From a Darwinian perspective, it is clear what pain is doing. It's a warning: 'Don't do that again.' If you burn yourself, you're never going to pick up a live coal again.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
For these cultures, getting rid of the pain without addressing the deeper cause would be like shutting off a fire alarm while the fire's still going.
Pain has its own noble joy, when it starts a strong consciousness of life, from a stagnant one.
Pain is something that's common to human life. When we ignore it, we aren't engaging in the whole reality, and the pain begins to fester.
Pain is life - the sharper, the more evidence of life.
Pain is an event. It happens to you, and you deal with it in whatever way you can.
Pain is the doorway to wisdom and to truth.
It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.
The pain comes from knowing that we have never been safe, and therefore will never be safe again. It comes from knowing we can never be so ignorant again. It comes from knowing we can never be children again. Losing innocence. Remembering heaven. That was the essence of hell.
This horror of pain is a rather low instinct and... if I think of human beings I've known and of my own life, such as it is, I can't recall any case of pain which didn't, on the whole, enrich life.
Pain adds rest unto pleasure, and teaches the luxury of health.