The Buddhist scriptures say that there are seven kinds of suffering in life.
Birth, old age, sickness, death, hatred and resentment, love and separation, and the desire for nothing
The first suffering is "birth". It is not the "birth" of a child that counts as "pain and pleasure," not suffering. As the first of the seven sufferings, "birth" is living, and is the basis for all subsequent suffering. To live is to suffer, just as the axiom in geometry needs no proof.
The second suffering is "old age". As the years go by, the energy, health, and memories that we once had go with the wind, and the fear of growing old becomes clearer every day. The fear of "old age" is essentially a "get and then watch the loss" of fear. People with simple experiences have a calmer attitude towards old age, because life has not changed much, and they have not gained much, so they do not care about losing. The more youthful and spirited characters, the stronger the resistance to old age - people who rely on energy to eat, once there is no energy, but also unwilling to quietly savor the sweetness of memory, the loss of nature to always bite the soul. If in the old age at the same time, relatives, lovers, friends one by one away from you, and finally only left an old man all alone, that taste is really bitter extreme. In Greek mythology, there was a woman who was proud of her weaving skills and said that "Athena, the goddess of wisdom, could not weave such beautiful cloth". Athena incarnated a mortal woman and the test, won. The goddess then punished the woman with "immortality". Thousands of years later, the woman's family, friends and loved ones are dead, they are also old and out of shape, can only weave all day long, no longer have the strength to do anything else, so they turned into spiders. There is a similar legend in Indian mythology, but it's about a man who prayed to God for immortality, but forgot to pray for agelessness. The end result is pretty much the same. It is clear that the fear of old age has been a part of all peoples since the beginning of time.
The third suffering is "sickness". Sickness is like a mountain fall, although not many people have ever boxed, but the feeling of suddenly being knocked down all the people who have been sick have experienced. Yesterday, the power of the mountain, today it is difficult to bind the chicken gas wandering. If the disease is not fatal, then there is the process of the disease to go like silk to torture people. Sick energy is not continued, nothing can do, only sleep; but that sleep is not unlimited can sleep, sleep to a certain extent, they have to open their eyes to enjoy the pain. In addition to the torture of the body, the disease on the test of the soul is also worth interesting. As the saying goes, "there is no filial son in front of the bed of a long illness", the filial piety which is the first of all good deeds, may retreat before the illness, not to mention other feelings. By and large, the patient's mood is not too good, sometimes give people the feeling of unsympathetic; if it is a long time, most people have slowly get used to it, from habit to indifference, and finally ignore the patient and the ordinary people are different, so the coldness of the bedside after a long illness is also a different kind of suffering. Emergency test of the body, long illness test of the soul, the test of patience - ask around the rhinitis, migraine friends, generally will get a bunch of coping with these small terminal illnesses of the helpless talk. Some people like to suffer, so always want to get some disease to get, but even if it is suffering, is not a call to come; there has been a certain love lost in Beijing in April drank half a bottle of erguotou, stripped off his shirt and ran into the rain to run wildly, wanting to sick it to escape a little bit, who knows that the next day is still alive and kicking; and there was a love loss, when the cause, life has reached a critical turning point, every day, almost have no time to care about mood, but this suffering three brother actually came unexpectedly, nonchalantly put down a certain family, can be called the most capricious suffering.
The fourth suffering is "death". The horror of death is not in the process - which is so short as to be negligible - but in its irresistibility. People's knowledge of their own destiny, the only clear is that they will die, most people will not like death, it is the ultimate nature of the inescapable natural fear; the suffering of death, knowing that there is a tiger in the mountain, can only be a tiger mountain - Wu Sung can not beat the tiger. When people no longer fear death, its qualities as a suffering will disappear, and can even be used as a kind of enjoyment - once an old couple went out, the old man felt cold, went home and put on a pair of gloves, and then they walked to a forest and hanged themselves. For such an exquisite and unhurried death, suffering is rather art. Of the seven sufferings, death is the more honest, and if there is motivation, the suffering usually comes as soon as it is asked for, which is a bit more generous than "illness".
The fifth suffering, called "grudges and hatred", is the same roof with people you hate immensely, head up and down, want to ignore him still can not, really annoying; annoyed for a long time, it is also suffering. In modern society, we spend time together with our parents, relatives, lovers and colleagues. To parents, capricious can be, resentment is too much some of the; such as Lin Daiyu that in the family hedge, happened to meet a unkind, it can be a candidate for the fifth suffering; with loved ones to get along, not afraid of resentment - so that the breakup is over - for fear of indifference. Midnight dream, the pillow looks strange and old, not at all pro, life is meaningless question from the bottom of the heart, grudges hate the suffering will be planted the seeds. As for the disagreement between coworkers, that is a modern disease, Buddha would not care. Resentment is a tumor that grows in interpersonal relationships. Therefore, among the seven afflictions, there are two afflictions that can be given up voluntarily, as long as one's heart is set on giving up some interpersonal relationships, there will be no more resentment; the other affliction that can be given up is "birth". Another hardship that can be given up is "life". If we talk about actively seeking this hardship, there is a precedent, and that is the case of King Goujian of Yue. The first thing I'd like to say is that I'm not sure what I'm talking about.
The sixth suffering is called "love of separation". It is a kind of obsessive suffering. Life is originally a small number of separation, if you can see through this, love and separation of the suffering will not exist; but really want to do so "empty", non-great wisdom can not be. Therefore, the Buddha also said that the suffering above the seven sufferings is the suffering of not knowing the Buddha's teachings, which is called "bitter suffering". Buddha advocates the transcendence of bitterness and happiness, but mortals do not want to be so tasteless, knowing that the ultimate is bitter, but also to be happy first; the warmth of family love, the love of lovers, the love of friends, in the love of the simple, in the unwilling to give up, even if the final one parting, and how many people can resist immersed in the joy of it? To the flowers fall clouds scattered, winter thunder vibration summer rain and snow, only to realize that yesterday's life has been today's dream, loved by the hand of the sand in the end like a general fluttering away, midnight dreaming of the time, this "love parting" taste, how a "bitter" word to say?
The seventh bitter, is "can not seek". The world is full of people who want what they want; the world is full of people who don't want what they want. The first thing I'd like to say is that I don't know what to do. In fact, if the chicken hair, a needle and thread, not to be even if, at most, annoyed for a while, is not bitter. The world's most afraid of two kinds of not being able to, one is "get and then lose", one is "unattainable". Another Greek myth: Tantalus killed his son and served him to the gods in an attempt to prove that the gods were not omniscient. The gods punished him by imprisoning him in a pool of water up to his lower lip, with a fruit tree by the side of the pool, with the fruit flat on his brow. If he drank the water when he was thirsty, the water level went down to his lips; if he ate the fruit when he was hungry, the fruit branches went up to his eyebrows. If he is hungry and goes to eat the fruit, the branch of the fruit rises up and flattens on his brow. This is the famous "Suffering of Tantalus", which meets two of the most undesirable "cannot seek" at the same time, and is simply a jewel in the crown of suffering. As the grand finale of life's sufferings, the ultimate cruelty of "not being able to ask" is that it even denies the right to other sufferings, which can be summarized as "not being able to ask for life, not being able to ask for death".