Reflective Essay On Life Is Suffering

While Buddha made many valid points when addressing the four noble truths the one that never sat well with me was the first one. Four years ago, on my first day of religion and philosophy at Old Dominion University, my professor opened our class with the phrase, “life is suffering,” in reference to the first noble truth. As he went into detail over the course of the semester often referring to this statement, it stuck with me and made me truly think about people who may not have food on the table or those who are living in war ridden areas.
Over the years, I have met people who have lived lives that many of us would consider unbearable. The one thing that they each had in common was that while they “suffered” they were not “suffering.” The one story that stuck with me the most was from an old friend from Niger. I will never forget the day she told her story to our class. When she was six years old

If someone who has went through so much though out her lifetime was not suffering, then how could life simply be defined as suffering? I agree that life consists of constant changes beyond our control, but I disagree that life is suffering. While we may suffer throughout our lives for many different reasons we are not constantly suffering. These things that Buddha defines as impermeant and soulless are what brings us out of our suffering. For example, with life, comes death. With death often comes grief. The way that most of us recover from grief is through focusing on the experiences we had with that person while they were here on earth and by believing that their soul is in a better place. If life was simply suffering, we would never experience the joy that comes with birth because we would believe the body was an empty vessel that will live just to die. Instead we embrace the gift of birth because it’s a new life that will blossom and grow. Also, if life was simply suffering, we would never experience true