Suffering

[ananda]

I explained it in terms of love, but if you do not understand reality and humanity enough to understand that one ought to suffer when their family is murdered, then there is little I can do for you.

There is a secondary Buddhistic tradition called the Mahayana school, but it is a deviation from traditional Buddhism and does not cohere with the original doctrines.

"Compassion" without love is a phantom. Indeed the word literally means "to suffer with."

Yes, I understand that "love" is your explanation, but it is only based on what is considered the highest ideal from your religious faith.

I respect the Mahayanists' right to practice their faith as they see fit, but I do not personally consider Mahayana to be "Buddhism".

Finally, "compassion" means to sympathize with others' misfortunes, and to wish to alleviate their suffering - suffering with them is optional.

 

[katerinah1947]

When someone murders your entire family, then you should experience suffering, yes.

We experience suffering when we lose what we love, and there are things that ought to be loved, such as children, parents, spouse, etc. The Buddhist workaround is to love nothing (and therefore hate nothing). But humans were meant to love, and therefore they were meant to be susceptible to suffering. In order to avoid suffering the Buddhist must avoid love. This is a truncated human existence.

God is perhaps furthest from Buddhism. He came, accepted suffering, death, and the sins of the world, all out of love. Love caused him to willingly undergo suffering that he could have avoided. It was precisely that deep love--love that does not shy away from suffering--that saved the world. The Christian fears suffering but does not avoid it.

Hi,

In a personal account to a patient, a Psychiatrist told us what he told a patient one day in a crisis.

The whole story with that patient, did work.

Here is the part of that, on suffering, which fits here, to say maybe that suffering is important to the internal growth of a person, rather than avoiding it, or some other mechanism to handle it.

"I finally had time to ask the man next to me what his story was."

"What happened to you, to get you here in this concentration camp?"

"The man says to me:"I am Polish. The Germans came to my house one day. They machine gunned my wife and my children in front of me. Because I could speak German they did not kill me. I had a choice to make then. I chose love. I have been here for more than a year."

" The man looked as though he was here only a few months. If that is what choosing love does, it is amazing. I kept looking at him though. I had seen his face before. Finally I realized where I had seen that face before. It is the face of Jesus."

It is the face of Jesus that he saw when he died in the West Texas boot camp for soldiers preparing to go to the Second World War. He died there. Met Jesus. They conversed. Jesus then told him that he needed him to back into his body. He did, eventually surprising everybody, when the covered corpse on a gurney, made coughing and struggling noises.

That once dead man, eventually became a Psychiatrist, but by that time, infrequently shared his story, and never ever before with a patient.

It seems his pain and the pain of others molds us all into more Christ like people.

To be able to feel, to suffer, to cry, to live and wonder how in the midst of great pain, great tragedy, and tragedies, that we are not allowed death over life, seems to be needed and necessary for us as humans to become better humans.

LOVE,

 

[Neochristian]

"To be Christian is to believe in Christ and to suffer for the sake of this faith….." Søren Kierkegaard

I mean, yeah. But only because of the state of the world. That is the prophets reward, that is what happens to the vindyard people. But it is only because of the current unwholesome state of the world. It is not essential to the Christian practice.

 

[Received]

But that's false, and it rests on a kind of hedonism.

Suppose someone's entire family is murdered. The Buddhist would seek to avoid the suffering through a kind of indifference. But that is inhuman. The suffering is necessary and healthy. The problem is that Buddhism wishes to avoid suffering unilaterally without considering the causes of suffering.

Again, I don't think this is true. The Buddhist would emphasize ways to minimize suffering as a phenomenological reality (by mindfulness and acceptance, which minimizes resistance and desire, leading to "just" pain) just as much as seeking change to uproot the suffering. Actually, dealing with suffering phenomenologically is arguably better than dealing with it through overt change, because stimuli for pain and suffering will always be with us, and the more we push them away by changing the stimuli the less we're able to train ourselves in how to deal with unavoidable stimuli. If we start with changing our perspective and how we relate to suffering, then we're better able to change suffering in terms of moving it away from us; otherwise we'll be so busy moving it away that we never get around to changing our perspective and thereby minimizing suffering through radical acceptance and mindfulness.

 

[SkyWriting]

The Buddha taught that the basic undercurrent in life which motivates most individual's behavior is suffering. Others tend to disagree, pointing to the fact that there are joys in life. I agree that there are temporary joys in life. However, I would say that we constantly seek out those joys, pleasure, and other activities, in order to achieve a measure of happiness in order to temporary eliminate the suffering we feel in our daily lives. The fact that we do not seek out suffering to eliminate happiness proves to me that suffering is truly the underlying factor which motivates our decisions in life.

We suffer because we are not in the presence of God. Our humanity is certainly
the vessel we sit in. And get fat like Buddha. But our Spiritually is the potential
joy of being back with The Father, though we don't deserve it.

 

[popsthebuilder]

How would you say that suffering helps a man?

Suffering is lessons to be learned from. Things learned from experiences had, either good or bad are to be reflected upon and acts on accordingly in new scenarios. Unfortunately, due to self centeredness or greed , many perceive suffering as wholly negative and out of their hands. If we don't learn from pain then what would we learn from. I personally have always only really learned anything through personal experience. Two side notes;

All pain is from the hand of man in some way.

Most everything that happens to us is a response to what we have done.

2¢

 

[popsthebuilder]

It is true that suffering may prod us toward obedience—that would certainly be a good way to improve the suffering (to use ‘improve’ in a archaic sense). But the path of obedience itself is often a path of actively chosen suffering, as our Lord showed. We all live by sacrifice.

The only sacrifice is sin or sense of self in terms of greed. Suffering is only temporary. If one could follow wholly without greed or the wants of the flesh then there would be no suffering for that person. Not by their own hand anyway.

Suffering on a global, all life inclusive level will stop if all ever realize the true direction we are to follow in reciprocation and thanks and respect and responsibility under GOD.

 

[popsthebuilder]

I see the truth in the statement that suffering comes from attachment to things which change, which essentially includes all of the universe. We resist change (the nature of reality), or we are attached to things which we don't have and wish to possess (greed). So, in that sense, I see nothing externally added to humans. What else do you see added?

Greed, want

 

[popsthebuilder]

According to Buddhism, suffering comes from attachment to pain. Pain is externally sourced, like a literal arrow shot into a person's body. Suffering is internal - it is a mental attachment to the pain of the physical arrow which becomes a "second arrow" in the person's mind.

Another example: People often feel much better decluttering their homes. The old couch may have physically been tossed, but there is also the mental couch occupying space in the mind which becomes de-attached, and it is this which usually gives the true relief.

So, yes, pain and suffering often prods the "lesser evolved" beings to change and grow; without such pain they are often content to stay and remain as they are. For the enlightened who understands this process on the higher level, such prodding is no longer necessary for growth.

When I was young I realized that pain, in a physical sense, was simply an electronic signal. As such I practiced and achieved nullifying the pain.

Now I realize that all pain is a system to guide us, and ignorance or avoidance of pain is detrimental to our existence. What I'm saying is that if you ignore pain the negative effects that trigger the pain will continue, grow, and cause damage over time.

Being able to withstand pain is a good trait in my opinion. Actively ignoring it on all levels in all cases is unwise.

 

[popsthebuilder]

Yes, dukkha is suffering (but not necessarily pain). Dukkha is more primal than happiness, because people seek escape from dukkha; we do not seek escape from happiness. Enlightenment is the path to Nibbana.

Avoidance of pain is equivalent to happiness. What you say doesn't make sense to me, respectfully.

 

[popsthebuilder]

Illness and death is more fundamental than health, in this world. Only with constant work, through food, exercise, etc. is a modicum of health maintained - for a period of time. Without the constant effort, illness and death prevails.

Many might say that evil is also sought by some for its own sake, as a form of perverse pleasure (which also relieves suffering, in a sense).

Buddhists seem to actually embrace absence, void, and the lack there of. They also look to avoid any type of significance but their own enlightenment, yet refuse to use what knowledge they might attain. Completely pacifistic. One does have to remove greed and sense of attachment to begin to perceive reality or true direction, but to embrace emptiness and lack of action regardless of potential is just wrong to me and counter productive on a universal level.

I actually ponder if the Buddhists will help the cause of good when the time comes? I hope I'm very wrong about true Buddhists.

I really need to do more research on it, and really hope I'm wrong.

Peace

 

[popsthebuilder]

What makes "[personal] suffering the proper human response to [external] evil"? Just because someone else performed evil means I must experience suffering, or something is wrong with me?

Yeah, that's what evil does.

Not embracing suffering is good. Neglecting it all together is to neglect the pain and lesson and opportunities to truly remove it from the equation in the next case.

 

[popsthebuilder]

You don't provide an answer to "why?" except that it's the "proper response". Why should I experience suffering? What inherently makes it the "proper response"?

Buddhism esteems a different ideal than the Christian concept of love. We elevate compassion and loving-kindness over love, in the sense that the qualities of compassion and loving-kindness does not require reciprocation or attachment, but are instead selfless.

The Christian concept of "love", however, requires reciprocation and attachment, and causes suffering. The Christian god requires his subjects to love him back (attachment), and vice versa.

Compassion, LOVEing kindness, selfless giving, and love for others and God are all love. You seem to divide concepts and things needlessly, showing your lack of selflessness and your abundance of greed on some level. Can you not see that most the things you say are simply a different side of the same coin? Then you intentionally continue to keep things separate, that through your experience, and attempted enlightenment should be seen as singular and harmonious.

How long have you been practicing Buddhism?

Might have sounded kinda rude. I'm generally blunt, and really mean no disrespect whatsoever.

Peace.

 

[popsthebuilder]

I consider suffering to not only be the loss of what is desirable or pleasurable (greed), but also resistance against what is not desireable or pleasurable (hatred), or acting or thinking in non-wise manners (delusion). Suffering occurs because of attachment to unfulfilled desires, repulsion against what is hated, or delusion. Yes, a measure of relief from suffering occurs when one fulfills unfulfilled desires, eliminates what is hated, or by dispelling ignorance and delusion. They are however only temporary solutions, as new desires, etc. are always sprouting. Feeding and fulfilling desire produces more desires. This is the nature of samsara, as described in Buddhism, and is evidenced by the numerous individuals suffering through various mental illnesses. Giving in to their anxious or depressive compulsions causes their mental illness to grow. (Much of modern psychology therapies are successfully based on Buddhist concepts of detachment and release)

So, IMO it is more rational to work on a more fundamental, permanent level - to work against mental attachments to unfulfilled desire, repulsion, or ignorance.

What do you mean by "rightly ordering desires"?

As I pointed out in my last post, Christian love involves attachments, and thus, suffering in the endless round of samsara.

Yes, suffering is not our natural state, but we disagree on what is the best solution for suffering. Your solution (embracing suffering/rightly ordering desires) is dependant on an alleged future reconcilation of suffering by your deity - a belief based on blind faith. The Buddhist solution on the other hand produces visible, measurable results in the here-and-now, and also promises relief from future suffering.

Actually John the Baptist, and Christ both spoke of and Actively practised separation from the material and all things of the flesh. It is a way to meditate on reality without skewing judgment based on greed.

 

[popsthebuilder]

Yes, I understand that "love" is your explanation, but it is only based on what is considered the highest ideal from your religious faith.

I respect the Mahayanists' right to practice their faith as they see fit, but I do not personally consider Mahayana to be "Buddhism".

Finally, "compassion" means to sympathize with others' misfortunes, and to wish to alleviate their suffering - suffering with them is optional.

One cannot have compassion without empathy

 

[ananda]

Suffering is lessons to be learned from. Things learned from experiences had, either good or bad are to be reflected upon and acts on accordingly in new scenarios. Unfortunately, due to self centeredness or greed , many perceive suffering as wholly negative and out of their hands. If we don't learn from pain then what would we learn from. I personally have always only really learned anything through personal experience. Two side notes;

All pain is from the hand of man in some way.

Most everything that happens to us is a response to what we have done.

2¢

"Suffering" does not equal "personal experience". Are you saying that people can't learn without having to suffer?

Animals and undeveloped children might need some physical prodding to influence them to learn lessons, but mature adults should not need punishment or suffering in order to learn.

I'm not a child that I should require suffering to learn.

 

[Lulav]

Suffering is lessons to be learned from. Things learned from experiences had, either good or bad are to be reflected upon and acts on accordingly in new scenarios. Unfortunately, due to self centeredness or greed , many perceive suffering as wholly negative and out of their hands. If we don't learn from pain then what would we learn from. I personally have always only really learned anything through personal experience. Two side notes;

All pain is from the hand of man in some way.

Most everything that happens to us is a response to what we have done.

2¢

Cause and effect? Sounds like what G-d warned about in the OT. There's a lot of 'ifs' and 'thens' in there.

 

[Lulav]

One cannot have compassion without empathy

Isn't that why they say G-d came to earth as a human so that he could experience what we experience?

 

[ananda]

When I was young I realized that pain, in a physical sense, was simply an electronic signal. As such I practiced and achieved nullifying the pain.

Now I realize that all pain is a system to guide us, and ignorance or avoidance of pain is detrimental to our existence. What I'm saying is that if you ignore pain the negative effects that trigger the pain will continue, grow, and cause damage over time.

Being able to withstand pain is a good trait in my opinion. Actively ignoring it on all levels in all cases is unwise.

"Pain" does not equal "suffering". Painful situations should be avoided whenever morally and ethically possible.

 

[ananda]

Buddhists seem to actually embrace absence, void, and the lack there of. They also look to avoid any type of significance but their own enlightenment, yet refuse to use what knowledge they might attain. Completely pacifistic. One does have to remove greed and sense of attachment to begin to perceive reality or true direction, but to embrace emptiness and lack of action regardless of potential is just wrong to me and counter productive on a universal level.

I actually ponder if the Buddhists will help the cause of good when the time comes? I hope I'm very wrong about true Buddhists.

I really need to do more research on it, and really hope I'm wrong.

Peace

I don't recall stating that Buddhists practice a "lack of action". We practice action whenever possible, and non-action whenever appropriate.