Todd Answers: There can be a pain in the present moment, but suffering can only happen in the mind as a response to a situation that happened in the past. Because there is always a moment between an experience and our mental response, all suffering stems from the past.

Yes, there may be undesirable circumstances, but we can either accept and even welcome them, or we can resist and create inner conflict with them. It really is our choice if we are conscious of these thought processes and intentional with our response. It’s really quite amazing you could put two people in the exact same situation and one will love it and welcome the challenge, and the other will hate it and fight it. This is what I mean by all suffering happens in the mind, not based on any external situation.