Suffering is pointless and has no greater benefit
MattMVS7
New
I am aware of what Buddhism has to say about suffering, acceptance of your suffering, and also that your suffering can have greater benefits and make you and your lives greater. However, I object to that notion and I have reasons (arguments) that I believe are very convincing as to why. I suffer from depression and anhedonia (emotional numbness) in which I have no ability to experience pleasure in life. I believe that this suffering has no greater benefit, does not make me or my life any greater and only makes me and my life truly inferior, and that me having full pleasure in life is true greatness that can be used to make yourself much more greater than if you had depression and anhedonia since depression and anhedonia only serve to make it that much more likely for you to do less great things in your life, be held back from your true greatness and potential, etc. So I will now explain my convincing arguments below. I am also a hedonist (which I will explain below with my paragraph later on that starts off with the phrase "I am a hedonist" and it is a very important explanation for you to know since I am not your average typical hedonist. My hedonistic beliefs are different):
First off, let me ask you this. If you had the choice to either be happy and excited towards something in life as opposed to just having no feelings of pleasure or excitement whatsoever with nothing more than just a good thought towards these things in life, which would you choose? I think it's quite obvious you would choose to feel happy and excited which proves right here that pleasure is far better and superior to mere thoughts alone. Or, at least, the combination of having both good thoughts and pleasure in your life is far better and superior to just having these thoughts alone with no pleasure at all.
But you then might counter my argument by asking me something such as that if you had the choice as to feel happy and excited towards harming others or to have no feelings of pleasure whatsoever and instead help others through just mere thoughts alone, which would you choose? You then might say that having no pleasure and instead helping others through moral thoughts would be what is far better and superior. But here again, I will counter this as well by asking you that if you had the choice as to whether to feel happy and excited towards helping others and help these people out through your pleasure and excitement or to instead have no pleasure or excitement whatsoever and instead help these people out through just thoughts alone, which would you choose? I think it's quite obvious you would choose to help others through your pleasure.
So it appears as though having both morality and pleasure in your life is the ultimate combination. But when the choice comes as to whether you would choose to have pleasure or instead morality, that this is something subjective and that there would be many people who would instead choose to be a moral person with no pleasure who helps others instead of being someone who obtains pleasure from harming others. However, when the choice comes to you already being the best moral person you could ever be and that if you had the choice as to whether to just be this moral person with no pleasure in your life or to be both this best moral person you could ever be while having pleasure in your life, that people would instead choose the combination of both being this moral person with pleasure.
Sure, there could be more levels of moral greatness and other forms of greatness that this person could achieve with no pleasure. But if I had to ask him/her as to whether he/she would want to have much pleasure in his/her life in addition and that this wouldn't take away from his/her greatness and won't take away from him/her achieving more greatness, then that is when this person would choose to have pleasure in his/her life in addition. I know that if I had my full pleasure back in life, that this would not make me or my life less great. It would make me even greater. As a matter of fact, having suffering, depression, and a lack of pleasure in your life only serves to bring you down and hold you back from you and your lives being that much greater regardless of how great you become and regardless of how much great things you do in your life through your suffering, depression, and lack of pleasure. Suffering, depression, and a lack of pleasure can even make you a worse person who is less compassionate and less understanding towards other people who finds bad meaning in his/her life. So you can achieve a higher level of greatness, be a more compassionate and understanding person, and do more great things in your life under the right circumstances if you instead had much pleasure in your life and little suffering and depression in your life.
Many people might claim that the only true way to be a more compassionate and understanding person and do more great things in life as well as help more people would be through your suffering, depression, and lack of pleasure. But this is false because you can change your attitude in order to become a better compassionate and understanding person at any given personal level since your attitude and actions are things you can change by will. You also don't need depression, suffering, and a lack of pleasure in order to do more great things in life and help even more people out. There are people who go through a great amount of suffering and despair and yet, they do not become more compassionate or become a better person in any other sense. As a matter of fact, they can become less compassionate even towards others who suffer the same things and they instead take out their suffering on other people. This would be because they have refused to change their attitude in becoming a better person and have refused to become better in any other sense through other means in life besides suffering, despair, and a lack of pleasure. Therefore, since this holds true, the opposite would hold true as well in that people who have very little suffering and despair in their lives can change their attitude in becoming a better person and better in other ways through other means in life than what suffering, despair, and a lack of pleasure can achieve.
Things such as going through physical torture through physical training in the military, this would have the greater physical benefit. But as for greater mental benefits, you can achieve these through other means in life besides depression and anhedonia (lack of pleasure). As a matter of fact, depression and anhedonia have no greater benefit than living a life of much pleasure and are nothing but pointless misery.
So if you had no pleasure in your life and had much suffering and despair in your life, you could tell yourself things such as that you would be the much better and greater person than if you were someone who had pleasure in life since you would be helping others, doing great things in your life, and being more compassionate and understanding the suffering and lack of pleasure of others through your suffering and lack of pleasure. But here I will ask you, now that you've achieved this level of greatness in your life through your suffering and lack of pleasure, would you prefer now to remain this way or to instead remain just as great, but also have full pleasure and no more suffering in your life in addition? That having this full pleasure in your life with no suffering will not take away from your greatness, will not make you help/understand less people than you ever would through having suffering and no pleasure in life, and won't make you do less great things in life. Therefore, which would you choose?
Again, I'm quite sure you would choose to have full pleasure in life with no suffering in addition to your greatness. Although there might be some people who would get very bored or go insane from living a life of pure bliss, this would not happen to me at all since I find that the only greatest life there is would be living a life of much pleasure and as little suffering as possible while still being a full moral and understanding/compassionate person. So the fact that people would prefer to have much pleasure and as little suffering as possible in addition to their greatness, this means that having much pleasure and little suffering in addition to their greatness is something even greater and would make these people even greater than if they still had a lack of pleasure and still had suffering and depression in their lives. This would make them greater people and would make their lives greater.
So as you can see here, you can be great all you want, achieve all the benefits you want, and help others and do great things in your life as much as you can through your suffering and lack of pleasure (anhedonia) in your life as well as your depression. But you and your life will never be as great as it would be if you had much pleasure and very little suffering/depression in your life in addition to your achieved greatness and in addition to your achieved benefits. Therefore, all the greatest people in history who struggled with depression, suffering, and anhedonia were never as great as they would be if they didn't have any of those struggles in their lives. They might have become great and achieved benefits through their struggles. But they and their lives would never be as great if they instead had much pleasure in their lives with as little suffering as possible in addition to their achieved greatness and in addition to their achieved benefits.
(Note to Reader: This post is continued below)!
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I gave an example before of how the greatest composers could of been even greater if they had their full pleasure in life rather than depression and a lack of pleasure which was that composers not only use their knowledge of music alone to compose music, but they also tap into their emotions in order to come up with emotionally powerful compositions. However, depression and anhedonia are not classified as emotions at all. They are the taking away of your pleasure and the taking away of your other emotions. Therefore, this is why these great composers were not as great as they would of been if they had their full pleasure since depression and anhedonia are not emotions to channel and tap into at all.
Sure, you can create great compositions through intelligence alone and with vast knowledge of how music works and such. But it wouldn't be as great as if you had both this intelligence and knowledge as well as your pleasure and other emotions to tap into. Composers also tap into other emotions besides pleasure such as anger and sadness. However, these are emotions that feel bad and you can create great tragic, gothic, and dark compositions through pure pleasure alone (the pleasure in dark, gothic, and tragic things) and it is unnecessary to have any sort of bad unpleasant feelings and emotions in your life. These tragic, gothic, and dark compositions can be just as great (and even greater) if you created them through pure pleasure alone along with your knowledge of music theory as opposed to them being created through your feelings such as rage and sadness with your knowledge of music theory.
As a matter of fact, if having much pleasure and little suffering/depression in their lives wouldn't take away from the greatness at all of the greatest people in history, then this would mean that their depression, suffering, and lack of pleasure didn't make them any greater at all either. It means that they could of been just as great (and perhaps greater) under the right circumstances through having much pleasure and very little suffering and depression in their lives since the combination of their already-established greatness in addition to having much pleasure and little suffering and depression is the ultimate combination that would make them even greater. Therefore, I and many other people who suffer from depression and anhedonia (lack of pleasure) are inferior with inferior lives compared to our much greater counterparts (the people we would of been if we instead had our full pleasure in life with little suffering in addition to our achieved greatness and in addition to our achieved benefits). We are also inferior with inferior lives compared to those who do have their full pleasure in life with little suffering and little to no depression in addition to their achieved greatness and benefits such as compassion and many other such positive forms of greatness and benefits.
Now some people might tell me that compassionate and understanding people who live their lives with much pleasure and very little suffering and depression, that these people do not exist since you can only be a better compassionate and understanding person through having gone through suffering, depression, and a lack of pleasure. But you would be false here in saying this. I am one of those happy compassionate and understanding people who once existed. I had my full pleasure in life in the past who was still a fully compassionate and understanding person. As a matter of fact, the depression and anhedonia I am having now only makes me feel less compassionate and less understanding ("indifferent" and "hopeless") and me and my life are now wasted away and down the drain here.
Therefore, as you can clearly see, life, is in fact, all about perfection and living a perfectly happy life of no suffering and no depression regardless of the fact that this is not how this life works. Some people might tell me that living a life of pure bliss with no suffering and no depression is nothing more than a fantasy and they would be right. However, life is still all about living a perfectly happy life with no suffering and no depression anyway. Life is about being perfectly happy despite the fact that this is impossible and that there is no way to achieve that.
You might then say something to me such as that "Thinking your life should be a certain way when it can never be that way is not going to help you get any better in life." Although thinking that life is about being perfectly happy when that's not how life works might very well make some people feel worse, this doesn't make it worse for me. As a matter of fact, I think it actually makes me feel a little less depressed. For example, if someone told me something such as that "Life is about suffering and depression, so deal with it!" This message would be applied to my life itself and would make me feel worse. However, if I told myself the message such as that "This life is meant to be a perfectly happy fantasy world and I am just simply suffering and having depression in a life that is meant to be perfect and perfectly happy despite the fact that this life is not perfect," this would actually make me feel less depressed and less enraged. It would give my life a perfect happy fantasy-feel and meaning to it rather than the hopeless and discouraging messages that others might propose which instead have a bad and hopeless reality-feel and meaning to them.
Based on everything I've said here, a life of pure bliss with no suffering and no depression is the only greatest life there is and is the only thing that would make you the greatest person. No one should want any depression or anhedonia (lack of pleasure) in his/her life whatsoever since it is all pointless and has no greater benefit than living a life of pure bliss. So having physical and emotional problems only makes you an emotional and physical slave to these problems and prevents you from being a metaphorically spoken god who dominates over his/her life through pure pleasure alone with no suffering or depression in his/her life. Since you are a slave to these problems, then that makes you inferior and the opposite of a "god" regardless of what you think otherwise. Only complete masters right here over their lives are the most superior in the sense of having full pleasure in life and dominating over their lives through pure pleasure alone with no suffering and no depression in his/her life. This is the only thing that defines a truly great person and a true master and a "god" in his/her life.
Some people would say that living a life of pure bliss would cause a chemical tolerance in your brain and that your pleasure would eventually fade out anyway, thus rendering a perfectly happy life impossible. However, there might be a way to live a perfectly happy life through science in the future in which our brains no longer have such tolerance and we are able to somehow live perfectly happy lives free of suffering and depression.
Some people would also say that without pain and suffering, then there can be no pleasure. But this would be false. A baby can be born into this world without having yet experienced pain or suffering and immediately feel happiness and love being in the arms of a mother. This baby would be able to then experience full happiness and love in life having no future pain or suffering as well. The only way for him/her to experience less pleasure in life is for him/her to develop a sense of value towards having struggles and suffering in life and then having less value towards living a life of pure pleasure with no struggles and suffering as a result. That, or just being bored living such a nice happy life which are both things that would never happen to me since I find great value living a perfect happy life. As a matter of fact, babies can even experience pleasure being in the womb without any pain or suffering ever happening to them yet.
As for something one might say such as that there would be no need for the greatest composers to even compose in the first place or for the greatest people in history to do great things in the first place if they had full pleasure in life with little to no suffering and depression in their lives, this would also be false. You can still do even more great things and be much more motivated to do great things in your life anyway knowing that your life is one of pure bliss and you can do even more great things in your life as a means of expressing your great perfect life through much more motivation and pure bliss. You can also grow even more as a person by changing your attitude and other things besides depression and anhedonia. So you can grow much more as a person as opposed to if you had depression and anhedonia in your life.
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My dream in life was to also be a composer, but through my pure pleasure alone since suffering and despair is pointless to me and has no greater benefit. Composing music through my suffering, despair, and anhedonia is NOT what I wanted to do at all and would only make me feel worse no matter what since music is all about enjoyment in a world that absolutely calls for our experience of love, pleasure, joy, and motivation (which would be the emotional world of composing). It's not about creating dark, tragic, and gothic music through bad emotions since these exact same types of music can be composed just as great and even greater through pure pleasure alone (again, the pleasure in dark, gothic, and tragic things).
So if I were to pursue my dream of being a composer right now, this would make me feel worse knowing that I have no pleasure to experience or to channel and tap into in creating any of my compositions. Pursuing my dreams also isn't going to help me recover my ability to experience pleasure either since my anhedonia has lasted for many many months and still hasn't gotten any better despite me engaging in all activities that I used to enjoy doing. So I do not think that my anhedonia will ever get any better. So this is the reason why I am going to let me, my dreams, and my life waste away because that makes me feel less depressed and less enraged. Me choosing to do great things in my life such as composing anyway makes me feel worse since I absolutely expect myself to feel pleasure from these greatest moments of my life, but am not allowed to experience pleasure from any of these things at all. Therefore, even if I were the greatest composer in the world right now with no ability to experience pleasure, this would actually be the worst moment of my life since I am unable to experience any pleasure from being the greatest composer in the world and am unable to experience my full pleasure that I once had before towards these greatest compositions in the world if I were somehow the greatest composer in the world.
I am a hedonist because my personal profound and meaningful experience of pleasure says so. Hedonism states that pleasure is the only good thing in life, that pain, suffering, despair, and emotions such as rage and sadness are the only bad things in life, while everything else in life is neutral (neither good or bad). Therefore, pleasure is the only thing that would make me a good and great composer since all other aspects of being a composer are neutral based on my hedonistic belief. You can even obtain pleasure from harming others and you would still be a good person since even your own attitude and actions are neutral and that it's only your own pleasure that is good and is the only thing that makes you a good person. The pleasure and suffering of others does not matter from your own perspective since you are only in your own mind and not in the minds of others and you cannot experience their pleasure, suffering, and depression. All good and bad values you have towards the pleasure, suffering, and depression of others is nothing more than a neutral thought from your own perspective. So it's only your own pleasure, suffering, and depression that matters to you while the pleasure, suffering, and depression of others only matters to them.
So me composing to bring others pleasure would not make me or my life anything good at all without my own pleasure. If, let's pretend, that I had my full pleasure in life right now and composed good and great compositions, I would send these compositions out into the world for others to listen to. However, I would also include a very important message to the world. This message would be that pleasure is the only good thing in life and is the only thing that makes you a great person and a great composer and that even the greatest composers in history who had less pleasure in life would not be as great as those people who created compositions through pure pleasure alone. Therefore, pleasure is truly your own greatness in life and makes you the truly great composer. So how good you are (your level of greatness) and how good your life is solely depends on the level of pleasure you have in your own life.
Now aside from that, if you are also going to ask how can one even live and be content and happy with living a life of pure bliss with no suffering and depression in his/her life? The answer to that would be that people such as me have immense hatred towards suffering, despair, and a lack of pleasure in life and immense hatred towards finding any sort of meaning in any of those things to the point where people such as me would, in fact, be completely happy and content with living a life of pure bliss. It's not only our immense value towards living such a life of pure bliss that would allow us to fully be happy and content living such a life of pure bliss, but it is also our immense loathing and hatred towards living a life of suffering and despair that would also allow us to be fully happy and fully content living such a life of pure bliss as well.
Now the reason you would be inferior if you had depression and/or anhedonia is that people such as us experienced pleasure so profoundly and meaningful that we have embraced such feelings of pleasure (pleasure being all good feelings including love) as a vital part of who we are as people. Therefore, to lose such feelings would deem you as an utterly inferior human being and would also deem your life as completely worthless and inferior as well. Feelings of pleasure are a vital part of who we are as human beings (much more important than our personality, attitude, and other characteristics as human beings). So this is why you would be utterly inferior if you were to lose such feelings. Your conscious is what makes you "you" since it is really who you are as a person. Therefore, since pleasure is also a part of your conscious because your conscious is all sensations and such you can experience, then to lose a very vital part of your conscious (which would be your pleasure), this would make you a lesser person.
One last very important thing I would like to add is that some people would say that the mind is sometimes something that can never recover or even fully recover its ability to experience pleasure and that I am just going to have to be content with that and live my life accepting that my pleasure might never recover and might never fully recover. But I ask you. Do you really think the mind is that pathetic? The mind is truly an amazing complex organ and I would thus be infuriated if it were that pathetic. Also, do you really think I am so inferior and pathetic as to live my life being content and accepting my severe loss of pleasure (accepting that it might never get better or fully recover) and to live my life as an utterly inferior human being with a worthless life regardless of how great and worthwhile others think I am as a person despite my loss of pleasure? As I said before, my personal experience of pleasure was so great and profound and my personal experience now of depression and anhedonia is the worst experience for me and nothing can change that to the point where I would be content with living an entire life of very little to no pleasure. To me, my life of full pleasure that I once had before is the only life for me and I am not someone who is so inferior and pathetic as to accept and be content with a lifelong loss of pleasure. Therefore, I am absolutely intent on regaining my lost life of full pleasure no matter what since it is the only life for me that is of immense value and worth living.
I haven't finished reading your posts, but this really stuck out at me. I could not agree more. I too have had depression, including the anhedonia which is like living in a bell jar, complete misery.
The essence of the Buddha's message is NOT to have some namby pamby 'its all good' attitude toward suffering. The Buddha's message is all about the cessation of suffering. Period. Sure, one can identify 'benefits' from the worst human experiences. You get terminal cancer, and because of it, your estranged family becomes close again. But that is not the POINT of suffering. There is no point. It's to our benefit to seek the silver lining, because frankly, there is so much suffering, it permeates this realm we call Samsara, it is the weft in the weave or so it seems.
So you go right ahead and feel CONFIDENT in any hard work you put in toward the cessation of your own suffering. You are heading for the bullseye. Me too.
It was several months into my practice that I realized it was OK to want to feel good. How sad is that? Forty something years of my life and it never occurred to me to give myself PERMISSION to want my suffering to cease.
Welcome aboard . . . and yeah, ME TOO!
Hi matt,
did you hear the music that you composed? I mean actually heard it and could actually change it there?
The depression will pass. But it did get your attention. You don't see it now but you will.
Buddhism is a place for you to answer your own questions. At best you can only see the answer in other people.
Other than that, I need more time to read all your comments.
They're so long, boy!
I would like to read but it is too long.
Hi Matt...nice to meet you.
Welcome to the forum. You've thought out your position thoroughly, I won't argue the points but will say that there is usually more than one way to look at a situation.
The weight of your current situation comes across clearly in your post so I was glad to read at the end your determination to move past it. I'd recommend finding a group for support and if you can maintain a practice over the months and years I feel confident that your perspective will be able to change.
Best wishes.
Hi Matt. I am new here too. I can appreciate your passion and view point with such a topic.
Taking into account what I am coming to know with regard to rebirth, life and the meaning of existing at all; I can't avoid the fact that to me ... Life as a human involves suffering in one form or another.
It seems like an inescapable process in which every living thing must endure in order to grow. Perhaps its just yet another case of how we interpret words when we would do better to think none at all. Resistance comes to mind for me - Oh why did I have to endure all the crap, Oh why did I not have a better life, Oh why Oh Why.
Most of that is rather imprinted by those with soft fluffy cushions with too much space that requires many words for the filling. lol - I think there are two extremes to this concept of Pain and Blissful thinking.
It is without a doubt that pain has it's place. Suffering like many other "words" in Buddhism is something I care less about. Finding similarities between those that think one school of thought Vs another is more what I am about.
No matter how many times we think we have been around, (I really don't know) - no matter how many hard knocks, or silver spoons - Rocks Vs Cushions - Pain can only subside through accepting what was, is and even the unknown. All else to me is just one long resistant existence regardless of wrong or right.
All else is over rated, - all the Earths History, famed people and civilizations ... mean rather little in the face of so few petals left in such a short existence. Nothing wrong with sitting on rocks - I'm of the opinion we live in a world with too many cushions. A world that continues to seek for Bigger, Better and Easier. A world bent on seeking as opposed to being. Ecstatically So. All forms of energy have their place - we should embrace them all.
I'm working on happiness - but see no point in giving up my experience that has made me. No matter how much resistance I've exerted and endured. If I ignored the lessons learned - then mores the predisposition to me?
I wish us all peace - rocks, cushions and all! - I'm thinking more a chair with a cushion about not though ... and do please throw in a back brace as well.
Peace Bro.
I think part of what you are missing is that you are contemplating whether to take refuge in sense pleasures.
Sense pleasures aren't inherently bad, but one cannot control when and where they come.
As my teacher says:
"The motivation has to be there. The motivation is complete horror at the state of samsara and fear of being trapped in it. It can get worse and worse very fast, it can spin suddenly completely out of control. Only the Dharma shows the way out of that and so our connection with the Dharma is the most precious thing possible. " Lama Shenpen Hookham
Regarding evil I would say if evil is a sense pleasure that is the short sighted view. The longer view is that evil leads to suffering.
Refuge in greatness is also folly, because one has no control to always be great. If you take refuge in greatness sooner or later you will lose it or else the greatness could become meaningless and unsatisfying. And that is even if you do become great. If you do not you could suffer needlessly as many in this age of celebrity worship do.
"No one should want any depression or anhedonia (lack of pleasure) in his/her life whatsoever since it is all pointless and has no greater benefit than living a life of pure bliss."
I agree, but there can be distortions of mind that only make things worse. By realizing that conceptual thought is not the truth one can break free. Otherwise as you say we might have dullness or rage. It can be like Briar Rabbit and the tar baby where we are punching again and again at 'the world outside' or 'my messed up inside' whereas both of those in quotes are just layers of thought. Our punching can only make us more stuck.
I think a baby experiences suffering being ejected from the womb, right?
I bet you can feel at least relatively better if you meditate daily. Only one way to know, right?
You are experiencing exactly what the Buddha found though your conclusion is to get sense pleasure. Buddha found out that not the sense pleasure but the thirst is what leads to suffering. Letting go you find peace.
“The “Lion’s Roar” is the fearless proclamation that any state of mind, including the emotions, is a workable situation, a reminder in the practice of meditation. We realize that chaotic situations must not be rejected. Nor must we regard them as regressive, as a return to confusion. We must respect whatever happens to our state of mind. Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news.” Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Myth of Freedom
http://www.lionsroar.name/chogyam_trungpa.htm
I don't know where you got that notion. I've never heard of that, as part of Buddhism. It sounds more like Christianity, maybe. Could you give us a source, OP?
Hi
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
http://www.prevention.com/mind-body/emotional-health/surprising-health-benefits-depression
As for your point about hedonism, about as far as I got before my need for happiness stopped me reading any more - good luck, you gonna need it. Why do I say that? I leave that for the Middle Way merchants to explain . . .
Depressed hedonism? [stifles laughter] . . . as I say good luck with that theory . . . sounds like over compensation . . .
Matt - welcome
I also suffer from severe recurrent depression - stress induced in my case. I find it really hard to accept that this will always be a part of my life, although I do my best to find ways to overcome it. I also suffer from ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Here, even less hope is offered by the medical profession of being able to avoid it.
I don't know the trigger for your depression but it is clear that you still have great passion. That, to me, is more important than pleasure/pain. I know it is the intensity of my emotions that fuse my limbic system and throw me into what is, for me, a tunnel with high speed express trains rushing past whilst I am trapped in some workman's nook. There is no light at the end of this tunnel.
However, over the years, I have found that some times are better. Two weeks ago, I would not have had the concentration to even log on to this website, let alone to read the majority of your post. Yes, life passes me by completely whilst I am in a bad episode, but I'm still alive now.
I don't really understand how I can experience pleasure without also experiencing suffering. What gets me is when I experience nothing - when my passion goes. It is what defines "me" to me (controversial thing to say on a Buddhist website ... but gonna risk it!).
What helps me about Buddhism is that it teaches me to cling to nothing. Not to pleasure. Not to suffering. Not to a desire to be well. Not to passion. But, rather to accept what is and know that it is transitory (even if not as transitory as I would like it to be).
Mozart's life was not unalloyed pleasure. Not was Beethoven's. In fact, I am not aware of any great composer - or any great artist come to that - who did not suffer. One of my mental health team once told me that her husband was an exceptional person who had never faced any great suffering in his life. Did I envy him? No. I know that not having failed at anything until I became ill is one of the things that made it harder for me to deal with failure when it inevitably did happen. Would I give up the intensity of my emotions when I do feel them not to have to go through the numb times? Well, I am trying to temper them - to give myself space to deal with them when they happen - but, no, there is no-one else I would rather be.
I don't see how my illness has made me a better person. But my life is not over yet. Even if I never discover, that doesn't mean it's not a necessary part of my journey to enlightenment.
Glad you are here.
Btw - goodness of suffering is not a Christian idea either. Jesus says:
(Matt 11:28-30)
Matt, this is for you. follow the sounds. listen to it as much as you can.
I don't know what the words mean, but the spirit of this is quite moving. I struggle with praise and worship (not saying this is what that is - I don;t know anymore) at the best of times due to a very traumatizing upbringing under the evangelical church regime. Music is a very powerful thing (I have been avoiding it for many many years) - I have to say it's really good to feel safe listening to what feels warm, friendly and all things good in spirit. (where once I was terrified of such tunes - it's a trust thing - getting there)
Thanks Greg.
Hi, @MattMVS7 and welcome here!
After a good night sleep, your comments read differently.
I hope you get to know a bit about Buddhism, because if Buddhism ever mentions suffering, it is only to have it overcome.
And it's a path filled with joy.
I hope you can recover your joy for living.
I hope Buddhism helps in your recovery.
And @Greg911, so nice to see your picture on the avatar!
You are a mixture between Magnum and Stacey Keach...
^^^ good post on many levels. We are in this together. Reading posts is a courtesy I did not provide [lobster puts on dharma dunce cap]
When it come up in youtube click the read more
youtube.com/watch?v=SgoCnLGcS3k&list=PL037A4BD807367A7B
add the www.
"Suffering is pointless and has no greater benefit"
One could say that suffering is how we measure happiness....
As a student, a friend was going out with an '80s banker and we often used to travel to the City to be treated by him and a friend to endless champagne. Oh, how I wished for a good half of bitter after several sessions of this. Took me years to start appreciating champagne again ...
and the Hinyana version
Oh dear - loving 3 so much I've had to pause it. Hurts to laugh so much!!! Never come across before. Yet again, thanks @lobster (*)
Look at it this way: Without suffering, Buddhism would lose its 'meaning.'
Whether that is a benefit or not is up to each individual.
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Knock yourself out then.
In the past 18 months since my diagnosis with my non curable and degenerative disease, I've had to do a total overhaul of my life. I've had to face myself and the shitty things I was doing in my life because no matter what front I put on, I was selfish and only really cared about me, my happiness and that of my immediate family. I am in almost constant pain, with periods of relief. But I have to accept it and learn to live with it. Life is NOT pleasure only. To think that, is IMO, to live in denial. Suffering is not pointless, missing the lesson in suffering is the issue.
@MattMVS7, consider that old situation where there is a choice to save mother or baby in a difficult child birth. The person making that choice, (be it Doctor, partner or relative) must choose one procedure over the other, or both die. Lets further complicate it by saying one of the mother and child, has a limited chance at going on to a healthy productive life. So then the choices are to create suffering or even death no matter what. And what's more, making a choice like that in and of itself, creates more suffering for the unfortunate person who had to make the choice.
Would that suffering be pointless?
I would add a quote from Pema Chodron:
http://pemachodronfoundation.org/articles/
"On a very basic level all beings think that they should be happy. When life becomes difficult or painful, we feel that something has gone wrong. This wouldn’t be a big problem except for the fact that when we feel something’s gone wrong, we’re willing to do anything to feel OK again. Even start a fight.
According to the Buddhist teachings, difficulty is inevitable in human life. For one thing, we cannot escape the reality of death. But there are also the realities of aging, of illness, of not getting what we want, and of getting what we don’t want. These kinds of difficulties are facts of life. Even if you were the Buddha himself, if you were a fully enlightened person, you would experience death, illness, aging, and sorrow at losing what you love. All of these things would happen to you. If you got burned or cut, it would hurt.
But the Buddhist teachings also say that this is not really what causes us misery in our lives. What causes misery is always trying to get away from the facts of life, always trying to avoid pain and seek happiness—this sense of ours that there could be lasting security and happiness available to us if we could only do the right thing."
Has the OP done a one-off off-loading and left?
As an aside, Ajahn Brahm talks about acceptance and how it effects depression at 49:01 of this video:
I think so unless something came up in real life and will get back to it later.
The 1st part, no one will disagree.
The 2nd part is what makes the difference. Is having full pleasure all the time even possible in life? Is losing that pleasure and delight suffering or not?
It is clinging to what is essentially impermanent that causes suffering. Therefore if this suffering has no greater benefit, you have to learn not to hold on to pleasurable things. Just like beautiful flowers, treasure them while you can because they don't last.
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Good. Done.
Usual terms apply. Can be re-opened at OP request, if deemed appropriate.
Thanks all.
OP requested re-opening, but after some consideration, I have taken the decision that this thread should remain as is, and the matter closed.
The OP was intending to post some extremely long matters of discussion, but I felt it both inappropriate and inadvisable to permit such expansion, as the topic matter would engender controversy, leading to possible discord.
Should the OP decide to open a new thread on the matter, I would deem it appropriate to recommend members not permit themselves to be drawn into dispute or argument.
I have never, ever posted anything like this before. This is a first for me, but I am trying to exercise judgement and recommend discretion.
I hope members understand I am considering the well-being and contentment of all possible participants concerned.
Many thanks for your cooperation.