If you are new to meditation practice, you may well think that you have no
choice about how you experience suffering. You may have some problem from
your past or in your current situation that seems as though it can be
understood only as unrelenting pain—an abusive family history, a torturous
marriage, economic woes, a hideous wrong done to you, a disabled child whose
affliction breaks your heart. But if you give yourself the chance to
investigate your suffering more deeply, you will discover that being “with”
your pain can lead to wisdom and happiness. The event or circumstances
itself does not lose its unpleasantness or unfortunate quality, but by going
through it consciously you arrive at a peaceful and luminous state of mind.
–Phillip Moffitt, from Dancing With Life (Rodale)