Edgar Cayce (A.R.E. or Association for Research and Enlightenment) conducted trance-channel readings that revealed a great deal more than he the man could have known. The council or collective that came through brought forth much understanding.
Our suffering is not necessarily accidental. While bad, offensive, and sometimes insufferable, there is something that could be learned if we would view it that way.
The Aggregates that experience are dukkha.
What is "suffering"? The Buddha often spoke of it long before Cayce, so it might be good to ask him, as this is a very misunderstood term. The ancient term is dukkha, "disappointment," "unsatisfactoriness," the range of the unpleasant between annoyance and agony. The Buddha defined suffering this way:
"Rebirth is suffering, aging is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are suffering; contact with what is disliked is suffering; separation from what is liked is suffering; not getting what one wants is suffering. In short, the Five Aggregates clung to as self are suffering [unsatisfactory, disappointing, unable to fulfill, associated with pain]" (SN 56.11).
Hey, why talk about it? Why doesn't the B shut up already? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we suffer. Got it. That's clear enough. We're doing everything we can to AVOID it. So the less we talk about it, the better we'll feel. Duh! Become a hedonist. And shut yer yapper, O Great One.
Sadly, this view has been prevalent since before the time of the Buddha, so when the Buddha, the Awakened One, bothered to mention this ugly word, dukkha ("suffering"), were people or devas happy to hear it? No way. That's the last thing they wanted to hear about.
Pain is inevitable, but suffering's optional.
This is where the misunderstanding begins, and it could end here if hearers would just put away their aversion and LISTEN. A doctor comes in with the results of your scan and examination. Want to hear what's wrong? No way, just get right to the cure! Let's only talk about perfect health. What's it going to take? It's going to take all that? Forget it. I'll keep my illness. Why, I never... It's only when we see how bad and big the problem is that we adopt the right view about it and are open to the cure.
The Buddha would have had a much nicer time to only speak positively and in an "airy fairy" sort of way, doling out magic, bliss, sprinkles, blessings, smiles, good cheer, good news, and the energy of a modern motivational speaker. He could have just told everyone who came to him in pain, confused, or ignorant, "That's right, you're doing great, attaboy, right on, keep it up!" They would have been so happy to hear it. But because he understood and was willing to show us the awful truth, he came to be called the Master Physician. He never met a kind of pain he couldn't cure. The first step? Recognition. Second step? Cause or diagnosis. Third step? Assessment or prognosis. Fourth step? (This is the best one!) The cure, solution, course of treatment, the way to fix what's broken as described in the first step.
"Suffering"?
I can take it because I'm a bodhisattva. Ouch!!!
No single English word captures the range, depth, and subtlety of the ancient Pali and Sanskrit term dukkha. Many translations try ("disappointment," "suffering," "unsatisfactoriness," "stress," etc.) Each captures part of the meaning in a given context. There is value in realizing more than one term is needed because the thrust of Buddhist practice is broadening and deepening the understanding of a term so important to the Buddha that he often claimed to only teach two things -- what is dukkha and what is the elimination of dukkha. Until its roots are finally exposed and eradicated, we will not understand why he focused almost as much on the problem as its solution. When landing on the single best English translation, think again. No matter how we translate dukkha, it's always subtler, deeper, and less satisfactory than that.
There's an interesting wrong view from the time of the Buddha. At that time, there were six sectarian teachers ("six heretical teachers") each teaching their own doctrine.
Two of these, Makkhali Gosala and Purana Kassapa, are very interesting because they taught a particularly pernicious wrong view (miccha ditthi) that deeds (karma) have no results, no effect on anything. We're just helpless pawns of Fate or Destiny, Kismet or Chance, Luck or some arbitrary God-being, but not to worry since rebirth (samsara) will run out by itself. There's nothing to do other than just live and suffer or try to have a good time as best one can.
The Buddha declared this wrong view (called the inefficacy of karma) as being very bad, very harmful, and very dangerous. Why? It can lead to inaction or a sense of helplessness, as if we are all just "victims" of the universe, suffering needlessly without recourse to any permanent relief.
In fact, we are suffering for a reason -- because of ignorance (wrong views/delusion/confusion), craving (lust/grasping/clinging), and aversion (hate/fear/frustration). These are the Three Poisons of the Mind/Heart. And something can be done about suffering because something can be done about them.
There is a way to liberation from samsara!
Samsara will NOT roll out like a ball of yarn that runs out; it will keep going and going like a hamster wheel, which never comes to an end so long as a hamster keeps treading it.
Things that happen to us due to causes, not without them. There are always causes. We may not like them or accept them, but things are not happening without them. Therefore, we can do something about it. It would be rare that nothing could be done.
We must do something about our circumstances or never expect disappointment (dukkha) to stop. There was a third teacher, Mahavira (Nigantha Nataputta), the founder of Jainism, who understood many things and had a great deal of respect for karma; it's just that he had an imperfect understanding of it, which led to wrong views and conclusions. Worse perhaps than these six heresies is the popular Vedic/Hindu view that all rebirths are progress towards heaven or liberation (moksha).
The Buddha, often accused in modern times of being a "Hindu," rejected this completely, just as Edgar Cayce rejects it in this video. Not all rebirths improve us and send us on our way in an upward direction. Most are useless, often very harmful, a "downfall" (niraya) of needless suffering not conducive to growth.
It is much better to suffer a little here (as by restraining ourselves or delaying gratification) rather than always trying to gratify our ego and having to pay the high price for it later -- due to our ignorance (delusion), greed (craving), and aversion (hatred, anger, fear).
It is remarkable that the council or collective being channeled by Cayce understood this so well, even if they keep speaking of a "soul" as if that were a fixed and permanent reality when it is not. But it sure will seem that way to anyone who develops the third eye (dibba cakkhu) to see beings being reborn according to their actions, because psychic powers like telepathy or the "divine eye" do not impart enlightenment or liberating wisdom without the path-of-practice and purification the Buddha spent 45 years teaching to the world.
With those practices (the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment), one can see what gives rise to rebirth, the illusion that the gandhabba (the continuity of the impersonal consciousness process) is a "soul," that all things are impermanent, disappointing, and impersonal, which will naturally cause one to let go of clinging and thereby be freed of all further suffering.
Meg, stop. You're causing the wheel to go round.
As that is far from the path most beings are pursuing, there is no reason to think anyone is headed for enlightenment and nirvana anytime soon. However, in the meantime, one can be reborn in a better world, in a safer world, a heaven, far from the subhuman planes of rebirth, which are full of suffering that is far worse than we meet with here in this middling human world that has as much suffering as pleasure, as much opportunity for wisdom as oppression.
Edgar Cayce reveals: Which spiritual realm am I in based on my level of spiritual evolution?
Cycling through major 31 planes
(Soul In Reflection) Aug. 3, 2025: Edgar Cayce, America's greatest psychic, documented exactly which spiritual realm our soul will inhabit based on our current consciousness level through over 14,000 psychic readings.
This shocking revelation from the Akashic Records shows how souls [the consciousness stream assumed to be the same person life after life, which in fact is not ultimately the same being yet it is not another] get trapped in lower dimensions for centuries and the specific practices that can elevate our spiritual frequency instantly.
Discover the consciousness mirror technique that reveals our exact spiritual evolution level in under five minutes.
Learn why some Atlantean souls incarnated now to help humanity's massive evolutionary leap. Cayce's documented cases prove that REAL forgiveness is the master key unlocking higher spiritual realms.
Find out which of the seven spiritual planes you're destined for and how to accelerate your soul's evolution in this lifetime.
We've all been trying to tell you these things.
Based on authentic readings from the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E. at edgarcayce.org) archives in Virginia Beach. Our spiritual evolution determines our eternal destiny.
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