Suffering can be differentiated from pain. There is pain in life, without doubt, but suffering is the extra tension in the mind that is unable to accommodate change and accept the truth of its experience. The first two noble truths are that life is difficult and that suffering is the tension in the mind that insists an experience be different from the way it is. It’s the imperative in the mind that this moment be different that causes our suffering

Sylvia Boorstein, Greet this moment as a Friend