Why Do We Suffer?
Looking into how attachment fuels suffering and discover the liberating power of letting go through the timeless wisdom of the Four Noble Truths.
Issue #26:
Good day and welcome back to The Zen Journal. Today, we continue our journey through the Four Noble Truths, focusing on the second truth: the cause of suffering. If you have yet to read the post about the first Noble Truth, you may do so here.
What causes our deepest suffering?
We do not suffer because life is inherently bad.
It’s not because of what happens to us, but how tightly we cling to what we want, what we fear, and what we think we are.
Suffering arises from attachment (or tanha). A hunger, a craving, a desperate grasp for things that can never fully satisfy.
We suffer not only because of negative experiences, such as grief, anger, illness, but also from our holding on to the ‘positives’.
Striving for the perfect state of mind or chasing love, success and happiness itself can become a trap. When we cling, we suffer.
Wanting to “achieve” deep meditation (jhana), or wanting to become the “enlightened one” (arahant), can backfire. These goals, while noble, become fuel for craving if we pursue them as if they’re prizes to win rather than natural fruits of practice.
It’s important to understand that striving to manipulate or control life is the exact opposite of true acceptance. Our endless attempts to "fix" the world to our liking are not a path to peace but a guarantee of dissatisfaction.
Right View, the first step on the Eightfold Path, starts with seeing the Four Noble Truths clearly:
There is suffering.
There is a cause of suffering.
There is a cessation of suffering.
There is a path leading to the cessation of suffering.
Today, we are on the second part of our four-part exploration of these truths. Our focus is on the cause.
As it’s been said many times before, suffering arises from clinging. Whether we are grasping, clamoring, gripping, or simply refusing to let go, the result is always the same: more pain, more dissatisfaction.
This understanding closely parallels another wisdom saying: it’s not the trauma itself that causes us the most harm, but the drama we create around it.
We can’t always avoid painful events, but we often layer that pain with mental habits such as obsessing, storytelling, and replaying what happened again and again. That’s where suffering multiplies.
It is our inner world, that drive our suffering far more than any external event.
We need to recognize that the things we strive so hard to possess or achieve are, by their very nature, impermanent and unsatisfactory. They are not the true self. They are conditioned phenomena, shaped and colored by our untrained minds. We assign them importance, and through that, they gain power over us.
The key to liberation is letting go. If we can loosen our grip, if we can stop clinging so tightly, we will find ourselves far less tormented.
One of my favorite ways to illustrate this is through the "Drop the Rock" metaphor. Imagine carrying around a heavy rock everywhere you go. This rock symbolizes all our illusions, delusions, preoccupations. Everything we wrongly believe to be vital or true.
Even when we recognize that lugging this burden causes us great pain, we often resist putting it down. We say, "But this is my rock! It's part of who I am! What would happen if I let it go?"
And that fear keeps us trapped.
But have we ever really tried dropping the rock? Chances are, we haven’t. If we did, we might be astonished at how much lighter and free-er we feel.
Free-er than we’ve ever felt before.
So today, I encourage you to drop the rock. See what happens. Embrace the lightness that comes when you let go of what no longer serves you.
I look forward to continuing this journey with you. Please feel free to share your thoughts, reflections, or questions as I dive deeper into these teachings.
A Note on Compassion
Teachings on attachment are never meant to dismiss real suffering, especially the pain caused by abuse or trauma. For example, a child who has been harmed is not “attached”, they are hurt, and their pain is real. These teachings serve as tools for healing later in life, when we begin to relate to our pain in new ways. But first, always, comes compassion.
What we crave crushes us.
But only if we let it.
When we can see it simply as a sensation, it's easier to let it go.
Drop the rock. Well summarized. There is no suffering without fear - the moment we step into freedom is when we put down this rock (our ego) and suffering no longer exists.