Suffering

[Svenskaflicka]

I find gerat comfort in the thought of reincarnation. Or, as the hindus put it:
"Life sucks, and then you die. And then life sucks again..."

 

[CharleyH]

unless you are me . . it sucks cuz you need to learn, but the .... ah - you realize what the "FUCKING" its all about

Seriously though . . . I never used to believe in it . . . but then you find your soul mate, and it all makes COMPLETE sense . . . everything before you . . . and well - I would go on - but I anticipate a rather sarcastic response . . . so . . . merely one little for you and a sweet and anticipatory SMILE

 

[sweetnpetite]

Much of Buddest teaching I really do like- but I'm not sure that I agree with the idea's of escaping the cycle of re-birth, or even of escaping from all suffering. I for one, savor the idea of endless rebirths, though maybe some lifetime I will tire of it. I also am not sure that my idea of perfection would be 'holy and emty' I think that desire creates suffering, but it's not the only thing, either. Great pain creates suffering, for instance and I don't know that even if you could remove the desire for the pain to stop it would stop the suffering. Budda did say to question everything, so I won't stop with him I think we should learn to love life despite the suffering, and realize that even when we *are* suffering, there are things to appreciate and even enjoy. This in the face of our hardest trials. It's not to say to somebody else, "tough, life is suffering" but to offer compation, the best that we have to give and at the same time, sqeezing all of the juice out of life, every last drop, savoring all that is good in whatever situation we are given. Not mearly trying to put a happy face on something, or puting up with it, or forcing ourselves to be greatful because someone else is worse off, but really seeking the joy that is to be had. Some people cut themselves, just to see if they can still feel Not that I think that's healthy, but they realize that there is goodness in being able to feel anything, to be alive and to experience the good and the bad. Nothing lasts forever (including our own lives) so we had better enjoy what we have while we can.

Yes, that's pretty phylisophical (I suppose) and I won't say that I always live up to it, but I'm learning

Buddhism believes that ego is illusion: that each of us is already everything but that we’re kept from realizing this by the illusion of individual ego and the idea that we have an immortal soul. Buddha did teach that living was suffering, and that the root of all suffering is desire, which is a function of ego. It’s possible to transcend your own desires and so go beyond the notions of self-ness, suffering, and ego, at which point you join with the Godhead of the universe and see all life for what it is: illusion and ego.

As long as you deny this transcendence and your essential Godliness, your idea of self dooms you to rebirth and another round of suffering. The idea behind Buddhism is that you can escape this endless wheel of rebirth. If you do manage to achieve the truth of non-ego, you see that everything is the same: holy and empty.

---dr.M.

 

[sweetnpetite]

I think if we had to choose, we would see our life in terms of all that it was, and all that it meant. We would see that we would suffer to some degree in all lives, and we would prosper to varying degrees in all lives. Maybe we would choose a life of utter and abject misery, just to be near our soulmate- or just to hold the hand of a child, who knows. I certainly think that every life has somthing redeaming, even if we can't always see it from 'ground zero' Even Hitler's miserable existance, how many of us would never even exist if it weren't for the post-war baby boom?

I don't think it would neccesarily come down to what would be moral- perhaps if you didn't choose that particular life, someone else would- but the gains that we would recieve personally. What amount of suffering would make you want to give up a special person in your life, or a special contribution you could make for instance?

I would never choose a year long court battle for custody of my young son for example, but if that was what I had to go through in order for him to be in my life, then I *would* choose it. Even if I knew I would loose rather than win, I would rather suffer his loss, then never know him at all

Or what if my own life would be miserable, but I would be able to touch another in an important way. Not everybody would be willing, but there are some who would, and that is who would go. Just as not everybody would be willing to do what Mother Theresa choose to do, but she chose it for her life and for the lives that she would touch.

from what i gather in the initial post....the realm question was whether if we could somehow see how much suffering we would have, and could choose no life if we wanted would we.


my thoughts on this delema ( sp?) is what if in my life i had more than my share of suffering, but one of the offsprings ( children, grandchild, etc) would create a cure for some horrible disease. ( which i wouldnt know, until they were born). Would it be moral for me to choose not to exist to save myself some suffering, yet deprieve future generations of a cure for a terrible disease.

i dont think so. life is ful of choices and forks in the road, is it destiny or chance that makes us choose, i dont know. all i know is i hope im wise enough that if i make a choice and it turns out wrong that the next time i can make the other one.

onther thought is if i could choose, based on whether i knew if i would suffer or not, lets say the suffering would happen in the middle of my life, i would then be depriving my parents of the joys and heartaches that i gave them as a kid, would that be fair.

i think i lost my train of thought and hopefully didnt stray to far.

 

[sweetnpetite]

This pretty much somes up, quite consisely, what I was trying to say with all those words, lol. THanks Perdita. is it any wonder you are my queen?

If I am frank and true with myself I can say that I've had little happiness in my 57 years compared to real happiness. The good bits were worth it, and I hope to find more.

Perdita

 

[sweetnpetite]

BTW, the idea that life is not all about suffering is rather recent and pretty much a Western idea. It remains to be proven.

---dr.M.

VEry interesting- care to elaborate?

 

[sweetnpetite]

Re: Pleasure for the beautiful body, but pain for the beautiful soul.

That was beautiful, and makes me really glad that I started this thread. It's wonderful when you have an epiphany and later found that (other) great minds have mirrored your thoughts. It makes you feel that you are not alone. I will have to see out this peice of literature, post haste.

You said you read it in your thirties, I wonder if it is any coincidence that I just turned 29 this month?

ANd now, of course, what I would have emboldened:



Where there is sorrow there is holy ground. Some day people will realise what that means. They will know nothing of life till they do, - and natures like his can realise it.

***


But while there were times when I rejoiced in the idea that my sufferings were to be endless, I could not bear them to be without meaning. Now I find hidden somewhere away in my nature something that tells me that nothing in the whole world is meaningless, and suffering least of all.

***


I used to live entirely for pleasure. I shunned suffering and sorrow of every kind. I hated both. I resolved to ignore them as far as possible: to treat them, that is to say, as modes of imperfection. They were not part of my scheme of life. They had no place in my philosophy. My mother, who knew life as a whole, used often to quote to me Goethe's lines - written by Carlyle in a book he had given her years ago, and translated by him, I fancy, also:- 'Who never ate his bread in sorrow, Who never spent the midnight hours Weeping and waiting for the morrow, - He knows you not, ye heavenly powers.' …

I now see that sorrow, being the supreme emotion of which man is capable, is at once the type and test of all great art. What the artist is always looking for is the mode of existence in which soul and body are one and indivisible: in which the outward is expressive of the inward: in which form reveals. Of such modes of existence there are not a few: youth and the arts preoccupied with youth may serve as a model for us at one moment: at another we may like to think that, in its subtlety and sensitiveness of impression, its suggestion of a spirit dwelling in external things and making its raiment of earth and air, of mist and city alike, and in its morbid sympathy of its moods, and tones, and colours, modern landscape art is realising for us pictorially what was realised in such plastic perfection by the Greeks. Music, in which all subject is absorbed in expression and cannot be separated from it, is a complex example, and a flower or a child a simple example, of what I mean; but sorrow is the ultimate type both in life and art.

***


but out of sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a child or a star there is pain.

***

For the secret of life is suffering. It is what is hidden behind everything. When we begin to live, what is sweet is so sweet to us, and what is bitter so bitter, that we inevitably direct all our desires towards pleasures, and seek not merely for a 'month or twain to feed on honeycomb,' but for all our years to taste no other food, ignorant all the while that we may really be starving the soul.

***


Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world. I cannot conceive of any other explanation. I am convinced that there is no other, and that if the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. Pleasure for the beautiful body, but pain for the beautiful soul. [/QUOTE]

 

[sweetnpetite]

bump

VEry interesting- care to elaborate?

dr. m,

I'd really like to hear some more about this.

 

[smutpen]

Fascinating and illuminating thread. Thanks for starting it, Sweet.

And to Gauche for some excellent explanations, and Perdita for that Oscar excerpt. Profound and moving.

Sweet, before I start babbling, I'm gonna say that I think it comes down to the very first sentence you wrote:

Suffering does not make life not worth living.

That's the bottom line, I think, though there are exceptions to every rule.


I'm not a Buddhist per se, but I try to be eclectic in my beliefs and philosophies, and there is much about Buddhism that appeals to me.

The question of suffering was certainly central to the Buddha's thinking.

As the story goes, when Prince Siddhartha Gautama was born, a seer predicted to his father that he would be either a great religious leader, or a great military and political leader. Dad immediately set out trying to game the prophecy. He reasoned that if the boy were never exposed to suffering, he would never be drawn to religion.

This backfired, as such things generally do.

When Siddhartha was nearly grown, he managed to unexpectedly leave the protected environment his father had created. Having never seen death, or sorrow, or sickness, he suddenly saw all three in one day, and the impact was devastating. He resolved to dedicate his life to finding a solution.

He tried the standard Hindu belief structure. He tried prayer, and fasting and everything else he had heard of or could think of, but he was unsatisfied. Then one day he sat beneath a Bo tree, and the realization which Gauche described came to him; that was when he became the Buddha; it's not a name, but a title, meaning something along the lines of The Awakened.

He saw that most of our suffering is mental, and that it arises from fear and desire, which arise from ego. He saw that by controlling fear and desire, the majority of unnecessary suffering we put ourselves through could be eliminated.

Luckily for me, the Buddha never wrote his teachings down, so I don't have to be hemmed in by a lot of rules and preconceptions when trying to understand his thoughts enough that I can benefit from them.

The Western mind, I think, often takes things too much at the surface level. And on the surface, it sounds like he was saying, "Be a robot." But he was not. Compassion was his key motivation, and a primary element of the ethical structure he fashioned. But compassion is a form of desire, though focused outwards.

I don't take it to mean that I should eliminate fear and desire, just that I should do my best not to let them drive me to sorrow and bitterness and despair.

When I do manage to push my rather oversized ego down for a while, I look past suffering, my own and the suffering of others, and I grasp intuitively that world is, essentially, the way it must be.

There can be no light without darkness, and there can be no joy without suffering (which is not to say that we can't or shouldn't do our best to try to cut down on the grief and pain in the world, if we can). But I accept, because (again, there are exceptions) to experience the suffering and the joy of one human life seems to me infinitely superior to experiencing neither, experiencing nothing at all.

There's a similar confusion that surrounds the Taoist goal of "Not Doing." It doesn't mean sit on your ass and do nothing; it means the kind of not doing that most of us experience in the context of art or sport. That feeling of harmony, that you are so in tune with the universe that you are "Not Doing," and everything just flows through you.

So the Taoist ideal is to live your whole life in that state. Unattainable, for me, but a worthy and useful goal.

I think the harmony between Buddhism and Taoism is one reason Buddhism still thrives in China, though it barely exists in India, where it was born.

On those rare occasions when I approach a little closer the state of mind I aspire to, I'm reminded of a phrase from the Bible: "The peace that passeth all understanding."

Odd that I found some small measure of that peace from Eastern thought, and never caught the slightest glimpse of it within the Judeo-Christian belief structure I was born into, and in which I first encountered the notion...

Okay, now I'm just rambling. Alcohol, y'know.

Good night.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Re: bump

dr. m,

I'd really like to hear some more about this.

Sorry, I've been off gathering wool in other pastures.

You asked about the notion that life is not about suffering, which I said was a fairly modern idea. I would date it back to about the time of the Enlightenment, about eighteenth century, where people began to believe that they had the power to change the world for good or evil. Before that, the predominant view of reality was provided by the Christian Church, which taught that society was divinely divided into 3 estates: the peasants, the warriors/nobles, and the clergy. Since God had designed things this way, it was seen as heretical to propose that things be changed. The Church taught that the world belonged to the devil, and that suffering was therefore man's lot by divine decree. The important thing was to concentrate on the world to come, where God's mercy and justice would prevail. The idea that life could be free of suffering--let alone that it should be--was simply blasphemous, and any attempts at subverting God's Ordained Order were attacked by nobility and clergy with remarkable ferocity.

For a good description of this world and the way they resisted change (as well as a lurid look at Europe ravaged by the Black Death and other colorful disasters) go get Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Centruy from, the library. It's a wonderfully readable and erudite saga of the unbelievable miseries and excesses of late feudal life. Sex, murder, folly, disaster... It's all here.

The American Revolution took place in the midst of this radical new idea that man could shape his ends using reason and rationality and that it was possible to make a better world, which was what made the idea of liberty so astonishingly appealing. (When you look at things the way they were before the revolution, it's hard to imagine why people would have been so excited about severing ties with England. It's only in the context of this new idea of equality and self-determination that the American Revolution amkes any sense at all.) That's why the idea of the pursuit of happiness really took root in America and remains largely a uniquely American idea, or myth some would say. The idea that we would be happy if only we could drop 20 pounds or have bigger tits or a longer cock or make more money... All those ideas are very American and, I would say, are looked at as very naive by most of the people in the world.

---dr.M.

 

[dirtylover]

Much of Buddest teaching I really do like- but I'm not sure that I agree with the idea's of escaping the cycle of re-birth, or even of escaping from all suffering.

yeah, i think that too, i don't want to escape life or any of its nuances...

 

[Guest]

Robert Thurman was in SF recently and interviewed by the SF Chron. Personally, I like his angle on meditation. Here are excerpts:

Thurman, who's just published "Infinite Life: Seven Virtues for Living Well,'' was the first Westerner ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk and one of Time magazine's 25 Most Influential People in 1997. He is a professor of Indo- Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and a close personal friend of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who wrote the book's introduction. He is also the author of "Inner Revolution,'' eight other books on Buddhism and Tibetan culture including a translation of "The Tibetan Book of the Dead," and is actress Uma Thurman's father.
...
Thurman argues that Buddhism -- even for non-Buddhists -- provides a framework for living a meaningful, even exemplary, life. "People have a tendency to think that Buddhism is a kind of mysticism and therefore (Buddhists) aren't concerned with good and evil, they don't have ethics, they don't worry about behavior," he says. "They think it's like, 'Forget the world, let's go attain nirvana,' or something."
...
"For them, happiness is sensory pleasure, mainly," he explains. "It could be social status or fame or wealth as they grow older; initially it's just pleasure." In contrast, the idea behind "Infinite Life" is that all beings are grounded in interconnectedness.
...
On a more personal level, Thurman argues there's no intrinsic reason Westerners should have trouble grasping the fundamentals of Buddhism. For instance, he thinks meditation should be taught to children. "Learning to meditate is like getting a clicker for your TV," he says. "When the commercial comes on ... you click to another channel or you hit the mute button. But in our own minds, we don't have a mute button or a clicker, because we don't have the training and concentration. If you get that training and concentration ... then you just shut down that line of thought."

Buddhism, he says, is a way to find true joy in life; his book often frames this discussion in accessible terms, using examples from movies -- though he says this wasn't a deliberate attempt to be more accessible. "Unfortunately, that's the way I think," he says, polishing off my ice cream. "My new guru in life is Bill Murray, because actually the best metaphor for the infinite life, the reincarnation thing, is 'Groundhog Day.' You keep coming back until you get it right. When you get it right, then you have a really great time. Nirvana means you live with other beings in a really happy way.

"And we all could, in the 21st century -- if we used our brains a little better."

full interview

 

[smutpen]

Re: Re: bump

Before that, the predominant view of reality was provided by the Christian Church...

Dr. M --

Whoops. I see that I miscredited Gauche for your earlier contribution; I was cross-eyed or something last night. Sorry.

There's definitely truth to your allegation here. I am as likely as the next guy, maybe a little more so, to cast blame on the institutions of Christianity. When I encounter people who openly say that we gotta get Gawd back into government, I like to say, "We tried that once. It was called 'The Dark Ages.'"

But the peculiar pessimism of the old orthodox Christian outlook is, I think, at least in in part, a manifestation of a much older phenomenom, going back at least to Sumerian beliefs.

The Babylonian Enuma Elish is just a re-telling of the older Sumerian story, with Semitic names for the pantheon (the same basic pantheon which later acquired Greek and then Latin names), and with the dominant role of Enlil assumed by Marduk, the local city god of Babylon.

Marduk, at the behest of the other gods, slays the queen of the monsters opposing them, Tiamat. He splits her body open "like a fish," and uses half her body to make the Earth, and the other half to make the sky. Somewhere along the way, he also kills her chief lieutenant (and lover), Kingu. From the blood of Kingu, the gods make humanity.

We are made to be the servants, essentially the slaves, of the gods. Mainly to build and maintain their temples and keep up on the sacrifices. And because we are made from the blood of an evil monster, we are inherently infected with that evil.

I think this concept is a progenitor of what persisted in Christianity as "original sin."

To some extent, the Sumerian beliefs must represent an even older viewpoint, but I have seen it argued that while the Egyptian beliefs were generally optimistic (if perhaps a bit death-obsessed for my tastes) due to the stable and reliable geopolitical situation of ancient Egypt, the Sumerian mythos reflected the harsh uncertainties of life in Mesopotamia.

 

[sweetnpetite]

my take

I enjoyed your post- one comment however:

but I have seen it argued that while the Egyptian beliefs were generally optimistic (if perhaps a bit death-obsessed for my tastes)

I think perhaps the Egyptians *seem* death obsessed to us, because our culture is one of death denial. We do everything we can to prevent death, and to aviod having to deal with it on a personal level. Then, although we'd all like to be remembered when we go, we aviod talking about the dead, because we feel that we need to let go and move on, and that mentioning dead loved ones will be too painful. We use the words 'dead' and 'die' all the time in conversation- as an exageration or 'figure of speach' but when someone really dies, we say that they have 'passed on' or use other 'euphamisms as if our words can soften the truth of what has happened.

A book I am reading points out that when death comes, everyone acts shocked. We believe that we can and should eliminate death- we look on it as a defeat, rather than a natural part of life. We sepeate it from ourselves to the degree that many won't even discuss important things like wills even when it's clearly necessary- such as before a major opperation or when someone is very old. These topics are considered 'morbid' rather than practical and neccessary. We arent' even given a chance to properly grieve- 2 or 3 days and we are expected to go back to work and get things back to normal.

In MoonStruck, Cher's mom says that she thinks that the reason men cheat is because they are afraid of death. After all that I have read about this topic, which most people go out of there way to avoid, I finally understand this statement. Our death denying culture forces us to suppress our fears and distance ourselves from proof that we grow older (towards death) or become sick. At the same time, our desire for imortality leads us to *subconsiously* try to leave something of ourselves behind (a child, a novel, a monument...) With the egyptians, they did these things consiously, rather than subconsiously- so to us, they seem obsessed with death, when in fact they simply accepted and planned for, rather than denying, the inevitable.

 

[gauchecritic]

I have been made privy to parts of Perdita's Nano novel and can tell you Sweet that the Mexican culture embraces death, as far as I can ascertain, in a very laudable and healthy way.

Older generations of Yorkshire people and (guessing here) farmers families have a very 'public' view of death, it happens so deal with it, or so it seemed when I was growing up.

Gauche

 

[NoJo]

In the last two weeks I've been around death a lot; I discovered and had to help lift onto a bed the corpse of a relative; I then attended this relative's Jewish style funeral and week-long wake (the first one I've attended); days after that I "celebrated" the first anniversary of my fathers death, in the tranquil Derbyshire Dales with my Mum.

When my father died a year ago we had an Irish style wake (mainly becasue I organized it, and, well, any excuse to get shit-faced). The Jewish wake -- the "Shiva", lasts a week, and is similar in some ways to the Irish wake, in that there's a lot of chat and laughing, but food replaces booze.

You cover all the paintings and mirrors in the house (some mumbo-jumbno about spirits, methinks), and light a big candle that stays lit for a month. You ceremonially tear your clothes (don't go to one in your Kenzo suit) and pray. You have a "open house" where friends, well wishers and complete strangers schnorring for snacks drop by.

 

[sweetnpetite]

That's good

Of course when I say "we" and "our culture/society" and so forth- I'm refering to the my own and not everybodies here at lit.

From what I've heard, Mexican culter embrased everything rather passionatly My neighbor (older Mexican ladie) told me that when you marry there they celebrate nonstop for days at a time. Sounds fantastic! In mainstream USA, we have zero natioinal celibrations that last more than 1 day. (Less your catholic, then you have lent, or jewish then you have haunikka) Sometimes we have a 'long weekend' but the most that might amount to is 2 or three days with the barbeque.

I have been made privy to parts of Perdita's Nano novel and can tell you Sweet that the Mexican culture embraces death, as far as I can ascertain, in a very laudable and healthy way.

Older generations of Yorkshire people and (guessing here) farmers families have a very 'public' view of death, it happens so deal with it, or so it seemed when I was growing up.

Gauche

 

[smutpen]

Re: my take

I enjoyed your post- one comment however:

I think perhaps the Egyptians *seem* death obsessed to us, because our culture is one of death denial.

I couldn't agree more about our culture. If you're interested, you might want to check out the seminal, Pulitzer prize-winning book by Ernest Becker, "The Denial of Death."

Becker's clear, unflinching examination of the role that this denial has played and continues to play in shaping human culture and personality is heavy, challenging stuff. But people who've read it are virtually unanimous in calling it a profound and life-changing work.

It seems to me that the Egyptian mania with the alleged afterlife is another symptom of the same affliction.

By contrast, my favorite ancient text on the subject is the Sumerian epic, "Gilgamesh."

Gilgamesh goes a little crazy when his friend and companion, Enkidu, dies. He goes on a quest for the secret of immortality. Along the way he meets gods and demigods, and even the Noah of the Sumerian Flood story (Utnapishtim). All tell him the same thing: "You are chasing after a puff of air." Go home, they tell him, hold you wife and your children, do your duty by your society, live the life you have. Immortality just isn't in the cards. And Gilgamesh finally sees the wisdom in this.

Many people are unsatisfied with such an answer, precisely because it fails to support denial. To me, it's the only answer that makes sense.