The Rosetta Stone
How the world's wisdom traditions speak to the same questions.
On Suffering
We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope.
And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient.
The contacts of the senses with their objects, which give rise to heat and cold, pleasure and pain, are transient. Bear them patiently.
All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.
If a person sees that suffering has come upon him, let him examine his deeds. If he examined and found nothing, let him attribute it to neglect of Torah study.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.