Acceptance/Letting Go
MattMVS7
New
I know a part of Buddhism is about letting go of the things we want in life and accepting our losses and accepting a new life. But, let's pretend, that there was someone who only wanted to live a particular style of life. This is his/her one and only life of good value to him/her and all other styles of life to him/her are of no value to him/her. It would be no different than if someone had a particular style in music and all other styles of music to him/her don't hold any good value to him/her. Therefore, if someone had only one style of life he/she found good value in such as going out and walking in nature, but then developed cancer and was bound to a hospital bed, then this new life of being in that hospital bed would be of no good value to him/her at all since this new life is not his/her style at all. It would be no different than if he/she was listening to music he/she likes (in this case, him/her going out and walking in nature), but then that music he/she likes was taken away from him/her and he/she is now listening to music he/she finds no value in (in this case, him/her being bound in a hospital bed with cancer and living a new life in which he/she can no longer go out in nature anymore). As a matter of fact, it would be him/her now listening to music he/she hates since this is a new life he/she utterly detests.
This person would have every right to end his/her life rather than to just accept it since this life is not his/her style at all as I said before and wasn't the life he/she wanted to live at all. For other people to tell him/her that he/she should just accept this lifestyle and that, even though he/she no longer has the life he/she wanted to live, that he/she should instead live for others, then that would be utterly selfish of these other people to tell him/her so. It says to him/her that only these other people matter now and that he/she should just instead have all the attention, value, and just cater to these people. The fact is, he/she is just as important as any other person and he/she deserves his/her good life that he/she wanted to truly live. He/she has every right to live that life. Therefore, for others to just tell him/her to accept this new life of cancer and just live for others would be denying, demeaning, and restricting of this person's value as a human being which would be his/her right to have his/her good life he/she wants. Therefore, balance is key here. We must have our own good lives we want to live while also living for others and bringing them good lives as well. We must have our good lives and others must have their good lives. Otherwise, we should end our lives and we have every right to end our lives if we could never get our good lives back. We have every right to have our good lives we want to live as long as these are lives that don't harm and demean other innocent people.
You choosing to end your life in the event that you could never regain your good life would not make you selfish at all. For example, with Robin Williams, the good value that he has invested towards the message of living for others, that good value has been redirected towards a new message of value towards his family and other people when he has decided to end his life due to his depression. This new message of value says to his family and other innocent people that he just can't take his depression anymore and that it is just simply time for him to go. That he still has full value towards them anyway even though he knows very well that he will cause them grief in his act of suicide and that he wishes for them to find their own strengths in life without him. Therefore, Robin Williams didn't have any less value towards others in his act of suicide. Instead, his value has been switched over to a new message. The message he has had before was him choosing to live for others. But that message has changed over to that new message I just mentioned here.
I have lost all my feelings of pleasure 24/7 due to anhedonia (absence of pleasure) which is a negative symptom of schizophrenia and I'm not sure I will ever regain my pleasure back. My feelings of pleasure are very profound to me, are the only things that make my personal life good and worth living and nothing else, and are more important than my beating heart and the air I breathe to stay alive. My heart and air keep me physically alive. But my feelings of pleasure keep me alive in the sense of giving my life a sense of good value and worth. Nothing else gives my life a sense of good value and worth. Therefore, I must have my full feelings of pleasure back to me in my life up and running as a full function in my life to keep my life up and running with good value and worth. I am not selfish or anything of the sort when saying that my feelings of pleasure are the only things that give the things I do a sense of good value and worth. I still have full value and compassion towards others and I still help others out. It's just that what makes my own personal life good and worth living is my feelings of pleasure and nothing else. If I have decided to end my life due to my pleasure never recovering, then I would not be having any less value towards others (as demonstrated in my example with Robin Williams). It is only my feelings of pleasure that give my life a sense of good value and worth. Not any other form of pleasure that is so claimed to come from our thoughts and everything else in life alone without our actual feelings of pleasure.
Going back to my music style analogue. When I had my full feelings of pleasure in the past, it was like I was listening to music I like since it was me living a life that was my style. But when I have developed this anhedonia in which there are never any given brief moments of any feelings of pleasure whatsoever, then it is now like I am only listening to music I hate and find no value in since I am now living a life that is not who I am, is not my style at all, is a life I find no good value in whatsoever without my feelings of pleasure, and is a lifestyle I will never accept.
Comments
Hi @MattMVS7. Welcome.
I am sorry about your Anhedonia. That sounds quite debilitating.
I assume you have a professional therapist that you see on a regular basis?
There's not really much more I can say but wish you well.
Thank you for your concern. Yes, I am seeing a therapist. But the reason why I came on this forum was because it is important for me to say that others who do not accept their suffering are not selfish people and that no one should accept a life of no good value to him/her.
too long for me to read and hard with all the he/she.. I have Schizoaffective and maybe could comment but your post was too hard for me to read
Let me know if this link works:
https://www.facebook.com/LifeWithoutACentre/photos/a.499565453474401.1073741826.100291436735140/746472082117069/?type=1&theater
What I'm trying to do here is make people realize that nothing they can tell me can ever change my immense value towards my pleasure. That I can never find other things of good value to live for in my life without my feelings of pleasure and that I would never accept and would never live a life without my feelings of pleasure. I want them to no longer try to convince me that there are other good things I can live for and to no longer convince me that I can still find worth and such in this life without my feelings of pleasure. If they do try to convince me, then I post these long-winded refutations in return so that they realize that there is truly no reason for me to find worth and good value in my own personal life without my feelings of pleasure. I want these people to instead respond to me in such a way that says: "I see. I realize that your feelings of pleasure are the one and only things of good value to you in your personal life and just how much you must have them back. I will no longer try to convince you otherwise and I fully respect your hedonistic values." My feelings of pleasure are all that matter to me in terms of my own personal life and nothing else will ever matter to me in terms of my own personal life I live for myself.
If they are people who call me selfish, disrespect me, call me a crybaby, etc., then the same thing also applies. I will post long-winded refutations to these people and their claims that I am selfish and such so that they have full respect and compassion towards me and respect my hedonistic values and no longer call me such names anymore or mock me in any other given way. In other words, I just want these types of people to be quiet and to respect my hedonistic values. If these people insist on calling me names anyway and in displaying a tonality towards me that I deem as disrespect, then I will become abusive towards these people.
Hi Matt,
I have Schizophrenia and have experienced anhedonia. ,There have been a couple of small scale research projects into metta meditation reducing the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. From personal experience I can say they work I've had some very happy moments on the cushion.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jclp.20591/abstract
Some instructions on metta meditation.
http://www.buddhanet.net/metta_b.htm
AJahn Jayasaro on metta
Hope these are some help.
I am sorry.
I am sorry that you are experincing this condition, truly I am, and I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to go through something of this nature.
However, for my part (and this is merely my opinion), I do not agree with the concept of suicide, and to be honest, I think it is partially selfish. I have known three people pass through my life, who have committed suicide, and while THEY might well have viewed their actions as truly personal and unselfish, I would have told them - if of course, such a thing were possible - that the sadness, devastation, confusion and shocked bewilderment of sudden and unexpected, violent bereavement that relatives, friends and acquaintances felt, at the loss of someone they dearly loved, was an extremely selfish thing to engineer. Even if it WAS unintentional.
A person who thinks of committing suicide is only considering themselves, and perhaps in the fog and desolation of such an act, is incapable of considering anyone or anything else, as a hindrance or preventative.
While I wish I could bring comfort, reassurance, and support to someone in such a frame of mind, (Suicide being a permanent solution to something that may well be temporary), I realise that in that moment, for that person, there is no turning back.
It is the one decision nobody ever lives to regret.
But for those left behind, it's an incurable, and constant pain, and one that never leaves them, however long they might live.
Three times, I have seen loved ones plunged into a state of loss; and in each case, the confusion and remorse felt, lasted much longer than anyone - even the deceased - could have ever foreseen.
And that, to me, is selfish.
You could say that I would be selfish for ending my life and causing others grief just as I could easily say in return that these other people would be selfish in wanting to keep me alive and for them to want me to live on in misery and grief having no good value in my own personal life without my feelings of pleasure. Therefore, it all just comes down to the decision of the individual and their own personal judgement as to whether their actions are selfish or not.
No offence meant Matt but I think you should be communicating these feelings to your Psychiatric team and not random internet strangers on a Buddhist forum.
@Lonely_Traveller has a point.
You did post similar comments with us long ago, and as much as we would like to be of any help to you, only people who are close to you, beloved ones and competent professionals, will be able to better cater to your needs.
@MattMVS7 Is your family and friends aware of what is going? Are u on medication? How long have you been into this?
Wanting to experience pleasure is neither right or wrong. It is just what you are experiencing right now. It is the nature of a person to want pleasure. The only difference between you and everyone else is that you are suffering more. They are also suffering and they also want pleasure. Just they are suffering less. There are other people who are even worse off than you. So where to go?
You also got something backwards. Grasping leads to no pleasure and letting go leads to pleasure. It's an interesting puzzle.
I do fully respect hedonistic values.
Longwinded doesn't always mean true. For one thing it repels anyone from having anything to do with a discussion with you. Your opening post was horrible. You feel and have beliefs and you don't need to refute anyone as your beliefs are your business. If you want to have a discussion don't think of it as proving you right just think of it as exchanging ideas. Nobody can make you feel or believe anything in particular.
And I do think everyone has a right to commit suicide whether terminally ill or whatever. I do think that an intervention should be made to help people who are mentally ill. I have been there and am glad I am not dead. But if I HAD committed suicide that is my unalienable right I do believe.
Assisted suicide would be a different matter entirely.
That would be a far more acceptable consideration.
I would think that if you were to discuss that with your very nearest and dearest, and expressedly request it, something might be done for you.
But to commit suicide without considering their feelings, is selfish.
Why?
Because while you are alive, they can discuss it with you and listen to your arguments.
If you take your own life, you deprive them of the opportunity of being able to understand you.
On the one hand, it's an open discussion. On the other, you leave them with no say.
That's the selfish part.
@MattMVS7 are you in fact a practising Buddhist? Is Buddhism a vocation or calling that you have been following or adhering to?
Do you subscribe to any particular school or tradition?
Have you spoken with, or consulted any representatives of these schools?
@federica there is a fear for a mentally ill rather than 'physically/terminally' ill person to fear that they will be committed and perhaps held down and administered drugs and titrate them to the point of near ODing. These people might at the same time have delusions that make them even more afraid of being committed. So it is a practical point in telling your family. I think if you want to survive you tell people and go to the hospital voluntarily and give 100% at getting better no matter how bad you think you are. In some diagnosis it is very possible to get on medicines that make life a better place. If your side effects are horrible I agree with the @MattMVS7 that you can't just meditate away the side effects or symptoms. But what you can do is try different drug combinations to zap as many symptoms as possible with less side effects. And then there is the whole issue of coping or compensating for the symptoms/side effects with emotional and practical (triggers etc) means.
So just that longwinded reply just saying for mentally ill they might be afraid of being committed and forcibly injected with drugs and might have paranoia and delusions on board.
That's a terrible thing to consider; good of you to expand, @Jeffrey ....
And I would try to coerce someone to go to the hospital. Not sure if I would notify police and have someone committed but a lot of good people do that and like I said a lot (most?) people can get feeling better and are happy they did not commit suicide. I probably would commit someone but first I would try to get them to go voluntary.
In my example with Robin Williams, if he just said "I don't care about the feelings of others and I am just going to end my life," then that would make him selfish. But if he just decided to kill himself on his own with a message of value towards his family such as "I know they will have grief and I still have full value towards them anyway. It is just time for me to go and for them to find their own ways and strengths in life without me," then that wouldn't be selfish as I said before. His good value that he once had towards living for others has been switched over to this new message of value as I said before.
As someone who is deluded, I am quite prepared to impose my suffering on others. So for example when it is the time of the month or when feeling suicidal and flying a plane of passengers to their death or when not prepared to take council from those interfering with my preferences.
My needs are paramount. It is not selfish to think others have any rights to interfere with my pain and ignorance.
My human rights to believe and control should never be interfered with ...
It could never be that I am wrong. I refuse to accept that possibility. In fact I refuse to allow others to do so.
Long live me! [how am I doing so far? Good eh?]
Say you have a chocolate bar. Non-grasping does not mean that you don't eat the chocolate bar. Grasping has to do with the mind and views and not with sugar and brain pleasure. Ok now you use chocolate as a medication always eating it. Cravings. At that point all of the sudden it is not as pleasurable and you need more and more to get that rush. So in that case you can see a craving is coming. So right there you have more awareness than you started with.
Thanks for your reply, Matt...
)
As to my subsequent post...? (repeated here for your consideration...
I'm just wondering whether you have sought assistance, guidance or support from any teachers, and whether indeed you have received same, from them....
Also, what I said could very well be false. But even so, even if it were somehow proven to me that my life can still be good and worth living without my feelings of pleasure, I still personally would have no sense of good value and worth in my life anyway without my feelings of pleasure. Therefore, I would present these false-intellectual long-winded arguments to others anyway in order to try and convince them anyway so that they will be on my side and agree and respect me. People might at first have every reason to call me selfish and a crybaby. But if I can keep on presenting these types of arguments to these people, then it just might get to the point where these people will say to me: "Fine. I will no longer call you these names and will no longer have a disrespectful tone towards you. I can't prove or disprove the things you are saying and neither can I prove what I'm saying is true or not. So we will just go about our own lives and I will respect your hedonistic values and you will just let me be, let me live my life, and respect my ways of living." That was all I was asking from you and other people. This is not my way of seeking any self-pity or being a selfish crybaby. It is my way of saying to you and others: "My pleasure is my own personal life here and you better respect that. It is my own personal life I came here for and came here to live. If you don't respect that, then you have it coming and I will become violent and abusive towards you and others who do dare mock and insult me by calling me names and saying things to me such as "Boohoo, stop being a pity pot and stop being a crybaby and just abandon your values and life of pleasure and do something with your life instead."
Now you then might say something to me such as that me living for pleasure is no different than rodents living to get pleasure simulations off of electrodes or people just living to rely on junk food or a bag of chips to make their lives good, worth living, and to define their goals and dreams as being good and worth living for. But you would be attributing a false idea (personality) here to feelings of pleasure in saying that they are not that great and don't define our lives. They are very profound feelings and life dependent for me. They are the only things that allow me to experience the greatness and beauty of this life, nature, my composing dream, and my compositions. Otherwise, all that is experienced for me in my life without my feelings of pleasure is nothing more than just thoughts. Nothing more than just a thinking experience. It is all nothing more than the experience of a thought of greatness and beauty and not the actual experience of greatness and beauty.
Here's what it is like. If I were to have my full feelings of pleasure in my life and I were to go into a beautiful place, then it would be like "WOW, THIS PLACE IS SO BEAUTIFUL!!!" But without my feelings of pleasure, then it is just a thought. It is just some bland and neutral tonality that says "Wow, this place is so beautiful." That's all it is is just a thought (the thinking experience) and is no experience of any motivation, inspiration, awe, wonder, joy, happiness, peace, etc.
One last thing here is that I am not a part of humanity. I live by my own hedonistic rules and defined good in life which would be my feelings of pleasure. I do not live by the loathsome and disrespectful rules of others who call me a crybaby, selfish, and that I should just stop feeling sorry for myself and instead abandon my life of pleasure and live for other things instead and for me to instead have good value towards other things in terms of my own personal life I live for myself. So you might now be asking me why should you live by my own rules of respect then? It would be because this rule of disrespect is universal in that it applies to everyone. I gave an example with how that is with Hitler and the Jews. You shouldn't disrespect anyone. Saying that you have the right to disrespect someone whether they be innocent people you know or don't know would be no different than saying that Hitler had every right to disrespect the Jews and to slaughter them while I'm at it.
The only part of humanity I am a part of would be those types of people who do have full compassion and respect towards my hedonistic values and such who have no scorn or disrespect towards me. These would be people such as my mom and therapist.
Also, what I'm saying regarding feelings of pleasure being the only good thing in life really can't be proven as true or false. It could really have the strong chance of being true.
I never said my needs are paramount. I still have full value and compassion towards others as I've said before and I wouldn't be having any less value if I ever decided to end my life. It's just that I am just as important as any other person and I deserve my life of pleasure as well. For others to deny me that life and to instead say to me to live for others and abandon my life of pleasure, then they are the ones who are selfish here. Only those who respect my hedonistic values and respect my decision in ending my life if I could never recover my pleasure are the truly non-selfish and respectful people.
I am a completely separate entity from the rest of humanity. It is as though we are two different universes. The things others say such as that I am someone selfish or a crybaby don't apply to me since that is another universe entirely. I am in my own universe. I could easily call these people selfish crybabies in return for calling me as such and neither would my words apply to them either since my universe is not their universe. Our opinions would just go right past one another. Therefore, since our personal opinions do not apply to one another at all, then you shouldn't even be saying that I am some selfish crybaby at all in the first place since it doesn't even apply to me. Our personal opinions are our own and can't be proven. So we should instead go about our own lives and respect our own ways of life. What you deem as disrespect and what you deem as respect is different than what I deem as disrespect and what I deem as respect. So since our own different worldviews here do not apply to one another, then we should just go about our own lives and respect our own ways of life.
Your life that you deem as righteous and the morally right life which would be you choosing to live on for others and other things in life even if you had a lifelong absence of pleasure that could never recover, that is not my righteous and morally right life. My righteous and morally right life would be me living for my life of pleasure that I deserve to have since I am just as important as anyone else and deserve that life to live. You should respect my righteous and morally right life just as I should respect your righteous and morally right life of living for others. You might say that my life is not righteous and is morally wrong. But like I said before, we are two completely different realities. What you deem as righteous and morally right here does not apply to me just as what I deem as righteous and morally right here does not apply to you either.
You might direct me to a dictionary and show me what the words "selfish" and "crybaby" mean and you might say that these words do apply to me. However, we define our own personal meanings in life. Therefore, it really doesn't apply to me then and neither would that apply to you either.
The fact that you're posting lengthy diatribes criticising people for criticising you is a clear indication that you neither accept nor respect the opinions of others but blithely assume that we should either agree with you and comply, or else be dismissed as wrong to propose our own views.
Thanks for giving us the opportunity to gain some kind of insight into how your unfortunate condition affects you, but I believe this discussion is ultimately fruitless and a cause for frustration and discord.
Thanks to all who contributed.