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What's the point of having emotions?
ravkes
Veteran
We don't necessarily need them to survive do we? I can see how we're survival machines, but emotions seem to be unnecessary. Your thoughts?
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For example anger motivates you to focus on destroying things you perceive as threats just as hunger motivates you to eat when your body needs nourishment.
The issue with these feelings is that although following them leads to short term satisfaction they will have consequences beyond the momentary. it might feel good for a few moments to get revenge and satisfy your anger but you will likely suffer for it later.
:rocker:
BTW, some emotions have names, most of them don't and can't even be described: only experienced. They're just a given. I'll take 'em. Besides getting me conceived, emotions probably built Stonehenge and the Pyramids, BTW.
If human beings & animals did not have emotions (such as lust), they would not reproduce. Further, if human beings & animals did not have emotions (such as love), they would not look after their children.
IMO, the point of emotions are for them to be refined, from lust, to love, to compassion.
Kind regards
DD
Emotions are a way to make decisions, just like thoughts.
They are closely connected, and not only through process, but also etymologically. They both come from the Latin root 'Emovere' which means to put outwards, to propel externally.
You have some pretty messed-up perceptions. That's where I'll start....
The above is so wrong, it's hard to know what to address first....! No, it's a condition.
Sure, don't fight them - embrace them! This forum is also a Sangha to many. In the absence of a real, convenient or local sangha, many come here for community discussion. Simply because we're Buddhists, it doesn't mean we have to detach from everything, particularly if it is a useful attachment....
There is every conceivable point in having emotions. It's what keeps the wheel-turning real....
You are completely misrepresenting Buddhism. Whether you are a prankster, a dissenter against Buddhism, or someone who is generally confused maybe what I'll say next will help you.
1. The middle path is not about staying between happiness and sadness, it is about staying between asceticism and indulgence. Being happy is never a bad thing. EVER. It could only be construed as bad when it has the effect of causing you to have attachment. But you can still be very very happy and not attach to the happiness. In fact the only way you will be very very happy is by not attaching to that happiness.
2. Giving up all your possessions is not necessary. In fact it could cause suffering. Giving up your possessions is something you do to help decrease your attachment to possessions. It is not the having the possessions that causes suffering however, it is attaching to them. You could be the richest man in the world and be less attached than the poorest man in the world. Its not about what you have, its about what you crave or fear to have.
3. No where was it said you should suppress emotion. You should do the opposite. You should feel your emotions, exquisitely and mindfully. But you should keep separate from them and keep unattached to them.
4. No where is it said you should only focus on the breath. The breath isn't even necessarily important. It is about mindfulness, it is about feeling all sensation and emotion. It is absolutely not about suppressing anything, it is about letting go of attachment. You can still feel emotions and sensations and not be attached or averse to them.
5. You have a completely incorrect understanding of the concept of no-self. It is not about shutting yourself off from the world. It is not about having no ideas or feeling no feelings. No-self is about not having a concept that you are an unchanging entity separate from the universe. You still exist. Understanding no-self doesn't make you go poof. You are something, you are a body and a mind. What you are NOT is a separate unchanging entity.
6. No, attachment to emotions does not keep you alive. You can be influenced by emotion without being attached to it. In fact attachment to emotions will cause you to be totally influenced by emotions alone, probably increasing your chance of death.
Your entire misunderstanding comes from a misunderstanding of craving, attachment and aversion. Which I turned out to have just made a thread on. Check it out maybe.
you have been presented with much information put forward as 'Truth', but now you are discovering that there are more angles to this Truth, than you at first thought. And that's fine. We are encouraged to examine and discern for ourselves. What worked before, does not work now.
Actually, you're telling us it didn't work before....Ok, well....consider yourself a seeker of Wisdom. It's fun trying, it's good to learn. It's fine to change a PoV, and it's perfectly ok to change your mind....:)
Like what would the computer chess game 'deeper blue' do if you said "this game paws can move diagonally even when not capturing... It would have to be reprogrammed. For that matter what if you asked deeper blue what its goals were in life?
We have pavlovian conditioned behaviour. But we are also aware. Unconditioned mind outside of time. (that part may not relate to emotions)