Could the knowledge of suffering be part of the cause of suffering?

do animals suffer? yes, yet they do not know it to be suffering, they just experience it. The phrase, 'ignorance is bliss' refers to the suffering caused by knowledge of other's suffering, or about something that leads you to suffer. Ignorance doesn't help with current suffering; example: hunger. If you are hungry, it doesn't matter whether you know about the reasons behind it, you'll still hurt.

Physical pain exists w/out knowing why. Psychological suffering needs knowledge to power it.

I think that happens often. People who are way overweight or people who smoke a lot are two examples. We sometimes get used to things which happen a tiny bit at a time. Only when we decide to do something about it do we realize that we had been suffering from some debilitating illness.

Also, when we are aware of our suffering, this is an opportunity for us to try to get in balance. Once we start we can begin to feel better psychologically and the change of focus brings us back to good health.

If on the other hand we use that awareness to start going into self-pity, then the awareness can be said to have a negative effect. I know people who are not happy until they can have a drama to tell everyone about, so naturally they attract plenty. Then they can tell their friends about their latest operation, their latest therapy, and so on. To each their own!

Cheers!

Yes I do believe you have hit upon something, we certainly would not know what "not suffering" is with out the suffering. And so we revere the innocence of children and strive for a world with less suffering. If we should achieve a world with less suffering what would then be the point of suffering? Why would we need the knowledge? We would still need enough, hopefully not some so much severe as can be in our world today, but enough to keep us appreciative and compassionate. Thank you for the question.

Namaste

Suffering seems to be the ego noticing 'What Is', minus any equanimity and times grasping something else. Suffering is unnecessary. It is energy (qi) which has been appropriated by ego. Ego always thinks...thinks it knows what it is doing and is charged with making things "better" - or less dangerous in any case. When suffering is turned towards, directly faced with mindfulness, it may be revealed for it's purely energetic makeup, just like anything and absolutely everything else. It gets it juice from one's belief that things could be better, somehow, somewhere, sometime soon but just not here now. However true it may be that things could be better, things can only be OK if they are understood exactly as they are. Mindfulness and awareness are the key to the end of suffering, and to some extent to the experience of pain as well. This 'turning towards' might be thought of as a shortcut, but the shortcut to understanding how that might be true is to be really accomplished in mindfulness. Well, at least I have found it useful and utterly practical enough times to recognize the truth of the many sages teachings. Just dis-identify with it. The Buddha summed it up well enough in saying that everything is perfect as it is. He then went on for many years to teach how this may be realized and practiced. I sort of like where he started when he looked at the root cause of suffering here: “Through countless weary lives I have sought the builder of this house and could not find him.” Buddha (said upon awakening)

Let me make some observations, though I'm afraid I don't have an answer to your question.

My mother grew up in the 1930's on the Mohave Desert of California. She had 4 siblings. Her mother stayed home and her dad had several different "businesses". He operated a bicycle/motorcycle/auto repair shop, had a turkey farm, was an itinerant preacher. Most of her life they didn't have running water. By the 1950's she began to perceive how poor she had been as a child and how much deprivation she had "suffered", though at the time it didn't seem like suffering at all. Everyone she knew was in the same boat.

My cat was hit by a car and suffered a severe fracture to one of her hind legs. She limped home to us but crawled under the porch and tended to her wounds for 2 days before my dad found her. Was she aware that she had been "suffering", or was she merely responding to a stimulus?

At a certain level, the knowledge of suffering creates it. If nobody tells me I'm suffering from a lack of eduation it probably never occurs to me that my life is limited in any way. Then some well-meaning philanthropist comes along and brings to my attention the fact that I'm shut off from the rest of humanity and its "blessings" and I suddenly feel miserable.

For the non-human species, their lack of subjective awareness presumably prevents them from recognizing suffering. They merely experience a stimulus and respond according to their instinct.

Now, if I'm dying of starvation in Somalia, I don't need anyone to tell me I'm hungry, miserable, and pitiful. I know I'm suffering.

This is a complex concept, and a good question.

Yes, mere intellectual knowledge cause suffering. However, the Wisdom, a superior knowledge that is experiential and validated by personal application in life, will in fact end all suffering or at least things won't be perceived and experienced as suffering.

It's somewhat true. I think it can be applied to emotions more than anything physical.We know when we're suffering because we label it as suffering. When we're sad, we know it's suffering because we know that sadness is bad. If people we're not told that all these negative emotions are negative, I don't know if we would've figured out that they're negative.

Also, one persons suffering is defied/affected by the people around him/her. Ex. A child is abused by his parents, but none of his friends are abused, than he is suffering. If all children are abused in the community/city/country, than it's not that bad because everyone else gets abused.

That's an interesting question Rez. I know when I am suffering and I think I sense when others are also suffering. To me the pertinent thing is when the awareness of suffering rises - what do we/I do about it?

You are right that we do not know that we are suffering.

This is known as 'moha' or unawareness in Buddhism.

So, most of us just go with the flow.

Once we realise that we are suffering, we will find attachment to pleasure as a cause of suffering.

In summary, knowledge of suffering is not the cause of it, but the beginning of freedom frem suffering.

Yes, suffering is the anticipation, expectation or remembrance of pain. Without all our thoughts about pain there would just be the pain or absence of pain, no suffering. Suffering is also overcome through going beyond thought into pure presence.