Suffering: Definition, Examples, & Solutions

Suffering can be physical or mental, it is often described as ‘pain’, and it is the basic element that makes up negative emotions or experiences (Wikipedia, n.d.-a). 

All of us have experienced suffering. Although we may describe suffering as bigger or smaller based on external circumstances, it is actually our internal processes that make suffering seem bigger or smaller. In fact, some people may experience more suffering from a small challenge than others who do from a large challenge. That’s because suffering doesn’t actually come from an experience—it comes from within, from what some might call the ego. 

Although it seems like suffering comes from things outside of ourselves, ultimately suffering comes from our attachment to those things. Now, I think people often get confused about what attachment means in the context of suffering. Love is not the same thing as attachment. We can still love—in fact, we generally love more fully—when we let go of attachments. Attachment is about clinging, grasping, wanting, resisting, manipulating, or otherwise trying to make a situation be what we want it to be. And because we can never succeed in this effort—not for long anyway—we suffer.

Suffering & Attachment
To reduce suffering, many authors focus on letting go of attachments to physical things—like money, possessions, fancy clothes, and even people. This is often the first step and the easiest step to execute. But, there are many more attachments we need to let go of to reach full well-being. Depending on which life stage we’re in, it can be easier or harder to let go of additional attachments that cause suffering. Unfortunately, it generally requires reaching a particular life stage before we release particular attachments (Cook-Grueter, 2014).

When we are at different life stages, we perceive that suffering—and happiness—are coming from different aspects of experience. In other words, we are very attached to specific experiences at each life stage.

Here is an overview of how we might perceive happiness and suffering at each life stage (Cook-Grueter, 2014):

Red Stage

• Attachment: To self as the physical body.
• Beliefs: If I can just be bigger, stronger, or more clever than other people, I’ll be happy/safe. 
• Thoughts: When I feel bigger, stronger, or more clever in the ways that I desire, I am worthy. When I feel smaller, weaker, or less clever, I am not good enough. 
• Emotions: Positive emotions emerge from feeling safe; negative emotions emerge when feeling unsafe.

Orange Stage

• Attachment: To self as a member of the close group.
• Beliefs: If I can just get the approval of “my” people, I’ll be happy.
• Thoughts: When accepted by my close group in the ways that I desire, I am worthy. When rejected by my close group, I am not good enough. 
• Emotions: Positive emotions emerge from positive social experiences like social approval, inclusion, and acceptance by the group; negative emotions emerge when given negative feedback, or criticism, or when rejected from the group. 

Yellow Stage

• Attachment: To the agentic self or doer.
• Beliefs: If I can just develop the right skills or take the right actions, I’ll be happy.
• Thoughts: When I take actions that I value, I am worthy. When I fail to take actions that I value, I am not good enough.
• Emotions: Positive emotions emerge from building valued skills and self-efficacy; negative emotions emerge from social comparison—not being as good at skills or not knowing things that others know.

Green Stage

• Attachment: To the creator self or agent of change.
• Beliefs: If I can just experience the right outcomes, I’ll be happy. 
• Thoughts: When I achieve my goals or the emotions I desire, I am worthy. When I fail to achieve my goals or the emotions I desire, I am not good enough.
• Emotions: Positive emotions emerge from achievement and creating positive experiences; negative emotions emerge from failure or negative outcomes.

Teal Stage

• Attachment: To our perspectives (or the perspectives of our group).
• Beliefs: If I can just understand myself and others, and they can understand me, I’ll be happy. 
• Thoughts: When I understand certain perspectives, I am worthy. When I don’t understand certain perspectives, I am not good enough.
• Emotions: Positive emotions emerge from understanding perspectives (including our own); negative emotions emerge from not understanding perspectives or being misunderstood by others.

Blue Stage

• Attachment: To self as the generator of beliefs and executor of patterns.
• Beliefs: If I can undo my negative patterns (that were created through conditioning from peers, family, community, and society) or the negative patterns of society, I’ll be happy.
• Thoughts: When I undo patterns in the ways that I desire, I am worthy. When I feel trapped in a pattern, I am not good enough.
• Emotions: Positive emotions emerge from stopping a pattern from playing out; negative emotions emerge from getting stuck in a pattern (personal or societal).

Indigo Stage

• Attachment: To self as the ‘witnessing’ awareness.
• Beliefs: If I can just become aware of everything, I’ll be happy. 
• Thoughts: When I have greater awareness in the ways that I desire, I am worthy. When I have less awareness, I am not good enough.
• Emotions: Positive emotions emerge from subtle insights related to freedom, self-awareness, or the nature of reality; negative emotions emerge from subtle insights related to the non-self or other illusions. 

Violet Stage

• Attachment: To self as the essence or soul.
• Beliefs: I don’t need anything to be happy; happiness is my essence. 
• Thoughts/Emotions: Are as they are. I witness them come and go without confusing them for either identity or reality.

*Given the relatively low level of attachment, inner peace is achievable at the violet stage. It is difficult to evaluate attachments beyond this stage but initial evidence suggests that there are indeed more stages (e.g., O’Fallon, 2010).

As you can now see, we have different beliefs, thoughts, and emotions at the different life stages. Although we have all these different experiences at all stages, we only gain awareness of certain experiences as we move through the stages. As we move from one stage to another, we gain awareness of what was causing suffering in the previous stage. If we’re interested in boosting our well-being, we begin to work on that aspect of ourselves—letting go of attachments and expanding our self-awareness. 

Below is the causal pattern of what leads to suffering. As you can see, even though it seems like suffering is in the experience, it is actually caused by processes that are earlier in the chain of events. But, these processes, in and of themselves, don’t cause suffering. It is the attachment to them that causes suffering. 

Awareness > Belief > Thought > Emotion > Behavior > ‘Suffering’ Experience

So, at each life stage, we can become aware of a new aspect of experience that “appears” to cause suffering, and we begin to let go of it or accept it. Here is how this might look:
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• Red – awareness of body; extremely difficult to see attachment
• Orange – awareness of social interactions; ability to let go of total attachment to the physical body. 
• Yellow – awareness of behaviors or actions; ability to let go of total attachment to the peer group (e.g., we are more than our family, friends, religion, etc…). 
• Green – awareness of emotions or outcomes; ability to let go of total attachment to actions (e.g., we begin to let go of perfectionism, know-it-allism, competitiveness). 
• Teal – awareness of thoughts or perspectives; ability to let go of total attachment to outcomes (e.g., we begin to let go of achievement, attainment of possessions, having ‘the right’ emotions).
• Blue – awareness of beliefs; ability to let go of total attachment to our opinions, perceptions, ideas, etc… 
• Indigo – awareness of awareness; ability to let go of total attachment to our beliefs, societal conditioning, roles we play, and the self-concept. 
• Violet – awareness of oneness; ability to let go of total attachment to the separate self and its awareness (Goode, 2016).

When we begin to perceive our experiences in this way, it becomes clear that most (if not all) of our actions are driven or motivated by the desire to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. In other words, we are attached to just about everything. We want it to pay out a certain way, and if it doesn’t, we suffer.

So, when we begin to let go of our attachments, we can find ourselves unmotivated. All of the reasons that we did this or that were because we wanted to either create a desired experience or avoid an undesired experience. This lack of motivation can leave us feeling lost for a period of time in what some might call The Dark Night of The Soul. 

As we continue to witness our suffering, we may notice that our ‘suffering experiences’ fall into 3 buckets: Impermanence, the non-self, and wanting (e.g., craving, clinging, or desiring). All of these contribute to suffering (but they also overlap and are not really discrete experiences). According to Sayadaw (2016), our continual noticing or mindfulness of these things reveals their inherent suffering. Combined, these experiences may be referred to as Dukkha, which is roughly translated into English as suffering (Wikipedia n.d.-b).

Impermanence & Suffering
When we witness the impermanent nature of our reality—that everything arises in our awareness and then dissolves—we realize that this constant, ever-present loss is a fundamental aspect of suffering (Sayadaw, 2016). And because every single thing is arising and then dissolving, everything is suffering.

Non-Self & Suffering
Because we are attached to the idea that we are a separate, individual self, we suffer in loneliness. When we witness that the self—the self-concept, identity, or personality—is just a loosely held together collection of experiences (e.g., beliefs, thoughts, emotions, behaviors, social experiences, and bodily experiences) and that we have no control over any of these experiences, we begin to realize the emptiness in all experiences (Sayadaw, 2016). The realization that we are not actually a separate self—that we are nothing—also leads to suffering.

Craving or Avoidance & Suffering
When we witness the craving that arises in our awareness (our pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain), we can begin to notice the suffering inherent in the craving itself, irrespective of the object that is craved. When we want something to be anything other than it is, we suffer.

Individual Experiences of Suffering
When you begin to become aware of fundamental suffering, you will likely notice one or two of these aspects of suffering more prominently in your reality (Ingram, 2018). For example, I seem to notice avoidance and non-self the most—in my awareness, they hold the most suffering.

• Cook-Greuter, S. (2014). Ego development: A full-spectrum theory of vertical growth and meaning-making. mimeo, Wayland.
  
• Goode, G. (2016). After Awareness: The End of the Path. New Harbinger Publications.
  
• Ingram, Daniel. (2018). Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book – Revised and Expanded Edition. Aeon Books.
  
• O’Fallon, T. (2010). The evolution of the human soul: Developmental practices in spiritual guidance. Excerpt from Masters in Spiritual Direction.
  
• ​Sayadaw, M. (2016). Manual of insight. Simon and Schuster.
  
• Wikipedia. (n.d.-b). Dukkha. Retrieved 11/4/2024 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du%E1%B8%A5kha
  
• Wikipedia. (n.d.-a). Suffering. Retrieved 11/4/2024 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffering