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How can every moment of existence within samsāra?

seanconnorsseanconnors
edited April 2010 in Buddhism Basics
How can every moment of existence within samsāra even eating food or falling in love be considered suffering?

how can such pleasant things be considered as suffering? even falling in love??? :confused:

Comments

  • StephenStephen
    edited March 2010
    It is not that the pleasant things are suffering, but that we do not fully understand the impermanence of all phenomena. Craving for permanence in an impermanent reality, we desire to be associated with that which is pleasing to us, to be disassociated with that which is displeasing to us, and most of us want to live forever on top of that.

    If you desire sex, it is pleasing to you. However, the desire itself means there is something you are grasping for; if you want something, and fail to get it, or in the case of possessions fear losing them, there is suffering. All of our cravings, all of our desires, cause us suffering until they are fulfilled. Some desires, such as never-ending life, can never be fulfilled. It is in our inability to accept the Four Noble Truths and to realize them for ourselves (to awaken, or become enlightened) that we remain in the round of Samsara.

    It is our craving that leads to suffering, and our ignorance of this fact that leads to our craving. With the development of wisdom, craving ceases and so too does mental suffering (or "dukkha").
  • questionfulquestionful
    edited March 2010
    the birth of some things are great (love, a meal, etc.), but......

    death.


    ahahahahaa. what a joke.
    we shouldn't take samsara seriously or the joke's on us!
  • MarmaladeMarmalade
    edited March 2010
    questionful wrote: »
    we shouldn't take samsara seriously or the joke's on us!

    Agreed! This reminds me of one of my favorite sayings...

    "God is a comedian playing to an audience who's too afraid to laugh.""
  • JeffreyJeffrey Veteran
    edited March 2010
    The mind always creates new worlds. That is also nirvana. Samsara is when the worlds are clung to.
  • jinzangjinzang Veteran
    edited March 2010
    Because with each pleasure comes the uncertainty of not knowing how long it will last.
  • pegembarapegembara Veteran
    edited April 2010
    seanconnors wrote: »
    How can every moment of existence within samsāra even eating food or falling in love be considered suffering?

    how can such pleasant things be considered as suffering? even falling in love??? :confused:


    Why do we need to eat in the first place? Try going without food for a day or longer see what happens.

    Falling in love is not suffering, falling out of is.
  • PietroPumokinPietroPumokin
    edited April 2010
    sometimes, if you consider the bliss of the buddha, which is free from attachment, and not dependent on any conditions, you can see that these pleasures like sex and good food, or art or a good conversation, dont compare at all to ultimate bliss, and can thus be conceived as suffering, samsara. but that doesnt also mean that these things aren't deprived of nirvana. actually, i think falling in love may be closer to nirvana than anything else in this world, and everything shares in nirvana in some way, but it's mostly about where your heart is at when and if you are in a relationship with objects external to yourself.
  • tony67tony67
    edited April 2010
    Someone may correct me on this but I read many years ago that the western use of "suffering" was not a true translation something more like "with out flavour" or "unfulfilling". Mind that was many years ago in a book by someone called (I think) Chrismas Humphery's, can you trust a Buddhist called Christmas :D.

    But I always liked that translation, however well you do in life there is always something missing unfulfilling.
  • questionfulquestionful
    edited April 2010
    the translation is more like, "a wheel off kilter" because du- means bad and kkha means a cart wheel's center. so when you're suffering, you're like a crooked wheel rolling bumpily through samsara, but when you follow the noble eightfold path, you roll true and peacefully.

    or at least that's what i read in some book. i'm too lazy to google to double check.
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    edited April 2010
    questionful wrote: »
    the translation is more like, "a wheel off kilter" because du- means bad and kkha means a cart wheel's center. so when you're suffering, you're like a crooked wheel rolling bumpily through samsara, but when you follow the noble eightfold path, you roll true and peacefully.

    or at least that's what i read in some book. i'm too lazy to google to double check.

    This book bears you out,.... and Buddhanet confirms that suffering, as a translation of dukkha is woefully inadequate, not to say misleading.....
  • dennis60dennis60
    edited April 2010
    Our basic instincts bring us pleasure because it makes us continue them. Sex-procreation- eating - survival/nutrition sleeping - rest renewal, health, long life, etc.... it just is suffering when they are craved for and not gotten. Remember the story of the Buddha becoming an ascetic and finally after about starving himself stopped that practice, and awakened to the middle way. Not too much, not too little....
  • zendozendo
    edited April 2010
    seanconnors wrote: »
    How can every moment of existence within samsāra even eating food or falling in love be considered suffering?

    how can such pleasant things be considered as suffering? even falling in love??? :confused:
    Great questions, seanconnors!

    I'm not 100% sure about the answers myself, but I did come across this Buddha quote recently, which may be relevant:
    "He who loves fifty people has fifty woes;
    he who loves no one has no woes."
  • MatSaltedMatSalted
    edited April 2010
    seanconnors wrote: »
    How can every moment of existence within samsāra even eating food or falling in love be considered suffering?

    how can such pleasant things be considered as suffering? even falling in love??? :confused:

    Perhaps you confuse dukka with samsara. Samsara is a purpoted anomalous phenomenon and dukka is true of all systems.

    And also, falling in love may be great, but it has in its conception its own end and all that. I see dukka as the inevitable negativity of systems rather than suffering per se.

    That's my thoughts:)

    mat
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