Is Suffering Necessary?

Is suffering really necessary? Yes and no. If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you as a human being – no humility, no compassion. Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, and then comes a point when it has served its purpose. Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary. - Eckhart Tolle

A man went to a Zen master and asked him how he can be free of suffering. The Zen master answered: Accept pleasure and accept pain. To be free of pain the pain has to be accepted; and it is inevitable and natural, pain is pain, a simple painful fact.
          Suffering however, is and always is the refusal of accepting pain, the claim that life should not be painful, it is the rejection of a fact, denial of life and the nature of things. - Source Unknown