Suffering Is Optional: Three Keys to Freedom and Joy [Paperback]

Cheri Huber (Author), June Shiver (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2002

Suffering Is Optional: Three Keys to Freedom and Joy centers around three basic aspects of Zen practice: pay attention, believe nothing, and don’t take anything personally. As ending suffering requires that one sees how suffering happens, the book urges readers to be willing to be quiet and pay attention to the process of suffering in effort to see each moment as an opportunity to step beyond illusion into freedom. It also argues that examining beliefs, abandoning them, and returning attention to the present is essential to ending suffering, as is living in the awareness that nothing in the universe is personal.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Cheri Huber is the author of 19 books, including There Is Nothing Wrong with You, When You're Falling, Dive, and Time-Out for Parents. She founded the Mountain View Zen Center in Mountain View, California, and the Zen Monastery Practice Center in Murphys, California, and teaches in both communities. She travels widely and often, leading workshops and retreats around the United States and abroad, most recently in Costa Rica and Italy. She founded Living Compassion in 2003, a nonprofit group comprised of There Is Nothing Wrong with You Retreats (based on the book); Global Community for Peace: The Assisi Peace Project; The Africa Vulnerable Children Project; and Open Air Talk Radio, her weekly call-in radio show originating from Stanford University. She lives in Murphys, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Keep It Simple Books (March 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963625586
• ISBN-13: 978-0963625588
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #250,445 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Life is painful. Suffering is optional., July 14, 2001

By 

G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Suffering Is Optional: Three Keys to Freedom and Joy (Paperback)

"It takes courage to look deeply into oneself," Cheri Huber writes in the Introduction to this book. She has been practicing Zen meditation for nearly thirty years. This book is the insightful culmination of both her own experience on the cushion, and the results of a 12-week course she taught on suffering. As children we experienced life by living in each moment. As adults we have been conditioned to suffer: "we want what we don't get, aren't satisfied with what we do get, are separated from those or that which we love, and are forced to endure those and that which we do not love," Huber writes. "We suffer when we resist life. We suffer when we believe life should be different. We suffer when we think there is something wrong with life that needs to be changed or fixed." The "clamor of modern life and the endless chatter in our heads" (p. 83) restrict our ability to see beyond our conditioned suffering and return to our childlike sense of wonder in everything we experience.

"It took us a while to get trained in these faulty belief systems," Huber writes, "and it will take us a while to unhook ourselves. We sit still, we see the conditioning and the sabotage for what it is, and we find the courage not to go back to old, familiar, hurtful ways" (p. 16). These "automatic, conditioned, karmic patterns" steal our time, our joy, our good feeling toward ourselves. They steal our life (p. 21). The "three keys" to ending our suffering involve paying attention to everything (pp. 3-54), believing nothing (pp. 57-92), and not taking anything personally (pp. 95-131).

For anyone interested in looking deeply into the nature of suffering and learning how to return to the present moment, Huber's recommended book offers "helpful awareness, helpful insight, helpful friend" (p. 101).

G. Merritt

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best approach I've found, March 19, 2006

By 

Thomas Hochmann (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Suffering Is Optional: Three Keys to Freedom and Joy (Paperback)

I've read a lot of books on Buddhism of various flavors - Zen, Tibetan, etc. Most Zen books I've read are either very abstract, or very straightforward but lacking in detail for how to practice day-to-day. Cheri Huber has written the ultimate book that is pretty much buzzword-free and extremely simple to put to the test.

/Suffering Is Optional/ is not really a Buddhist book, or a Zen book. It happens to have been written by a Zen teacher, and there are a few Buddhist-y words (mostly "karma") that are used to highlight points for which Western culture tends to lack solid terminology. But for the most part, this is simply a book about freeing yourself from the ways you (often unknowingly) punish yourself. Suffering is indeed optional, and Cheri Huber shows how to see that.

This is a very fast, very simple read, but do not be fooled. /Suffering Is Optional/ does not set out some pie-in-the-sky path to happiness that involves no effort on your part. Quite the opposite, as the author herself is quick to point out:

"I remind people with annoying regularity that if this practice were easy it would be more popular. Consider that, please. Look around and see what has thousands or even millions of 'adherents.' What do those things have in common? I would suggest that they all share the quality of people being exactly as they are while having something hopeful to believe. Very popular. Compare that with a practice that encourages people moment by moment to go up against, see through, and embrace the worst stuff in life. Not popular."

Not popular, maybe, but I feel it is very beneficial.

There's a lot of hands-on exercises to try in this book... Not of the SIT PERFECTLY STRAIGHT IN YOUR CHAIR MAKING THE SUCH-AND-SUCH MUDRA WITH YOUR HANDS sort. No, miss Huber invites you to be AWARE of the things that go on in your life, and inside you. What things lead to joy, and what things lead to suffering? She doesn't preach or politicize any of it - all she asks and guides you to do is to be aware. Through awareness and genuine commitment, much can be revealed about our interactions with this world and how often we get in the way of our own happiness.

If you're ever stressed, or angry, or frustrated, I highly recommend this book. It's conversational, caring, and does not require you to run out and purchase a saffron robe and begging bowl. I've yet to discover a more wise or more powerful way for discovering "the path to freedom and joy."

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Clear Explanation of the Path, June 28, 2001

By 

Eric Gross "www.liberationfromthelie.com" (Philadelphia Suburbs) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Suffering Is Optional: Three Keys to Freedom and Joy (Paperback)

It is apparent reading Huber's books that she is has truly traveled the path. This particular book is particularly outstanding for two reasons. One, it clearly sets out three fundamental tenets through which the seeker may finally find her/himself. Two, the responses of many of her students are included. These are helpful because the issues they raise are often the same one that I experience. Huber shows us clearly how we produce our own suffering. It is a choice we make out of egocentricity - basically believing our own conditioned projections about the world and "our" individual experience. Believe Nothing seems to me to be the most powerful element of her teaching. I strong recommend this book.