From Deepak Chopra's book The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life
"To answer these questions we have to realize, first of all, that pain is not the same as suffering...Suffering is pain that we hold on to. It comes from the minds mysterious instinct that pain is good, or that it can not be escaped, or that the person deserves it. If none of these were present, suffering would not exist. It takes force of mind to create suffering, a blend of belief and perception that the person thinks he or she has no control over it. But as inescapable as suffering may appear to be, what brings escape is not attacking the suffering itself but getting at the unreality that makes us cling to pain. The secret cause of suffering is unreality itself....the steps that lead to suffering:
Overlooking actual facts
Reinforcing that perception by obsessive thinking
Getting lost in the pain without looking for a way out
Comparing yourself to others
Cementing the suffering through relationships."

Some people think that Chopra's ideas are controversial but I think that he might be up to something. What do you think?

..which basically is saying if your mind got you in ..it can get you out... dashed with a few causational theories..a rather basic theory by any means..doubtful Nobel prize material...

The only problem I have with Chopra on the issue of "pain" is that the only "pain" he ever seems to consider is emotional pain. I'm in complete agreement with him on the issues of emotional pain.

However, I've never seen him address the issues of actual physical pain and suffering. I've always wanted to ask him about his views on physical pain, but he's always on a video.

Yes. I think he is up to something. Something mysterious and diabolical, perhaps.

overlooking actual facts

making mountains out of mole hills or the reverse..we are emotional creatures by nature and i think looking at the actual facts is difficult for many people, less irs agents

Most suffering comes from the mind of the person who is resisting what is.

Pain is needed to alert us to our limitations. If you did not feel pain when you tried to lift something, you might break your back. Pain is part and partial to the whole sensory process of feeling, touching, etc.

Depak Chopra is an enlightened person, but not any more enlightened than many others. Nothing he says is new to me. His ideas are interesting but I have not seen any solid or proven methods to actually teach people to stay young or heal themselves that can work for the average unenlightened person. Even an enlightened person would need to learn HOW exactly to direct your mind and thoughts towards miracles and healing. Perhaps a lot of people think he is some kind of guru. Maybe even he thinks he is. I found some of his writing put me to sleep. I saw no practical method to put it to use.

I agree. His teaching methods are far too philosophical and not nearly enough practical information. I bought a 3-DVD set with over 7 hours of "workshop". I thought it was going to be some really good instructions on things like how to meditate with effective results, etc. But it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.

To begin with, it was an actual on-site filming of an actual class that was going on at the "Chropra Center for Health and Well-being". That was a little disappointing right there. I think it would have been better if he had just focused on making a DVD in its own right actually designed directly for the watcher.

Also, the only thing filmed was the actual lectures which were often deeply philosophical and quite repetitive, and even the half the class was falling asleep.

Supposedly the actual class did go and perform actaul activities related to these lectures afterward, but that part wasn't filmed.

Another doctor gave the lecture on 'meditations' and again, it was far more esoteric than practical. A bit of a disappointment as well.

Overall, I don't mean to complain. There was a lot of good stuff in the 7-hour presentations and the whole set wasn't priced bad (about the price of an average single hour-long DVD). The problem is that in the whole 7-hours could have easily been reduced to about an hour or two without loss of content.

There were some good parts. For example, I learned how to get rid of migraine headaches and the technique seems to work very well so far. I get migraine headaches from time to time and often when they hit they might last for days or even a week before subsiding.

So finding a way to nip that in the bud was indeed worth the price of the video right there!

I agree that suffering is something we hold on to. But pain is also in the mind and can be eliminated. There are people who can in essense, think away their pain.

I participated in an exercise at a workshop where we "disapeared" pain. It works.
You simply concentrate on the location of the pain, for about a minute. then you concentrate on the intensity, for a minute or so. Then you imagine what it would be like if that pain was the only thing you felt. Then you imagine what life would be like without that pain. I forgot the last step (it has been years since I attended that workshop) . However, it does work.

I have chronic headaches. After the exercise, the pain was greatly reduced. It wasn't gone, but it wasn't somehting that concerned me any more (at least for 5 hours afterwards). But, I suppose, If I continued doing that exercise daily, I probably wouldn't feel the pain at all.

I like some of Deepak's thoughts...most are not new.
We ALL have the ability to relieve ourselves from pain..all pain. We are all we need to heal ourselves. Not a popular opinion for those who like to run to a doctor every time something hurts.

i agree then agian i think physical pain can be iggnored as well if u know what to look for. the parameters of humans is wide. at the same time you can never get ride of pain and sufferning. its a human function that is very necessery. one could say the sufferning leads to learning maybe even another form of.

Jeanniebean's method of pain relief.

Emotional pain: No such thing. Just get over it.

Physical pain: Just rub it.

honestly you guys should all try mushrooms just once, things will make a lot more sense i promise.

Amoda Maa Jeevans wrote "It is precisely our wanting things to be different that creates our suffering. It is not the hardship, discomfort, or pain itself that cause us to suffer (although it appears to be) but the resistance to fully experiencing it."

I am no scholar but I disagree with the reason we hold onto pain. I believe sometimes we only learn the lesson we need to learn if the pain is deep and hangs around for a while. So suffering would actually be a survival mechanism for learning purposes.

Pain is the best teacher for humans outside of repetition.

Oh yeh, I live to experience pain and suffering. That's the ticket.

Not.

Now get in there and clean this house up or else its back to the Chinese water torture machine.

i think she means that suffering is an artificial product of our mind, and is only existent in our acceptance of such suffer, it is only the stage where joy and indifference are absent, suffering thus in it self is just a product of contrast.

I know. I was just being un-profound.

I think many believe that the Buddhist concept of desire being the root of all suffering translate desire as the desire to obtain something that one does not have. I've found that in my life, more suffering has been brought about by the desire to avoid something, be it pain, truth, embarrassment, others.