sufferingreligion
Main
Aspects of this topic are discussed in the following places at Britannica.
Assorted References
- Buddhism ( in dukkha )
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Christianity
( in Christianity: The problem of suffering )
The starting point for the Christian understanding of suffering is the messianic self-understanding of Jesus himself. A temptation to power and self-exaltation lay in the late Jewish promise of the coming of the Messiah–Son of man. The Gospel According to Matthew described the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness as a temptation to worldly power. Jesus himself deeply...
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hell
( in hell: Greece and Rome )
...in Book 11, he finds its inhabitants sunk into a witless oblivion, incapable of communicating with him until they drink from his libation of ram’s blood. The untimely dead and the improperly buried suffer more than do common shades, and notorious sinners such as Tantalus and Sisyphus are tormented for their crimes; nonetheless, the Homeric Hades is, generally speaking, indifferently unpleasant...
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New Testament ( in biblical literature: The Gospel According to Mark: unique structure
)
...secrecy and Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ (8:29) is told in Mark as the opportunity to motivate an acceptance of the admonition “not to tell” by reference to the necessity of suffering.
in biblical literature: The Gospel According to Luke )...(Mark, Matthew, and John point toward Galilee). Jerusalem is also the place of the beginning of the church, and the old holy place thus becomes the centre of the new holy community. The necessity of suffering was made clear and interpreted as the fulfillment of prophecy. Rejection by people from his old home, Nazareth, and by Jewish religious leaders corresponds to the beginning of the ministry...
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purgatory
( in purgatory )
...from purgare, “to purge”) has come to refer as well to a wide range of historical and modern conceptions of postmortem suffering short of everlasting damnation.
Citations
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- Buddhism ( in dukkha )
-
Christianity Christianity
The starting point for the Christian understanding of suffering is the messianic self-understanding of Jesus himself. A temptation to power and self-exaltation lay in the late Jewish promise of the coming of the Messiah–Son of man. The Gospel According to Matthew described the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness as a temptation to worldly power. Jesus himself deeply...
-
hell hell
...in Book 11, he finds its inhabitants sunk into a witless oblivion, incapable of communicating with him until they drink from his libation of ram’s blood. The untimely dead and the improperly buried suffer more than do common shades, and notorious sinners such as Tantalus and Sisyphus are tormented for their crimes; nonetheless, the Homeric Hades is, generally speaking, indifferently unpleasant...
-
New Testament ( in biblical literature: The Gospel According to Mark: unique structure
)
...secrecy and Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ (8:29) is told in Mark as the opportunity to motivate an acceptance of the admonition “not to tell” by reference to the necessity of suffering.
in biblical literature: The Gospel According to Luke )...(Mark, Matthew, and John point toward Galilee). Jerusalem is also the place of the beginning of the church, and the old holy place thus becomes the centre of the new holy community. The necessity of suffering was made clear and interpreted as the fulfillment of prophecy. Rejection by people from his old home, Nazareth, and by Jewish religious leaders corresponds to the beginning of the ministry...
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purgatory purgatory
...from purgare, “to purge”) has come to refer as well to a wide range of historical and modern conceptions of postmortem suffering short of everlasting...
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eschatology and messiahship of Jesus eschatology
...texts of Christianity. In its place emerged a politically neutral and religiously original messianic conception based on the “Son of David,” “Son of Man,” and the “Suffering Servant” (Isaiah 52–53). This political shift was further advanced by the interpretation of the Roman Empire as the “obstacle” to Antichrist (II Thessalonians 2:6)....
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role in British politics Friends, Society of
...most yearly meetings executive responsibility had been taken by a meeting like the Meeting for Sufferings in London (these are also called Representative meetings or committees or Permanent boards). London Meeting for Sufferings in the 17th century served as a political pressure group, lobbying Parliament for relief from persecution, coordinating legal strategy, and using the press for public...
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discussed in biography Sachs, Nelly
Her best-known play is Eli: Ein Mysterienspiel vom Leiden Israels (1951; Eli: A Mystery Play of the Sufferings of Israel, included in the O the Chimneys collection). Before she won the Nobel Prize on her 75th birthday, she received the 1965 Peace Prize of German Publishers. In accepting the award from the land she had fled, she said (in the spirit of concord and forgiveness...
in Buddhist thought, the true nature of all existence. Much Buddhist doctrine is based on the fact of suffering; its reality, cause, and means of suppression formed the subject of the Buddha’s first sermon (see Four Noble Truths). Recognition of the fact of suffering as one of three basic characteristics of existence—along with impermanence (anichcha) and the absence of a self (anatta)—constitutes the “right knowledge.” Three types of suffering are distinguished: they result, respectively, from pain, such as old age, sickness, and death; from pleasure changing to pain; and from the fact that, because of impermanence, beings are susceptible to pain in the next moment.
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Four Noble Truths Four Noble Truths
...are accepted by all schools of Buddhism and have been the subject of extensive commentary. They may be summarized as follows. The first truth, suffering (Sanskrit: dukha; Pali: dukkha), is characteristic of existence in the realm of rebirth, called samsara (literally “wandering”). In his final sermon,...
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life and teaching of the Buddha ( in anatta
)
...a departure from the Hindu belief in atman (“the self”). The absence of a self, anicca (the impermanence of all being), and dukkha (“suffering”) are the three characteristics of all existence (ti-lakkhana). Recognition of these three doctrines—...
in Buddhism: The Four Noble Truths )Awareness of these fundamental realities led the Buddha to formulate the Four Noble Truths: the truth of misery (dukkha), the truth that misery originates within us from the craving for pleasure and for being or nonbeing (samudaya), the truth that this craving can be eliminated (...
- significance in Buddhist teaching Indian philosophy
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