Buddhisattpa Model Of Pain

Pain and suffering are common sensations that all people will experience in today’s world. Most people would believe that there is a hierarchy to pain and that some individuals experience worse pain than others. This is not so with the Bodhisattva ideal where they have a belief that there should be no distinction between beings and ultimately, no distinction between pain (Jeffreys, April 12). I disagree with the Bodhisattva ideal because I stand with the opinion that suffering has a hierarchy and that pain has a subject.

The Bodhisattva ideal is that of having “... a compassion for all sentient beings without distinction” (Jeffreys, April 12). This would mean that there is no distinction between the pain and suffering of others. There is also no distinction between the people experiencing the suffering. This is also seen as being an extreme form of altruism, which is “an unselfish concern for the welfare of others” (Jeffreys, April 12). If one were to have this extreme unselfish concern for others, they must able to put someone’s needs

I see some events as being more catastrophic than others and that due to the face some events are worse than others, they need to be addressed in order of importance. Unless we can see some pain as being worse than others, we cannot understand an urgency in some issues. For example, you cannot compare the urgency of a house on fire and a someone getting a paper cut. If there is no hierarchy to pain, then these two issues would be seen as having the same importance and house might possibly burn down as a result of you bandaging up a young girl’s finger. Therefore, pain needs to not belong to a continuum where there is an order. Instead it needs to belong on a hierarchy where is there is an order. Williams says that pain requires a subject and that it is irrelevant to eliminate the self if we wish to address the