I'm not an expert, but I think the translation to the english word suffering isn't perfect. It comes with a lot of heavy connotations. I've always thought struggle is a better word. Some people have negative reactions to struggle, but others use them to grow and become stronger. Again I'm not a buddhist adherent, but I think the general idea is that life is a constant struggle and it's how you view and react to that struggle that will define your life. Reaching peace and eternal happiness comes from accepting that struggle and growing with it.

Or something like that.

If that's what he meant, then we can agree, and I was too harsh in what I wrote.

virtualwhys: If this really is what you meant, then please, start using a different word.

Buddha said life is "dukkha", a word that his listeners would have recognized as sounding like a wheel with the axle slightly out of true: "Duka-duka-duka"...

He indeed meant that life is suffering. English speakers today translate the word as "suffering", "pain", "disappointment", or perhaps "striving" (a sentiment you will find echoed in Ecclesiastes).

Buddha also spoke about the cause of suffering, and suggested that if you can escape from the cause, you can escape from the suffering.

I personally disagree with this advice: Why would I want to escape from love, hate, pain, joy, and everything else? But I don't disagree with the basic teaching. Everyone has a cross to bear.

I've struggled a lot with truly understanding what it means to strike attachment from one's life. When you take it to its logical conclusion, it seems absurd (being unattached to your wife? To your children?).

I think of it like this: when the untrained mind is enjoying something, there are two aspects to that experience: the appreciation of the beauty or pleasure you derive from it, but also the attachment, the clutching or grasping and anxiety which would follow that thing being taken away.

I think "no attachment" is advocating that you get yourself in a mental state where you can have one without the other: to appreciate something while it lasts but not clutch to it or get hung up on it when it passes.

My understanding of it isn't that life isn't literally suffering, but that anything can cause you suffering (or pleasure).

Let's say you don't own a car, and take the bus to work. Then someone gives you a car, you are happy! A week later someone steals your car. You are back to riding the bus. Your first day back on the public transport is probably filled with quite a bit of suffering even though it is no different that the bus ride you took a week ago.

It's also possible to be too attached to joy for fear that if it ceases it will cause you pain. To goal is to be happy despite external events.

That's actually a different one, and I believe not one that the phrase "life is suffering" means.

I'm not a Buddhist or an expert in Buddhism by any mean. But being born and raised in an South East Asian that is strongly culturally tied with Buddhism, I believe the phrase "life is suffering" isn't too far away from what I normally heard and read. Of course, different Buddhism sect will have different idea on the whole "what life is", but interestingly, I recalled reincarnation being considered not as a gift, but actually a curse. You should strive to live your life free of all the meaningless greeds, emotions and bad deeds so that you won't be reborn, and hence relieve from life's suffering.

Of course, I realize the whole thing might sounds bizarre with a lot of Westerners, as so does many of Buddhism's teaching (emotions is bad etc). But keeps in mind, personal happiness is specifically a Western ideal, one that has been spreading more and more to the East, but still incompatible with many of the old traditional ideals here (Note: I'm not saying either way is better or worse, I'm still trying to figure that out).