In Buddhism, desire and ignorance lie at the root of suffering. By desire, Buddhists refer to craving pleasure, material goods, and immortality, all of which are wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering.
The five Kleshas are Avidya (ignorance), Asmita (egoism or I-am-ness), Raga (attachment), Dvesha (repulsion and aversion), and Abhinivesha (fear of death and the will to live).
Misuse of free will is the root cause of misery of living entity. By misuse of his minute free will, living entity engages in sense gratification. Everyone in this material world lives only for sense gratification and considers this sense gratification as so called happiness. But this ultimately results in misery.
But desire is only the most palpable cause; the ultimate cause of suffering is our ignorance, which stems from our clinging to the mistaken conceit of the “I.” We put ourselves above all others.
Our suffering comes from our denial of our divine nature, our lack of appreciation of our connection to all things, our resistance to impermanence and our addictions and attachments to things that only bring temporary relief.
Things come into being through a series of causes and conditions, and that is the same for our suffering. However, there are three main things that cause us emotional and psychological suffering, namely, the three poisons. They are clinging desire, anger and aversion and unawareness.
Everything we experience in life is from the perspective of the mind. Our mind has the power to make us happy or to make us suffer. When it's filled with chaotic, negative thoughts, we suffer. We have to understand that it's our mind working in tandem with the present moment that dictates reality.
At the heart of this system are the Four Noble Truths that are central to Buddhist philosophy: (1) Life is suffering, (2) attachment to desire causes suffering, (3) suffering ends with the attachment to desire, and (4) the Eightfold Path is the path to liberation from suffering.
The Buddha believed that most suffering is caused by a tendency to crave or desire things. A person might crave something nice to eat or desire to go on a nice holiday or earn lots of money. Buddhism teaches that through being dissatisfied with their lives and craving things, people suffer.
Hindus believe in karma or 'intentional action'. Most Hindus believe that much of the suffering they endure is a result of their own actions. Previous motives and actions need to be made up for. Many would add that this is not about 'deserving' suffering, but about taking the opportunity to learn from it.
Krishna's advice in the Bhagavad-gita is that we tolerate this temporary suffering. Just as your body is not permanent, so your diseases are also not permanent. You should tolerate the temporary suffering and solve the real problem—you must stop your repetition of birth and death.
After reflecting on the Seven Sorrows (the Prophecy of Simeon and Anna, the Flight into Egypt, the Loss of the Child Jesus, the Condemnation of Jesus, the Crucifixion, the Retrieval of Jesus' Body from the Cross, and the Burial of Jesus), I found them remarkably relevant to our world today.
Qualifiers, such as physical, mental, emotional, and psychological, are often used to refer to certain types of pain or suffering.
Cessation of suffering (Nirodha)
The Buddha taught that the way to extinguish desire, which causes suffering, is to liberate oneself from attachment. This is the third Noble Truth - the possibility of liberation. The Buddha was a living example that this is possible in a human lifetime.
The Third Noble Truth illuminates the End of Suffering (Nirodha Dukkha). It follows logically from the Second Noble Truth that if the cause of suffering is craving, then the way to eliminate suffering is to eliminate craving. Suffering can be overcome and supreme happiness can be attained.
Christianity also teaches that to love is to suffer — to suffer for and with others, exemplified in the crucified Christ who stretched out his arms and died for love. God's response to our suffering is to suffer with us on the cross and to resurrect that suffering into new life.
Suffering can make us more resilient, better able to endure hardships. Just as a muscle, in order to build up, must endure some pain, so our emotions must endure pain in order to strengthen.
Suffering fulfills a variety of functions in the life and personality of a human being; it can cause a personality degradation or can further a personality development. Therefore, we can speak of the ambivalent character of suffering.
The goal here is the end of suffering, and the path leading to it is the Noble Eightfold Path with its eight factors: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. The Buddha calls this path the middle way (majjhima patipada).
But eventually, God brings vengeance for His people's suffering. God pronounces judgment upon these nations for their sins – including for the suffering inflicted on His people. The pain of His children angers God and brings Him to action.
Suffering is a product of the fall, a consequence of human sin against God (Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:21). Suffering is in our lives because we are living in a broken world. Some suffering is due to our sinful and wrong choices, but some is due simply to the world being fallen.
The twelve links or stages are (1) Ignorance, (2) Actions, (3) Consciousness, (4) Name and Form, (5) the Six Entrances (the five sense organs and the mind), (6) Contact, (7) Sensation,(8) Desire, (9) Clinging, (10) Existence, (11) Birth, and (12) Old Age and Death.
The poet lists a number of things that cause suffering and pain, such as despondency, depression, unhealthy and wrong ways taken up by humans to acquire their desired goals, etc. The poet also feels that there is a real dearth of noble souls in this world.