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But life isnt suffering!
I've been talking about buddhism with people of late, and one consistent response I get is: "Well I don't think life is suffering."
Whats up with that denial- any thoughts?
Whats up with that denial- any thoughts?
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Life is actually pretty lovely.
All experience is inevitably Dukka, even the good stuff.
"Truth is beauty, beauty, truth" or something like that anyway, I can't remember the quote
i dont know. i still think its a denial - is it anyways in the literal meaning of the word. and i wonder whether the ego blocks this? one person who denied was just complaining to me a couple weeks before about how he was frustrated with his life.
Buddhism is the opposite of self-denial, I think, in that it makes you think about things that normal people just ignore until they are forced not to... like impermanence. They often think it is morbid or depressing to focus on such things, but the reality is that these things will come whether you like it or not. Where they get confused is in thinking that by focusing such things, you are only seeing the negative in life. In actual application, however, I feel that by being aware of the impermanence of all things, I can truly be thankful and happy at the moment, even sometimes through the bad. I guess, it helps me focus on the big picture rather than my small distorted view based on my faulty perception (which can be based on emotions and hormones and sleep level etc etc).
I’d start with explaining that Buddhism is a way of life; not doing harm; meditating that sort of thing. And I think I’d say that this way of life is helping me in finding inner peace.
Many people feel they could use some inner peace, I think.
And to the wrong people at the wrong time you can waste heaps of time explaining what their lives really look like, susceptible to disease, decay and death. Sorrow, pain, grief, in the end loosing all they held dear and what dukkha really means and so on and so forth.
But if they are currently in a too good station they will not want to listen.
This sutta explains it pretty good.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.113.than.html
Good luck.
/Victor
Of the four physical sufferings, I've been over the birth suffering for over 60 years. I am just getting into the old age suffering, with some sickness, and I know eventually I will die. But in between birth and old age, there were lots of years -- the so-called "prime of life" years, where that aspect of suffering was not going on. Yes, occasionally I might have gotten sick, but mostly I felt pretty good, in terms of physical health.
In terms of mental suffering, yes, sometimes I have been separated from loved ones and suffered, sometimes I have come in contact with unpleasant people (including on this forum) and suffered, and sometimes my desires have been frustrated and I have suffered. But not all the time.
To me this Noble Truth is saying yes, there are unquestionably going to be periods of suffering in your life. I don't read it as saying that's every day. So I don't life as suffering, but I do see life as periodic periods of suffering. It's a fact of life, but it's not all of life.
This potential for suffering exists in everything. It may never arise, but it also may arise, and we can never know if it will or won't. When we attempt to derive our happiness from the world we certainly can have some relative success, but that only heightens the degree of suffering should our success sour.
When we become aware of this then that awareness can remove all desire for attaining and experiencing worldly pleasure because we recognise the potential for greater suffering to arise through our grasping - this awareness itself is the ultimate suffering, and what perhaps is meant by 'life is suffering', because now we see the potential for suffering in all of life and we hesitate to embrace it.
This suffering is relieved when and only when we seek happiness independent of the world through the practice of a non-attached mind.
Buddha said the problem is that people suffer. He didn't say life is nothing but suffering for everyone. That would be a short and brutal life, and in fact is true for millions of people in the world today. Tell the starved skeleton-like children trying to live on a spoonful of rice a day in Africa that life isn't suffering. Tell the child with bruises and broken bones from her own abusive parents that life isn't suffering.
But that's the exception. For most of us life isn't all suffering. But the problem is still suffering. Everyone suffers once in a while. You're completely happy right now? Congratulations. I'm glad for you. How many empty, foreclosed houses did you drive past, to get to the job that at least you still have? You're happy? Fine. You're surrounded by people who are suffering, who are not as lucky or gifted or smart as you.
Now some people don't give a damn about that. Suffering is something that happens to other people. They brought it on themselves. Your job will never go away. Your loved ones will never get sick. Disaster will never happen to you. If that's true, then I'm happy for you.
But for the rest of us, Buddhism says the problem is, people are suffering. I'm part of that group who wants to roll up my sleeves and do something about it.
But then it turns on you and everything is wrong.
Because of this phenomena we have Buddhism, which works on the mind to understand the dichotomy. You cannot have mahasukkha without mahadukkha.
When Jesus (allegedly) said "Suffer the children unto me", he meant bring the children into the light (his teachings) so that they may learn.
You can think of suffering in that sense. That the way out of our personal darkness is by the way of learning the path to enlightenment as we see fit.
Of course there are lovely bits too but there is no denying that there is dukkha in life.
It's that constant longing for something else, the ego grasping that makes us keep wanting more or thinking we are incomplete in some way. Of course finding a new lover or buying a new car eases it temporarily but before long it's back again, the nagging thought that I need something else to make me happy.
The truth of awakening is discovering you are already complete and need nothing to make you whole.
Edit Note: I think you're fine....
thefreedictionary.com/unsatisfactoriness.... Yea, I believe that sums it up very well... It's such a 'simple' thing... Amazing that we just don't get it....
From Wikipedia, one of the eight types of dukkha is:
All-pervasive suffering: a very subtle dissatisfaction that exists all the time; it arises as a reaction to the qualities of conditioned things (e.g. the impermanence of things).
Full description here.
We are so often like children born and raised in an abusive family, not knowing any alternative, and thinking that level of pain and darkness is normal.
It's easy to get complacent when one isn't currently experiencing or seeing suffering close-up; I find it helpful to recall intense moments of suffering and realize that all through the world, at this very moment, people and animals are suffering just as intensely. Not as a way to become totally incapacitated with depression, but as a powerful incentive to keep on the path.
Last year some people in my passed away and/or were suffering from cancer. I remarked on it to my friend who is a social worker. He said, "It seems unusual to you now, but in reality it's all around us, all the time, just down the street. Once in a while, we are personally reminded of that."
True joy is found not in being happy when we personally are doing okay, but in realizing there's a path for ourselves and all beings leading out of suffering, forever.
To answer your question, I think that many people misinterpret this idea as that of a cynical chronically depressed person and nobody wants to be or deal with someone like that. Believe me, I know. Still, speaking as a chronically depressed person, I understand that happiness is possible and I have had plenty of it in my life. The problem is that is it just not constant. That, to me, is where the suffering comes in.
"And what , bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering? it should be said: the five aggregates subject to clinging; that is, the form aggregate subject to clinging [all the way to] the consciousness aggregate subject to clinging. This is called the noble truth of suffering" (S.v.425).
This body, that we presently cling to, we believe to be our self. But the Buddha says that this body is not the self (anattâ) and what suffers is not the self (anattâ) (S. iii. 45). By implication, only the self does not suffer, that is, the Buddha-nature.
I can appreciate how you were able to connect suffering with the
Buddha nature teachings. Very concise.
that as long as I am craving,
I am suffering.
I crave all kinds of things, all the time.
I'm practicing, though.
"And these five aggregates affected by clinging are dependently arisen. The desire, indulgence, inclination, and holding based on these five aggregates affected by clinging is the origination of suffering" (M. i. 191). (Emphasis added.)
We are not intrinsically the psycho-physical, aggregate body (of suffering). Such a body is conditioned. When our very self (paccatta) reaches the unconditioned (nirvana) we realize the character (dhatu) of the awakened (buddha) (i.e., Buddha-nature).
Your posts just come across as very...um...uptight, sometimes.
It is important to back up teachings yes, but I need a little of
your flavor too, you know? haha
The posts where you give a commentary, I most
of the time, seem to get what you are trying to say.
Gratitude.
I plead guilty of off-topic.
As to what prevents that understanding, denial is probably a reason, maybe avoidance, but it comes down to awareness and Right View.
Best Wishes
Why? Because of change, as in everything has a beginning and end. Birth and death, separation etc.
“Seeing thus, the well-instructed disciple of the Noble Ones grows disenchanted with the body, disenchanted with feelings, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with mental formations, disenchanted with consciousness. Disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, he is freed. With freedom, there is the knowledge, ‘I am free.’ He knows ‘Birth has been destroyed, the holy life has been fulfilled, what should be done has been done. There is nothing further to be done here.’”
That is what the Blessed One said. Delighted, the group of five monks rejoiced in what the Blessed One had said; and while this exposition was being given, the minds of the five monks were fully released from the corruptions, without any remainder.
Then there were six Arahants in the world."
Anattalakkhana Sutta
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn45/sn45.165.wlsh.html
If we also don't know about the 3rd noble truth of the possibility of the liberation from suffering of course we'd try to find the pleasant moments in life and take a positive view of our existence. Life is suffering when compared to nirvana, supposedly even the best, happiest bits.
Clinging to the five aggregates (which are suffering), which constitute our psycho-physical organism, is the real problem. So we are enjoined by the Buddha to abandon the 2nd Noble Truth (cp. S.v.422). But we can only do it by transcendence since we can't reform our aggregates.
Four Noble Truths.
Booyah!