Suffering

1. Why do people cause suffering for us?

Nobody causes suffering for you. You cause suffering for yourself by generating tensions in the mind. If you know not to do that, it becomes easy to remain peaceful and happy in every situation.

2. What do we do when someone else is doing wrong to us?

You must not allow people to do wrong to you. Whenever someone does something wrong, he harms others and at the same time he harms himself. If you allow him to do wrong, you are encouraging him to do wrong. You must use all your strength to stop him, but with only good will, compassion, and sympathy for that person. If you act with hatred or anger, then you only aggravate the situation. But you cannot have goodwill for such a person unless your mind is calm and peaceful. So practice to develop peace within yourself, and then you can solve the problem.

3. Isn't suffering a natural part of life? Why should we try to escape from it?

We have become so involved in suffering that to be free from it seems unnatural. But when you experience the real happiness of mental purity, you will know that this is the natural state of the mind.

4. Can't the experience of suffering ennoble people and help them to grow in character?

Yes. In fact, this technique deliberately uses suffering as a tool to make one a noble person. But it will work only if you learn to observe suffering objectively. If you are attached to your suffering, the experience will not ennoble you; you will always remain miserable.

5. If one does something wrong, then one is bound to suffer in the future?
No, not in the future, but here and now ! The law of nature punishes immediately, at the very moment one starts generating a defilement in the mind. One cannot generate a defilement and feel peaceful. The misery is instant. Only when you realize that suffering is here and now that you will change the habit pattern of generating defilements that lead to wrong verbal or physical action. If you think, 'Oh, I'll be punished only in future lives, and I'm not bothered now', it won't help.

Source: Vipassana Meditation

See Also:

Why Does God Allow Suffering?
All the wickedness and sufferings are created as challenges to man to overcome them. All of us perceive, understand and try to solve all these sufferings and wickedness and thus by step-by-step move forward in our march to perfection.

Forgiveness
God is powerful to convert even the most sinister plots of the unrighteous for the good of righteous.