To Live is To Suffer

Although you can say that I'm a Buddhist, seriously I don't know much about the religion. Even when my mom goes to the temple and asks me to pray, I pray in plain english, not the religion codes that each respective religion has. I remembered everytime I pray, I also prayed that Buddha has a translator so that he can understand what the heck I'm praying about. Sometimes I felt he doesn't have one cause I felt my prayers are always never answered.


Now in my religion class, we're talking about Buddha. One thing that strike my mind is that to live is to suffer. It is understood that once we reach the end of our lives ie. DIE! our sufferings are then gone before going to hell and screening whether you should be back in earth or something. The reason of our suffering in this world is because of our desire and love for something impermanent like you love your dogs which might one day be met with a car accident or your parents whom like anybody else's parents would pass away and leave us behind.

I find this view rather pessimistic. Sure you will suffer in this world no doubt but you do not suffer all the time. Newton's third law of motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In this world, I always believe in the end our lives would balance out, no matter how much money you have, where you live etc etc. Coming back to suffering, if you think life is all about suffering and it sucks, it's not entirely true. Sure suffering sucks, everyone from time to time suffer from various kinds of shortcomings, but if you never suffer from your life how would you know the feeling of joy and happiness?

In order to feel the meaning of joy and happiness, once has to feel sorrow and despair. All this are part of life. There is some need of contrast in your life. One can't feel a feeling of sorrow or happiness if their life is just constant and routine, so once in a while suffering is good.