To feel happy while suffering: –

There are three modes of suffering.

1. Visible suffering, which is self-evident.
2. Hidden suffering, this is concealed beneath the appearance of pleasure, for example food poisoning or bit by snake or house catches onfire.
3. Invisible suffering, this is hardest to distinguish because it seems fromthe blindness of our own minds, where it remains so long as we are in the grips of ignorance and selfishness. Ego clinging, selfishness or self-centeredness causes this.

Suffering will always exist as a universal phenomenon, but every individual has the potential for liberation from it. We all have the ability to study the causes of suffering and gradually to free ourselves from them. We all have the potential to sweep away the veils of ignorance, to free ourselves of the selfishness and misplaced desires that trigger unhappiness, to work for the good of others and extract the essence from our human condition. It’s not the magnitude of the task that matters; it’s the magnitude of our courage. The path is the process of using all available means to eliminate the fundamental causes of suffering by recognizing suffering, by eliminating its source, by ending the suffering and by practicing the path.

Managing suffering: –

If it is possible to relieve mental anguish by transforming one’s mind, how can this process be applied to physical suffering? How do we endure crippling, virtually intolerable pain?

We should distinguish between two types of sufferings. Physical pain and the mental and emotional suffering. It is the mind that reacts to pain with fear, rejection, despondency, or feeling of powerlessness. Instead of being subjected to a single agony, we accumulate the host of them. There are various methods to overcome suffering.

1. One method uses mental imagery, when a powerful feeling of desire, anger, greed, attachment, pride, plagues one’s mind, it is better to imagine yourself sitting in a serene place at the shores of ocean or on top of the mountain.
2. Another lets us transform pain by awakening ourselves to love and compassion. When we experience a powerful sense of empathy with the suffering of others, our impotent resignation gives way to courage, depression to love, narrow mindedness to openness toward all those around us.
3. A third involves developing inner strength. This visualization is a powerful means to develop benevolence and compassion. It can be carried out anytime and during your day-to-day activities.