Does our dailylife involve throes and travails ?

Question

Does our dailylife involve throes and travails ?

Answer 1

If you have to ask, yours clearly doesn't. :-)

But, in general, it has been so historically and seems to be true today. (Consider that there are many people who aren't getting enough to eat, how can you doubt it?)

If you are referring to the first of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, there are a number of interpretations. One is the obvious and common one you may have encountered:

http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/fourt...

But when translating one from one language to another, getting the exact meaning is impossible. So you'll get variations such as:

* Life means suffering (above)

* life is suffering i.e., life includes pain, getting old, disease, and ...

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/5min...

* life is dukkha (all sorts of unsatisfactoriness)

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamm...

But this is a Christian idea as well:

John 16:33 "In this world you will have trouble ..."

Acts 14:22 "We must go through many hardships to ..."

And I'm, that if I took the time, I'd find similar quotes from the texts of other major religions.

Predating them all (except, perhaps, Hinduism) is Stoicism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism