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Exactly. They say the Buddha was a very pragmatic man and the whole purpose of his practice was to find a way out of Samsara, the cycle of existence and suffering.

I always wonder if he would have advocated for suicide if only he didn't believe in rebirth.

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It always struck me as very weird that Buddhists want to escape suffering. That's just saying you want to escape life. Suffering is beautiful and one of the best parts of life (the only thing better is momentarily overcoming it). But having neither is just sitting around waiting to die.

Well, it depends on what you mean by suffering (and some say suffering isn't the right translation for what they really mean). For buddhists, pain, sadness and grief are not suffering, they are indeed an inescapable part of life and are to be fully embraced with awareness and compassion. Suffering is an unnecessary, clingy, ego-centric (hyphenated to emphasize the buddhist concept) reaction to them.

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