It is inadequately described as either an emotion or as a state that wills to abolish itself, what then is suffering? The question should perhaps be, what kind of thing are you that you can suffer? It cannot be adventitious, as long as you exist you can suffer, this is a primary knowledge. And you can suffer immeasurably in that the depth of suffering can vastly exceed your apprehensions of being. It resists every strategy of the mind to think it away, and yet a deep enough change of attitude can abolish it, or transform it into something else. It is therefore not the final reality, but it points towards it, being resistance, refusal, protest.  You cannot simply refuse to accept suffering, as if it were within you power to choose to do so, but acceptance overcomes it. This is a realignment of the will and the will is you, but you can't bring it about, not by any means. You know this interior will but without acknowledging it, because what you are resisting in suffering is yourself, and in the same way you know that acceptance goes beyond all refusal - hard words, hard to hear. How else can you begin to know it other than by struggling against it. You are the angel that you fail to overcome.