If the world did not have the prominent idea that suffering is a major part of life, would you know suffering so well?
If the concept of suffering did not exist, would suffering be so far flung? If suffering had not been ordained in the mind of man, where would it exist? Can suffering exist on its own?
Suffering is a weight upon you. You are perhaps suffering at this moment or you are just finished with a streak of it or you are bracing yourself for the next bout.
You do not believe in the possibility of life on earth without suffering. You may believe that suffering takes a breather now and then, but you strongly believe in its might. It is inevitable, you say.
Death of the body is inevitable, and you tie that to suffering, and therefore you believe that suffering is inevitable. You consider yourself practical. How practical is it really to suffer? What does suffering change? Why would anyone choose it? Who said it had to be tied to life? You say you do not choose suffering. You say it is foisted upon you. Yet where would it exist apart from your thought? Suffering is something that has to be adopted. It is not what you were born for or with.
Suffering is a state of mind. Who is responsible for the state of your mind? Who has authority over it? I know you think well-being and suffering are conditions outside you, and that you are their pawn. It certainly seems so to you. Yet, if things seem one way to you, can they not seem another?
Suffering isn't an incident that happens. Suffering is where you store the incident.
You package events of life. You wrap them this way or that. You put them in the cooler or you put them in the oven or you put them on the table top as a centerpiece. You make certain events the centerpiece of your life. Who makes you do this? What benefit does suffering give you? If you feel pain, must you in addition suffer for it? Unladen yourself of suffering. You do not have to be tied to it.
I agree with you that there is too much suffering in the world. Where We disagree is that I say you don't have to have it, and you say you do.
When you are cutting an apple, and you cut your finger, you don't think you have to suffer. You do not bemoan your cut. You don't think much about it. You know very well that it will heal. You divide wounds into major and minor and allocate suffering accordingly. Perhaps you can allocate differently.
At the same time as you expect to suffer in life, you are amazed when anything you don't want befalls. You rant and rail about it. You stamp your foot. You protest. "How could God do this! And how could God do this to me?" your heart cries.
It is inevitable that you will be healed from whatever has signaled you to suffer. The very temporariness of life on earth in a body attests to that.
If, at present, you do not believe that you can remove suffering from your life, is it possible that you can accept that you can make its stay shorter? If you cannot abolish suffering at this time, can you perhaps depend on it less?
The fact that it is impossible for the Truth of you to suffer gives you small comfort, I know, but, as much as you are able, let go of suffering. Anchor love instead.