Is suffering really optional?

In Buddhist circles, I often hear this slogan — Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. It sounds wise and comforting. It gives us the hope that if we do the right things, we can avoid suffering altogether. But it is not a genuine Buddha quote. Buddha used only one word, which is dukkha (in Pali). He never distinguished between pain and suffering. That distinction is a modern invention. The first usage of the phrase “Suffering is optional” seems to be in a book by that title, published in 1976 by two psychologists, Morris L. Haimowitz and Natalie R. Haimowitz. Since then, the phrase “suffering is optional” has been widely used. For example, Japanese American author, Haruki Murakami, used this slogan in his memoir.

None of the English dictionaries I have consulted make a distinction between pain and suffering. Those who believe that they are two different things try to make the case that pain is a sensory and biological phenomenon while suffering is an emotional phenomenon. One marriage and family counselor said on his website that “Pain is what happens to us, suffering is what we do with that pain.” There is an implicit assumption that we have a certain freedom in deciding how we respond to pain. There is nothing wrong with giving people hope. But the degree of freedom we have in responding to pain varies, depending on the person and the nature of the pain. Yes, a difficult marriage can…