If suffering is grace, the Buddha would not have taught how to end suffering.

Ram Dass suffered and upon healing—being given a second chance—he woke up and called the suffering “grace.” But grace, in whatever way you understand its origin, is the ability to waken—it’s a gift, a blessing, the result of dedicated work. There is immeasurable suffering in the world, but seemingly very few who wake up.

In Tibetan Buddhism, and Bön the ‘highest’ doctrine is that of “The Great Perfection” in which one aspect is Great Responsiveness, and the whole is called a “wish-fulfilling jewel.”

The difference between the Buddha’s teaching how to end suffering, and The Great Perfection, is between the practical and the true, between the immediate and the eternal, between ending suffering and never suffering. Nowhere in any of that is suffering a grace.

When we are near death, we all wake up and regret having not used our time beneficially. Is death a grace? In my experience, grace is the ability to wake up before it’s too late.