Reflections on Suffering and The State of Enlightenment
Upon deep contemplation of the Self within a haze of mizzir, I came upon a question: What is suffering and how is it caused? Unfortunately, it isn't as easy to understand it as it is to define it. We all have felt some sort of "suffering" in our lives, albeit some more than others, but what is the root of it? And, knowing that, is there a way to free ourselves from it?
To answer this for myself, I continued meditate- thinking upon the reasons I had felt suffering within the past two weeks, I came to a conclusion: suffering is a result of desire, or rather, the unfulfillment of desire. In knowing that, the path towards freedom from suffering be a result of living without desire, therefor suffering- right? No. Living without suffering is in of it self a desire, therefor it is unattainable- however, if it is your sole desire, than you can achieve it, for as it was previously mentioned, suffering is a result of unfulfilled desire. Thus, we can say that living without suffering can be done so long as you limit your desires to those that can and will be fulfilled. This answer does not satisfy me however.
Many people see suffering as a bad thing, and to be fair, it is. But without suffering we do not grow; we do not experience the kinds of things that make life worth living. You cannot experience the joys of the world without the contrast. Thus, comes the last conclusion I made during meditation: Enlightenment, the state in which an individual obtains the greatest amount of fulfillment, occurs through devotion to purpose.