What is the difference between the Christian and Buddhist responses to suffering?

Answer 1

The role of suffering in Christianity was discussed by the past head of the Roman Catholic Church (John Paul II) in his discussion of euthanasia: Suffering, especially during the last moments of life, has a special place in God's saving plan; it is in fact a sharing in Christ's passion and a union with the redeeming sacrifice which he offered in obedience to the Father's will. (Declaration on Euthanasia, 1980) Mother Teresa, another well known Christian, has been cited as saying "The suffering of the poor is something very beautiful and the world is being very much helped by the nobility of this example of misery and suffering," and once she tried to comfort a screaming sufferer by saying "You are suffering, that means Jesus is kissing you!" From this it appears that suffering is a good thing which (somehow) burns away sins and evil and Christians should embrace it. Some Christian zealots seem to pursue pain and "mortification of the flesh" to make themselves better. The early history of the Chrch in the Americas seemed to indicate a high value was put on martyrdom.

Buddhism, however, sees suffering as an undesirable thing resulting from unskillful life choices that can be overcome. Suffering lies at the root of most human experience (this is not to say we do not have a lot of meaningful pleasure too!). Buddhists study suffering to determine how we can turn our lives away from it by proper attitudes, thought and action. Buddha himself first practiced a lifestyle of deprivation in trying to find enlightenment (no shelter and near starvation) but turned away from it realizing it was no better than the opulence he had been born to. He advocated the "middle path" of sufficiency without excess.