A great Dhamma talk by Thanissaro Bhikkhu on how we cling to our suffering.
One of the Buddha's essential insights was the suffering that really weighs down the mind. Its a suffering that we create and that its unnecessary and even though we create it and suffer from it, we cling to it. This has some unexpected implications. One, for a lot of us if we didn't suffer we'd be lost, or the idea of not suffering, we'd feel lost. Sometimes our strongest sense of who we are comes from being treated unjustly and that's how we define ourselves, by our suffering, by being treated unjustly and if we were to deny ourselves that perverse pleasure, we'd feel lost. So when other people aren't treating us unjustly, we start treating ourselves unjustly. If other people aren't criticizing us unfairly, we'd start criticizing ourselves unfairly, because we'd feel lost without that criticism. So to work around this problem the Buddha has us simply focus on the problem of suffering without asking who's causing this, or who you are or what you have to do to yourself sense of self to make it better. He just says look at the suffering, in and of itself. That's the important thing, the in and of itself. That helps you get out of all the entanglements that come around from on the one hand suffering but on the other hand clinging to your suffering. When you can look at it simply on its own terms, see it simply as a pattern of cause and effect, without asking yourself how you are involved in it. When you can see thats its unnecessary and you can see the fact of suffering as its caused, when you see the connection and that you don't have to do that, it helps loosen up your attachment to the suffering. You're clinging to the things that cause you to suffer and that's what defines you and yet you don't have to worry about being annihilated if you stop the suffering.
~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Go forth, O Bhikkhus, for the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world, for the good, for the benefit and for the happiness of gods and men. Let not two go by one way. Preach, O bhikkhus, the Dhamma, excellent in the beginning, excellent in the middle, excellent in the end, both in the spirit and the letter. Proclaim the Holy Life, altogether perfect and pure. There are beings with little dust in their eyes, who not hearing the Dhamma will fall away. There will be those who will understand the Dhamma.
~Mahavagga Sutta
May all beings come into contact with the Buddha Dhamma and the teachings and liberate themselves from suffering.