Suffering
There are several types of suffering that we might experience:
| Internal: | Body, Emotions, Mind |
| External: | Negative experiences such as poverty, inadequate shelter, negative environmental circumstances (war, natural disasters, etc..), accidents, unpleasant social situations. |
| Spiritual or existential crisis: | The suffering brought about by ignorance concerning the answers to such questions as "Who am I?", "What is life all about?", and "Is there a soul or a God?" |
DEVELOPING COMPASSION FOR SUFFERING
Everything that lives will experience suffering within their lives so we need to develop compassion for suffering in others and ourselves. Compassion is a caring, understanding, and empathic attitude towards suffering, whether in ourselves or in others. Compassion is the correct attitude to develop towards suffering. It helps us care. It helps us develop the wish to love and help all beings to alleviate or remove suffering as much as is possible.
Selfish Egotism
Selfish egotism is the greatest obstacle to developing compassion. We can understand and remove this obstacle within ourselves and develop the skill to help others also overcome this nasty mental condition.
