Those who recognize the existence of suffering, its cause, its remedy, and its cessation, have fathomed the four noble truths. They will walk in the right path.
If to enjoy even an enjoyable present we must have the assurance of a happy future, we are “crying for the moon.” We have no such assurance. The best predictions are still matters of probability rather than certainty, and to the best of our knowledge every one of us is going to suffer and die. If, then, we cannot live happily without an assured future, we are certainly not adapted to living in a finite world where, despite the best plans, accidents will happen, and where death comes at the end.
I think one of the defining moments of adulthood is the realization that nobody's going to take care of you. That you have to do the heavy lifting while you're here. And when you don't, well, you suffer the consequences.
And, indeed, I will at this point ask an idle question on my own account: which is better — cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?
The lower strata are suffering all kinds of oppression and the injustice that is inflicted upon them has many faces and many facets. Well-to-do classes are using all kinds of obvious and not-so-obvious benefits that this regime has created for it.
When one drives away the negligent through vigilance, he climbs the heights of wisdom, and can see the suffering masses. Serene, you look upon the lost like one that stands on a mountain sees those that stand upon the plain.
I do not perceive even one other thing, O monks, that when undeveloped and uncultivated entails such great suffering as the mind. The mind when undeveloped and uncultivated entails great suffering.