*Had an insight last night* - Seeking Leads to Suffering...

zenmyste

Last night I had a little insight.

Something happened which I already knew but hadn't 'hit' me like it did last night..

I was doing my usual reading last night, and I've never really been aware that I was 'seeking' anything. But clearly i must be seeking 'something' hence why I'm into buddhism and zen etc etc...

Anyway, so I'm reading then there was a knock at the door, as soon as I heard the knock, something happend, (as if I was dragged into the now and I wasn't seeking anything or desireing anything) i was just completely 'there' / existing / just being..
Its as if when I heared the knock, that was the 'now' I was seeking. I didn't have the 'need' to keep reading or the 'need' to seek anything because where I was 'that was 'it'

I can't explain it simply unfortunitely which I think is a shame!

Everything just 'didn't matter' anymore.
Even buddhism itself,
Even zen,
Even my progress - just didn't matter.
Because I was in the NOW!!

That's when it hit me that, my 'seeking mind' was suffering mind..
I'd always agreed with this but I'd never experienced it like this before..

I've posted a lot of questions lately and it hit me that clearly I was seeking 'something' and I was seeking 'outside'
I was reading all your answers to try and make 'me' content..
But it was this seeking and asking which was making me suffer..

I haven't got a clue what's next for me, Or even if this feeling will pass, (probably will as everything passes)
However, I do understand that for me, when I seek, i suffer..
So I no longer want or have to seek anything! (At the moment)

Its only been half a day since this insight!
I went to bed so happy, and was looking foward to seeing how I was when I woke up! Because usually I do abit of reading before work but this morning I didn't 'need' to, I was just content with being 'me'

What I figured out though is; the seeking I'm refering to is 'spiritual seeking'
"When one is spiritually seeking, then they will suffer because there is nothing to spiritually seek"
There's nothing to gain.
There's no enlightenment to attain, there I am definitely not saying I am enlightened. NO WAY, but because I no longer believe that there is a 'spiritual enlightenment' to achieve..

Things as they are, 'is it'
All this around me 'is just it'
At the moment I'm happy and conent.

For the first time in years, I haven't brought a book to work with me. I always carried one in my bag!
But not this morning!!!

Strange!!!

caz

Let us see how long this lasts.

taiyaki

The bigbang occurs spontaneously in every instant. We chain this instant via memory and create self, other, space, time, etc.

If nothing is chained and we see thus come and thus gone then the unborn essence and nature of awareness will be realized.

Just this moment. The appearances. Both clear and void. There is nothing else to look for but what is apparently arising.

Best wishes.

Cinorjer

Wonderful!

Try not to dwell on it too much, but don't minimize the importance of these flashes of insight, either.

You're obviously doing it right, whatever "it" is.

zenknight

It sounds like a positive samadhi experience. Along the path you get glimpses into the way reality really is. These experiences happen spontaneously and they are magnificent and unforgettable. These experiences motivate us to continue our meditation practice. I suppose you can say the goal is to attain absolute samadhi but be very careful with setting goals and trying to attain anything. The journey and the practice is the reward itself. I practice because it brings me tremendous joy and fulfillment. If I do not attain enlightenment in this lifetime or the next, it doesn't matter because being on the path is being truly happy.

Cloud

@zenmyste, Good stuff. I'd say though that if you still suffer in any way during your daily life, the worldly life, then you should know that's what the problem is. I'm not sure what your spiritual seeking is like... it might just be you're seeking for something other than the origin and cessation of suffering (that's the effective seeking)... but the Path itself is supposed to make us suffer. It's supposed to make that suffering so evident that we can't avoid it, that we have to find a way out of it by recognizing its cause and abandoning that cause.

Keep us posted!

Arthurbodhi

Good!
Why this don't surprise me?
Reading all your questions and answers that you have (really good ones by the way) I expect this, is like you actually was seeking this all the time and just need a little support by others, when actually you really have the real answer in yourself.

I really hope you find true happy whatever path (or pathless) you take.

Blessing friend.

Jeffrey

Buddha said that there was enlightenment.
So I think there is something more.

Telly03

Thanks for sharing

I like the idea of writing down realizations, I think lessons can be relearned by revisiting where you were at the time so you don't slip back into the same rut.

pegembara

Whenever i read accounts as these, i am reminded of Hsin-hsin-ming.

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.

When the deep meaning of things is not understood the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

The Way is perfect like vast space when nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.

Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things.

http://allspirit.co.uk/hsinhsinming.html

seeker242

That sounds great. Just as long as you don't stop practicing because of it. I did that once and all hell broke loose. Biggest mistake of my life! Ha!

federica

Seeking Leads to Suffering...

So what else is new........?

David

Sometimes the answer is so simple that it is hard to see and it takes a sudden realisation.

Good stuff.

Sabre

Seeking Leads to Suffering...

So what else is new........?

I recently heard that craving leads to suffering!

Cloud

@Sabre, Aha. Well craving and seeking are really the same thing, no?

how

Have we not all had simple understandings, that we would have sworn that we absolutely knew, drop deeper into our being to demonstrate how limited that former understanding really was.
Welcome to another day on the zafu.

Sabre

@Sabre, Aha. Well craving and seeking are really the same thing, no?

Not if you are seeking for the toilet, than you are bound to let go!


Ok, enough bad jokes @zenmyste

If we stop seeking, stop following the path, one thing is for sure: we will suffer again in the future. This apparent contradiction between craving/seeking/desire is not new, we can find it in the suttas:

Unnabha made the following argument against the Buddha's path:

"If that's so, Master Ananda, then it's an endless path, and not one with an end, for it's impossible that one could abandon desire by means of desire."

But Ananda explained him why it doesn't work that way. We need a bit of desire (or call it seeking) to end craving, to cultivate kindness. This is right effort.

But I can agree with you that seeking too much 'outside' is not a very fruitful way. Happy for you that you can give that up a bit.

Cloud

Right on. The craving to end craving. When we see that craving is really behind our intentions, behind everything we do (every move we make), and that it's really the cause of suffering... we undertake a practice that is aimed toward eliminating the very roots of that craving (which are based in ignorance, not seeing reality as it truly is). That practice is the Noble Eightfold Path.

It's only a seeming paradox, rather than a real one. The further along in your practice, the less craving you will have, while at the same time the more clearly you will see reality and so will continue to unbind. The entire process is an unbinding, with final unbinding being Nirvana.

Songhill

The Buddha never said that "seeking leads to suffering." It is desire (trsna) for the conditioned that is responsible for suffering since the conditioned (e.g., pañcaskanaha) is suffering.

Captain_America

@zenmyste, ... but the Path itself is supposed to make us suffer. It's supposed to make that suffering so evident that we can't avoid it, that we have to find a way out of it by recognizing its cause and abandoning that cause.

Keep us posted!

Ugh that confuses me. So to end suffering you have to seek the Path, which leads to suffering because you're suffering from seeking and pre existing suffering. On top of all that suffering, the path that you're going through so much suffering in seeking is supposed to cause more suffering so that you can somehow end it? I don't get it. Probably because I'm new to Buddhism. Could someone...*puts on sunglasses* enlighten me? :P

Cloud

Let me put it another way. If you're just living according to your likes and dislikes, you'll be happy sometimes and unhappy others, but won't fully recognize/accept that you're just flip-flopping between those two states and that it's endless. When you follow the Path it's meant to show you that you're caught in this cycle, and that this up-down-up-down is itself what's meant by Samsara. We're never really satisfied; any satisfaction is fleeting, because things change. Even in the very midst of worldly happiness, we know that it won't last.

The Path simultaneously asks us to stop the unwholesome acts that keep us in this cycle, and to nurture the wholesome acts that themselves alleviate suffering and are directly opposed to the unwholesome ones. Taken together these break us free from Samsara, leading to peace. There are eight factors of the path that work together toward this one goal.

The peace of enlightenment, of Nirvana, is beyond these worldly ups and downs, and is unshakeable. It's a true happiness as opposed to a happiness mired in suffering.

Perhaps "make us suffer" was a little too much. Mea culpa.

Captain_America

So for someone like me, who is new to the ideas of Buddhism, how am I to avoid suffering but seek out answers to my suffering?

Cloud

When I was starting out, it was mostly about studying and understanding what Buddhism teaches. There are websites with a lot of information, like http://www.buddhanet.net. I mean if you don't have a teacher, and most people don't, that's a good place to begin. We have to understand the ways in which we suffer, and the reasons we suffer. Also the nature of our existence as being transient and selfless (not-self).

Avoidance isn't really what it's about. We have to face it, understand why it happens, and overcome it. That's really what Buddhism is about, overcoming our suffering. We only suffer because of our ignorance, our not-knowing how things really are. The first step is in seeing what the Buddha had to say about it, and coming to an initial conceptual understanding of the Buddhist teachings. Then we know what we're really practicing toward, and why.

DairyLama

I've always been very curious (!) with a need to look deeply to try to understand how things really are. Is that a kind of seeking?

Sabre

So for someone like me, who is new to the ideas of Buddhism, how am I to avoid suffering but seek out answers to my suffering?

In meditation you can see how suffering is created in the mind. We create it by chasing and holding on to anger, lust, greed, attachments. We want things to be this way and not that way. Wanting to become this and to not become that. This is all a cause of suffering; conditions aren't always going to be as we want them. So we have to adjust the wanting instead of the conditions.

So in meditation, you let go of things. Just let things be and naturally develop. No need to create things. Just see what there is, see what is not needed, and what can be let go of.

This will lead to an understanding that does not need words. You will have some answers right there. You can read 100 books, but without applying meditation, it has no use.

Captain_America

So for someone like me, who is new to the ideas of Buddhism, how am I to avoid suffering but seek out answers to my suffering?

In meditation you can see how suffering is created in the mind. We create it by chasing and holding on to anger, lust, greed, attachments. We want things to be this way and not that way. Wanting to become this and to not become that. This is all a cause of suffering; conditions aren't always going to be as we want them. So we have to adjust the wanting instead of the conditions.

So in meditation, you let go of things. Just let things be and naturally develop. No need to create things. Just see what there is, see what is not needed, and what can be let go of.

This will lead to an understanding that does not need words. You will have some answers right there. You can read 100 books, but without applying meditation, it has no use.

Not that I'm questioning what you've just said, but I've heard that some types of Buddhism don't "need" meditation. How does that play into things? Hell, what type of Buddhism do you follow? These are probably bad questions that I'd be better off reading into somewhere but I guess I'll ask anyway.

DairyLama

but I've heard that some types of Buddhism don't "need" meditation.

There's one school that just does chanting, possibly Nichiren?

Sabre

Not that I'm questioning what you've just said, but I've heard that some types of Buddhism don't "need" meditation. How does that play into things? Hell, what type of Buddhism do you follow? These are probably bad questions that I'd be better off reading into somewhere but I guess I'll ask anyway.

Meditation is part of the 8-fold path, so if it's real Buddhism, it has meditation. So I also don't think there are 'types' of Buddhism. To me, there is just Buddhism. I think the Buddha never made a distinction between certain types or teachings for one or the other. There are types of practitioners, though. As many as there are Buddhists.

That having said I can say I am inspired by teachers from all traditions, but for my source of information on what the Buddha said, I mainly go back to the pali canon. And thus you could consider me to follow Therevada, although I don't think that kind of division is really useful.

And by the way, it's ok to question me.