Question
The D-D technique is extremely powerful indeed. However, while relativizing our suffering, thinking about situations worse than ours, isn’t there a risk to slip into relativizing the suffering of others too, and create a hierarchy of sufferings, some being more legitimate than others? Everyone has already heard phrases such as: You cannot suffer as much as I am suffering, since you don’t know what it is to be sick/have children/having depression etc. Or this person is too sensitive, no one should be upset about a broken nail etc.… I usually try to focus rather on the "amount" of suffering instead of the "cause" of that suffering, since the suffering is very real to that person independently of the cause – which may be, for others, much less harmful and intense (we know the example of loneliness) Should it be and if yes, how can this be avoided? That is: to hierarchies’ different causes of suffering?