SHARED OBJECTIVE

The issue of suffering is not exclusively Buddhist.  Vedanta is also concerned with it.  In Vedanta the culprit is ignorance, a person’s failure to discriminate between what is eternal and what is not eternal.

As Shankara points out in his Crest Jewel of Discrimination, what is eternal is what is unchanging.  What is not eternal is what is constantly changing.  Brahman, God, is eternal, reliable and abiding, while the world of form cannot be relied upon, and is never abiding.

A person must choose for himself.  Does he put his stock in what will not last, including his egoic self, or does he invest in what always has and always will endure?

His thinking mind is torn, choosing ultimately his egoic self, because what is fleeting is what it knows best.  His thinking mind does not know God, hence does not know anything that can be counted on.

Vedanta is philosophically oriented while Buddhism is based in psychology.  Suffering in the Buddhist view comes from wrong living.  A person can correct wrong living by following the Buddhist Eightfold Path.  What Buddhism provides is relief.