of pain. (That was before my first kidney stone, which set the bar for me.)
cammil 8y ago
Suffering is a form of indulgence. The pain can exist and you can be fully aware of it, but if you don't indulge in it there will be no suffering. It just is. One of the components of this is desire for an alternative. This combined with reobservation of the pain leads to a cycle (indulgence) of the mind - the essence of suffering.
- projektir 8y ago
  How does this make any sense in the concept of animals who are suffering because they're hurt, hungry, etc. What are they indulging in?
  - JeffreyKaine 8y ago
    They might not have the ability to ignore things quite as well as a human can, but the same concept applies. Many dogs will ignore their own pain to help another in need. Not indulging in pain takes a discipline of mind that most animals are incapable of in most situations.
    - projektir 8y ago
      The concept of indulgence implies that indulging agencies are at fault for their suffering, and indulging is a free decision. Which is why that term was used, and why I object to its use. How does it make sense to use this term for an animal? Me deciding to drink alcohol would be indulging. I know the consequences but I do it anyway. In this sense, the side effects of drinking alcohol would then be caused by me. But if I wake up one day with a huge cluster headache, why am I considered indulging in it? It makes no sense. I didn't ask for the headache, it showed up on its own. Rather, I may try to resist the headache, but I'm certainly not "yielding to a pleasurable experience", more like I am being attacked and I may attempt a skill check, or I am drowning in an ocean and trying to swim; for neither of these is the term "indulge" appropriate. And that's the core difference. The original poster used terms like "indulge" and "desire for alternative" to imply that suffering is generated, or manufactured, by humans, that it's a fake thing that doesn't have to exist. My example of animals clearly shows that this is not the case, as most animals do not have enough mental faculties to generate such things in the first place, yet we do not kid ourselves that animals do not suffer. Suffering is primary. Suffering comes first. "We let suffering happen to us" makes about as much sense as saying a victim is letting themselves get beaten by someone bigger. It's technically true, but not in any kind of useful sense, and the history of those kinds of statements is horrible. > Many dogs will ignore their own pain to help another in need. Examples like this are not useful here, because they are not situations of high control. The dog is not ignoring the pain, the dog is, rather, feeling something else that took priority. A human can similarly ignore lots of pain if they are high on adrenaline, but it is not because the human is controlling the situation and actively not "indulging" in pain, but that their body is not interested in supplying pain right the moment. But when the body goes back to being interested in supplying pain, it will come.
ollerac 8y ago
Think of it this way: Pain: My head hurts. This sucks. Suffering: My head hurts. It's not going away. Maybe this means something is wrong with me. Maybe it means I have some kind of disease or disorder. What if there's something wrong with my brain, like a brain tumor or a blood clot? What if I suddenly die next week? etc. etc.
- locopati 8y ago
  Even "This sucks" is adding suffering. Pain: My head hurts. <curiosity and intimacy with the experience>
- smileysteve 8y ago
  And even, Pain: My head hurts, but that's not going to stop me from having an awesome day. Suffering: I have a headache, this sucks, let me avoid things that might be fun even with a headache. Perhaps a better example is the stoicism, Steve Prefontaine famously won an Olympic qualifier with the stitches on his toe ripping; "Yes, my toe hurts, but I want to win, I can fix my toe after I finish."
  - erikpukinskis 8y ago
    And then he died at age 24 driving with a BAC of 0.16.
wilburTheDog 8y ago
I think the suffering is the result of your desire for things to be different than what they are. It's natural to feel like you want a headache to go away, but it seems to me that the more I accept that this is just the way it is right now, the more I embrace the pain and accept it as a part of me, the less power it has over me. And conversely the more I try to push it away like it's some kind of monster that's torturing me the more it becomes one. I have actually had that experience while meditating with a headache. Fully embracing and identifying with the pain makes it hurt less. It's a weird paradox because you can't start by thinking "I want this pain to go away so I'm going to embrace it". That doesn't work. You have to start with the attitude of "I'm going to be fully present for this moment, whatever it is". That is the path that leads out of suffering.
- projektir 8y ago
  Suffering is not a desire that humans invent. It's hard-coded into every evolved creature so that the creature then goes on to do things to avoid said suffering. The source of these things that the creature is wanting is distinctly non-human. There was no council of people who have decided that moving animals need to consume energy in the form of food, and that they would feel pain if they do not consume enough of this energy in time. Yet here it is, and every creature is enslaved by it. Adult, well-read humans blessed with mental faculties are at times able to cheat the mental pathway and come up with ways to not have it show up at the forefront, but there's nothing self-inflicted about suffering, and assigning quasi-religious themes to this process is not doing us any favors.
  - adrianmonk 8y ago
    > It's hard-coded into every evolved creature so that the creature then goes on to do things to avoid said suffering. I like the theory that many emotions, especially negative ones, exist to spur us to some type of action. Anger means we need a way to resolve a conflict. Fear means we need to take steps to protect ourselves. Regret means we need some introspection to discover how we should do things differently in the future. Revulsion means we need to avoid something. (This applies in less abstract, more visceral ways too. Hunger means we need to eat. Physical pain means we are reaching our physical limits.) Anyway, a lot of suffering comes about because we don't take any action. When the situation continues to exist, the negative emotion continues to exist. This isn't to say we should just all act rashly to get rid of our negative feelings. Obviously the right action is important. But sometimes just getting started is enough to help feel better. And if you've already done what you could or should have, sometimes it helps to realize that or remind yourself of it.
lalos 8y ago
Suffering is a conscious decision, pain is triggered by an outside stimuli. Just like you can feel mad without punching a wall. Punching a wall would be an extreme example of somebody with zero self-control that reacts rather than act. It's normal to have pain or feel mad, it's not 'mindful' to react with the first impulse you get.
- projektir 8y ago
  > Suffering is a conscious decision Do you think your cat won't suffer is you stop feeding it? Do you think it's making a conscious decision to suffer if it's hungry?
  - JeffreyKaine 8y ago
    it might be more accurate to describe suffering as an optional subconscious process. You suffer by default, but you can choose to not suffer with the right amount of mindfulness. As for the cat, again, the cat might not have the mental fortitude to set aside the suffering.
  - lalos 8y ago
    Interesting argument, with a broken premise. There's still debate on what level of consciousness animals have [0]. Is a cat conscious enough to predict that tomorrow it will have less food and save some for tomorrow to avoid feeling that hunger? Does a human have that degree of consciousness to do exactly that? Can a human differentiate itself from an animal by deciding to act instead of reacting like I proposed? Isn't that the one of the key differences between humans and animals? You know that animals are known to eat their own young [1]? Do you think its a conscious decision? Or they are just on auto-mode like a person that is less mindful is? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness [1] https://www.livescience.com/2053-animals-eat-offspring.html https://www.livescience.com/2053-animals-eat-offspring.html
    - projektir 8y ago
      My premise is that an animal in my care, if left hungry, will suffer, just like I would suffer. The cat's degree of consciousness, or whether or not it belongs to a species that eats its young, is not relevant to that premise. If you think that is a broken premise, I don't know what to tell you, but you might perhaps really enjoy reading Hume.
CNJ7654 8y ago
I like to think of it as follows: Pain is the throbbing headache, where suffering is wishing it would go away

HiroshiSan 8y ago

Is that true if your being tortured by someone other than yourself? I've seen the picture of the monk who set himself on fire while meditating in protest. I wonder if suffering is only optional if you inflict it on yourself.

cammil 8y ago
According to many accounts, suffering is indeed optional, and with some training within your power to control.
philwelch 8y ago
People do tend to have an easier time enduring things they inflict on themselves than things inflicted on them by others, but perhaps you can trick this mechanism by accepting what is inflicted onto you by others.
- lez 8y ago
  Pain is feeding from fear, which can explain these: * you feel less pain if you cause it for yourself (you've already conquered fear) * mindfulness eases pain because of more knowledge / seeing, less fear
mcculley 8y ago
I can only speak to my experience. Mindfulness meditation gave me more capability to decouple pain from suffering, regardless of how the pain is inflicted. Your mileage may vary.
projektir 8y ago
At the very least, you could damage someone's brain faculties to the point that they can no longer philosophize their way out of suffering. And that is likely unnecessary, some drugs should suffice. "Suffering is optional" is a concept that dies immediately if you apply even a tiny amount of creativity to the question. It also fails if applied to animals. It's really only available to people in a specific range of situations, and often it's stated not because it's actually true, but because it makes people feel powerful in situations where they're rather powerless. Which is mostly the point of stoicism anyway, as it is a philosophy developed during a time when people felt that they couldn't change anything about the world. Of course, this means it's a poor philosophy to follow if your interest is in things improving, and not in just you personally not caring about them, something that many people already accomplish all too well...

dang 8y ago

That's a well-known Buddhist proverb but I don't know what the textual source is, or if there is one. This is the sort of thing one can email to the Quote Investigator. Maybe I will.

sctb 8y ago
Apparently the earliest known source is the book The Promise of a New Day (1983) by Karen Casey. https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/pain-is-inevitable-suffering-is-optional/ https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/pain-is-inevitable-suffering-is...
burke 8y ago
Not as pithy, but this is (probably) the original source: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.than.html https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.th... It's often phrased in terms of the "first arrow" (pain) and the "second arrow" (suffering in reaction to the pain): the second arrow is optional and self-inflicted.
mcculley 8y ago
In his book "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running", Murakami does not claim it as his own. I do think it captures both running and meditation well.

philwelch 8y ago

That's not a terrible one-line summary of stoicism.