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everything happens for a reason.
gracelee
Veteran
what your opinion on this?
0
Comments
Otherwise "for a reason" means intended by some higher power... Buddhism isn't into the whole "higher power" thing.
I think there are many ways any event can be interpreted, they can be use constructively or destructively and I suppose neutrally. Having the view that things happen for a reason generally leads to a more constructive outlook. I think the meanings or reasons are basically self created though.
See what happens.
Does everything happen for a reason as in is everything that happens necessary? Yes, I'd say so.
Things happen because of reasons.
No water, no life. No birth, no death. No marriage, no divorce.
No greed, hatred and delusion, no crime, no wars, no suffering but there will still be earthquakes, floods, accidents, natural disasters.
Yes but what are those reasons? Is it necessary to look for the answers beyond our own understanding? In my opinion, it is better to make those reasons known to ourselves, as when you find something good where there is no good to be found, when you find something meaningful where there are no meanings, and when you are finding out the answers for yourself where none is given. Things are happening, but you are making whatever happens meaningful for yourself, you are giving it meaning. Everything happens for a reason, so let those reasons be meaningful within our own understanding, and let them help us in our everyday lives.
metta
If you believe in a controlling, omnipresent Divine power, God or whatever, then "Everything happens for a reason" means whatever bad happens to you or the innocent was part of God's plan and we just have to have faith that our suffering serves a greater purpose and that's the reason it refers to.
If you believe in karma as fate and past life karma in particular, it means everything that happens was caused by past karma delaying the consequences. In this view, there is no innocence. You suffer from bad things happening because you did bad things in the past, even past lives, to cause it and that's the reason.
If you believe in blind cause and effect, everything from the big bang on happens as one near-infinite chain of events spreading out like waves in a pond and what happens now is the event part of cause-and-event, with each event being yet another cause for eternity.
But really, it's just one of those platitudes we try to use, to make the hurting go away a little bit. So much suffering and death in the world seems random and cruel. It is random and cruel. The truth is, it is random in that we can't plan for, anticipate, and avoid it. You send a child to school and someone starts shooting on the street and your child is hit by a stray bullet. How are you supposed to guard against that? Why your child and not the hundreds of other children going to school? It's random by the definition that neither you nor anyone can anticipate it. So what do we tell the grieving family?
If the minister or Priest is unskilled, he'll say things like "It happens for a reason and we just have to trust God" or "The child is in God's hands now" or "That's karma, unfortunately" and none of that helps and in fact triggers even more suffering.
No, the statement is not true, not when held up to human experience.
Grief counselors and the training given to ministers if they're smart and take some courses say attempts to minimize the pain felt by loved ones doesn't work and only makes them feel that nobody understands their grief, even though we want to help.
It's tough dealing with unexpected tragedy. You want to help, but don't know what to say. So just being there and letting them know you see their grief is the best way to help.
What my meditation practice does for me is help me be there in quiet listening. That has been the most helpful to me and feels like the best I can be for others. There are ways to practice an active listening, but rarely do we hear how hard that is to not solve or smooth over or otherwise make it about our comfort level instead of the person we are listening to.
I am reading Bright-Sided about how the power of positive thinking really is not the answer, yet it is rampant in our society. A lot of Buddhism is overlapping with positive thinking psychology and to me that is not really Buddhism. Buddhism faces reality and is able to get beyond suffering, however pop positive psychology is not the same thing as seeing beauty and joy in many circumstances.
I think that randomness is akin to the god argument. In the past when people didn't understand how something happened certain people would attribute it to a god. Along the same lines, when we don't understand how something can come about, certain people will say it is random. As far as I am concerned, same thing with a different variable name (god, mystery, randomness, etc).
Events have causes, and sometimes ignorance is what causes certain (often painful & repeated) experiences- so when we learn something from an experience our own ignorance caused, we can better avoid a pattern that resulted in pain. If we slip on some water by the fridge, it hurts, and this makes us pay attention to the problem. We could keep slipping on it and wiping up the water over & over, or look to why there is water there in the first place. Maybe we discover the fridge is broken, and we fix it. I don't think the fridge broke for a reason, and life is like that. We lose a job because we were insensitive to some interpersonal politics, next time we do better. But we didn't lose the job for a "reason". Unfortunately, it *is* very comforting the think that there is a *reason" to every pain we suffer. I don't believe that, but if we are in pain, I do think there is always a chance to grow.
IMO, the lessons don't teach us, or come with a "reason" already wrapped in them. We decide how each experience will shape us.
In Buddhism, if shit happens, it isn't really shit.