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Re: Suffering is a drug?
@person said:
I wouldn't want to encourage an attitude of denying someone's pain or simply telling them to suck it up. But going forward if by comforting without encouraging resilience are you also rewarding and reinforcing the painful emotions?
I have been thinking about how I handle suffering:
- Small bits of suffering: ignore, it builds character and mental strength
- Long term low level suffering: treat by looking into the causes, letting go of things as necessary
- Acute suffering: treat with mindfulness, painkillers as necessary
It’s a good thing to be able to be at ease. But one has to be able to ignore the discomfort that comes with exertion, you have to be a bit robust in how you handle suffering. Athletes learn this too about their bodies, there are pain barriers that you need to push through.
Suffering that comes with illness and injury, you kind of have to bear it, but it challenges the feelings of those around you. It calls forth empathy, friendship, love.
Jeroen
Re: Suffering is a drug?
I was on a beginners Buddhist meditation retreat. The teacher had completed 8 years of solitary meditation @person.
At the start of their retreat, the temple was undergoing major noisy building repairs. They asked their teacher how could disturbance to their 'peaceful' meditation be accomplished.
It was as you mention in your post, all in the reaction…
https://www.mindful.org/even-loud-sounds-meditation-practice/
lobster
Re: Suffering is a drug?
Something from long ago that stuck with me. When my niece was about 2 (she's 19 now) we were watching a big freight ship come into harbor. It blew its horn and it was very loud, startling us all. I was back a bit while my sister held her daughter, I saw her face (I don't think anyone else did) begin to react with a cry. But all us adults laughed at the startle, she saw our reaction and began to laugh as well.
I've thought about this small episode in regards to how it may have shaped her life. What if we all would have been upset and she learned to be afraid and hurt by being startled like that. If she would have cried anyway in spite of our reaction I'm certain my sister would have comforted her. But its like which reaction to something like that do you want to encourage and attempt to instill? What will create mentally healthier and happier people? Comforting the hurt or learning to not be hurt in the first place?
I wouldn't want to encourage an attitude of denying someone's pain or simply telling them to suck it up. But going forward if by comforting without encouraging resilience are you also rewarding and reinforcing the painful emotions?
person
Re: Suffering is a drug?
Suffering is a drug?
I imagine there is a balance to be found and probably something for me to learn and try to integrate.
I'm under the impression this 'balance' (aka Middle Way way between over-compensating and under-compensating) is not something one learns to integrate, it's a thing which develops naturally as part and parcel of one's ongoing Dharma practice...
We suffer because we crave & cling... clinging & craving is a drug.
Shoshin1
Re: Suffering is a drug?
I think different methods work for different people, and we should all do our own thing.
You can work it out by Fractions or by simple Rule of Three,
But the way of Tweedle-dum is not the way of Tweedle-dee.
You can twist it, you can turn it, you can plait it till you drop,
But the way of Pilly Winky's not the way of Winkie Pop!
zorro
Re: The Art of Happiness
I have a bad smelling zen confession from the bah humbug collections..
When our mentality reduces one's worth in the world to whether we are happy or not, serious suffering is already in play.
Here, even the "May all beings be happy", sounds like more soporific twaddle.
I think the word "happiness" is very vague, especially when thought of as something that's good and worthy of being sought after. It's just an emotion. It will come and go. It is morally neutral and may very well be a cause of one's wider delusion & suffering.
A Meditation teacher that I respected used to say, "A dog asleep in the sun is happy. If that's really all you're after, please don't hesitate to take that snoozing somewhere else."
Society today chases after happiness like junkies tweaking after stimulations that will never be enough.
Did the Buddha teach anything more than how to awaken from such dreaming's.
how
Re: The Art of Happiness
@Jeroen you might find it interesting to read a bit about research into subjective well-being (SWB). From what I gather, SWB increases with wealth, up to a certain point where it does not any more. So the 'intuitive' answer that we need to have the basics covered but don't need Ferraris appears to hold true.
marcitko
The Art of Happiness
A friend on another forum said to me, “You seem to want to idealise poor people. Would you ever choose to live long-term as a poor man in India?”
I would wish for them to have happiness, which cannot be bought, but which can be found in Freedom. I don’t think that’s idealising people, just acknowledging that the quest for happiness is universal.
Often it is people’s desires that make them unhappy, whether they realise it or not. People who think they are too fat, lonely and wanting a rich husband, envious of the status of others, it all is desire and part of the mind.
So I think whether you are rich or poor, there is a way to happiness, as long as you know the art of being satisfied with life’s small pleasures. A cup of tea, or a favourite piece of music on the radio.
As a child, your expectations are small. As an adult, things get out of hand. Your desires get large, until you start on the spiritual path and let it all go again, recognising the ultimate futility of the thing. And in the end you are satisfied with a cup of tea again.
In Poonjaji the other day I read “this is the discrimination of the burning ghat: in the end there is nothing left of your body but a few ounces of ash.” And you can’t take possessions, money or family with you when you go.
Jeroen