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[BK] Pre-Start Question. Do you agree that a lot of Buddhist books seem to exaggerate suffering ?
While reading this book and remembering the other Buddhist books I read, (I have to say though it seems to happen mostly with Theravada books, not so much Zen) I notice that they tend to portray people outside of the Buddhist path as just a real unhappy mess.
In my mind it comes off almost like an infomercial, where you see a person struggling like hell to cut a potato or to answer the phone without having their blanket fall on the ground.
In my mind it comes off almost like an infomercial, where you see a person struggling like hell to cut a potato or to answer the phone without having their blanket fall on the ground.
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Around here people are constantly sending me -- mostly with tongue in cheek -- advertising for talismans or programs or books that promise enlightenment in the next five minutes. Naturally each thing advertised is better than all the rest -- less top-heavy with ritual, less burdened with agenda ... blah, blah, blah. And naturally, each come-on carries a price tag. I am happy to think someone is getting rich, but I do not intend to help them do it.
Anyone can turn anything into something to sell. Whether it's worth buying or not is up to the customer. Personally, I buy into Buddhism ... but that's my problem, not something to inflict on others.
I'm reading a travelogue by Andrew Harvey of a trip he made to Ladakh in the early 1980's. The new Rinpoche at Hemis Monstastery is only 20 yrs. old, and got a Western Education in India. And he's saying something I've observed myself, it was refreshing to hear it from a Tibetan. He said Tibetans and Westerners are switching roles; the Tibetans mostly are running after Western things, the young ones are becoming materialists, while the Westerners who come to Buddhism take it very seriously and are sincere about it. They're better Buddhists than many Tibetans who consider themselves Buddhists.
These books who stereotype Westerners are overlooking Westerners who are naturally inclined to spiritual values, whether they belong to a spiritual tradition or not.
"Taken at face value, most of us in the West would dispute the truth of suffering. Not evrything in our lives and in the world is suffering. Yes, there is much suffering in the world--both mental and physical--and life is often unsatisfactory. We are not going to live forever, so there is always that uncertainty hovering over us. But on the scale of suffering, some of us seem to suffer less than others, and on occasion we all rather enjoy ourselves. Of course, we are talking here about something that points to a much deeper level of experience. But while it is all very well to say this, most Western people can't relate to it..
In traditional cultures, whre there is more respect for Buddhadharma, and the teaching itself has greater charisma, people tend to accept the truth of suffering, whether they understand it or not. It has a cultural meaning for them, and they can go on to train to see the turht of it. Lacking that background, we might easily think that Buddhism must be intrinsically depressing and certainly not life affirming.
Early Western commentators, looking at the first translations of Buddhist texts, sometimes portrayed Buddhism as being negative and pessimistic. I feel there is no point in pressing on that particular nerve. The Buddha's teaching contains many things, and while the nature of dukkha is fundamental, we can let it emerge gradually, if it does. Who knows? Maybe we will find that, in some deep and profound way, life is wonderful after all, even from a Buddhist perspective.
The most important thing is to experience the nature of our worlds as directly as we can. I say "worlds" because our seemingly common world is made up of all of our very different emotions, ideas, and projections. We can at least aspire to become free of notions and projections about how the world should be, and try to experience things as they are.
That simple act of aspiring to be free, to be free insofar as we can be free is more inspiring than we think."
I'll give my take if anyone 'bites' on my spiel
And the image of an infomercial capsulates that perfectly in my opinion, where sometimes it can be troublesome to cut a potato its never that exaggerated hardship they put on infomercials.
and Jeff I agree that accepting things as they are is a key component to happiness but this also plays into my point. A lot of non-buddhists do accept things as they are. The serenity prayer is hugely well known and embodies just that,
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
No. This seems like a re-hash of the old idea that Buddhism is pessimistic. This misunderstanding arose mostly from the intellectual European tradition's initial investigations into Buddhism, and was subsequently refuted (e.g., by William James et al). :buck:
W/cheer,
:buck:
I was just thinking about this, while working!:) Yes!
"You've probably heard the rumor that Buddhism is pessimistic, that "Life is suffering" is the Buddha's first noble truth. It's a rumor with good credentials, spread by well-respected academics and meditation teachers alike, but a rumor nonetheless. The real truth about the noble truths is far more interesting....
It's hard to imagine what you could accomplish by saying that life is suffering. You'd have to spend your time arguing with people who see more than just suffering in life....
So the first noble truth, simply put, is that CLINGING is suffering.... Are we clinging in ways that serve only to continue the round of suffering, or are we learning to cling in ways that will reduce suffering so that ultimately we can grow up and won't have to cling. If we negotiate life armed with all four noble truths, realizing that life contains both suffering and an end to suffering, there's hope: hope that we'll be able to sort out which parts of life belong to which truth; hope that someday, in this life, we'll come to the point where we agree with the Buddha, "Oh. Yes. This is the end of suffering and stress."
Source: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/refuge.html#lif
:buck:
"We stubble through our jungle of craving, either suppression a habit or replacing it with another in order to cope with our addictive tendencies" p.23
Un-buddhist life is not moving from one addictive tendency to another, either indulging or suppressing. A lot of regular people have balance in life and know how to lead good daily lives.
This is what I mean about exaggeration. Its a unrealistic description of life without Buddhism.
What if the "suffering" referred to in Buddhism carried no negative connotation, if it were merely a way of describing blue sky as "blue," if it were just one tentative way of referring to that other overburdened word, "enlightenment?"
To say is very true, but those people still experience suffering, unless they're fully awakened. Before I took up practice I was extremely adept at hiding my suffering and appeared to the world as calm, happy, friendly, confident. Inside was a different story altogether, I was miserable and struggling for years but the people I interacted with on a daily basis were convinced I was really happy. So from my perspective suffering is rarely exaggerated, it's simply emphasized to provide a clear understanding of it.
After a year of practice I'm a million times happier now, but I still experience suffering just in much subtle less intense ways that don't last as long. What suffering remains I still hope or at least strive to eliminate. That's what the Buddha taught afterall, and I don't believe he taught something what was unattainable or only attainable for the few.
But I have a similar reaction sometimes to teachings in person. Sometimes it's all about hate and jealousy and envy, and I think: "Who lives like that?" I can't help but wonder (especially after seeing some Buddhist films) if maybe it's cultural. The monasteries get some pretty raw material to work with, kids given away, some of whom are in no way suited to the spiritual life. Maybe these teachings are geared towards them. Are people really this petty? There's good, solid material in Buddhism, but this kind of thing isn't it. Can we cut to the chase? This is my thought process when I hear or read this kind of thing.
Hi, TiaP. Nice to have you back.
Yes, many people have outward balance, in the sense that they perform many types of activities and receive benefits from them. Yet that is no guarantee that they experience inward balance, peace of mind. In fact, performing so many activities could indicate a struggle against the quiet, undetermined moments of life. As Sucitto says, "... we fill our hunger with something to eat, drink, read, or talk about." So craving can propel us to do many things, making it all the more baffling why we feel like an anxious mess inside. I don't know if I actually believe the author's argument, but it seems somewhat reasonable.
I also dont think that the hunger is necessarily a bad thing. It depends on what you hunger for. If you hunger just for feeling good and having a good time you will indeed be out of balance. I am much more of the mentality of work hard play hard.
What would happen if we were 100% blissfully content all the time, totally quenching that hunger? What would happen to our motivation to interact with the world? Would we still create art, explore space, and dream of new societies? Why create anything new if everyone's totally content staring at a wall all day?