Suffering Won't Get You Anywhere

[mandyjw]

Going from two assumptions,

All suffering comes from the mind. 

Enlightenment is the state of being free from suffering and does not exist as a future state, or a permanent state. It is only a state that one can achieve in the present moment. There is no such thing as an enlightened being. People can appear to the mind's judgement be enlightened because they are never or very infrequently in other states.

Therefore the only path is to enter a state of freedom from suffering. 

Suffering is nothing more than an indicator that we aren't in a conscious state. 

Why then in so many spiritual traditions is the emphasis on seeking suffering? Isn't that completely backwards? 

For example I used to run long distances and I thought it made me a better person through suffering. I was focused on the suffering part. I dropped running for a few years and then picked it back up and discovered that I didn't care what I got out of it, and it was purely enjoyable. I didn't change the activity I changed the focus of it. 

Why do any method to "get" enlightened that makes you suffer? The suffering can only mean it isn't working for you. The trying can only mean that your doing it for the wrong reason. Why ever meditate or do any any other practice for any other reason than that it makes you feel good? Enlightenment is nothing you can work toward, you can only experience it now. 

Edited March 17, 2019 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

@David Hammond Yes, you can experience pain without suffering. I'm not saying anyone should try to achieve any state permanently, just that they use suffering as guidance to move to a state that feels good in the present moment. I think there is a tendency to believe that if I suffer enough now I won't suffer later, but instead I get more of what I practice and focus on.  

 

[pluto]

In order to find yourself you must lose yourself first.

[mandyjw]

@pluto That was the easy part.  I lost myself by trying to find myself and then I realized I already am. 

[mandyjw]

@David Hammond Enlightenment is nothing other than the present moment. When thoughts subside there is nothing but consciousness which is also nothing but the present moment. There is no you, there is only consciousness, the present moment is never a trap. The present is all there ever is, everything else is conceptual and the concepts are the trap. Suffering is a concept made out of pain and it's a trap. Suffering can never be the goal. Suffering can never be the path. It can be the trail markers along the path, guiding you but it is not the path. 

[pluto]

@mandyjw Indeed

A wise monk once said: You are not experiencing suffering, you are suffering your experiencing.

Edited March 17, 2019 by pluto

[mandyjw]

54 minutes ago, David Hammond said:

@mandyjw I disagree. 

@David Hammond I did for a long time too. I actually thought that I enjoyed suffering because suffering was what set me apart from people who were afraid of suffering. Then I realized that the entire idea of suffering was just from my ego.

Of course another equally true perspective could be that I had to suffer to learn that I didn't want to suffer.

[Highest]

In order to end all suffering you must die. 

 

[Shadowraix]

You'll have a long time before you actually transcend suffering. 

It's a great tool because comfort keeps us stagnant and discomfort forces us to overcome. That drive to overcome can lead to a variety of new perspectives. Growth. 

Anybody who has transcended suffering has faced their fair share of it. 

[Markus]

8 hours ago, David Hammond said:

@mandyjw The end of suffering does not mean that there is no suffering, it means that the suffering and the one who suffers are understood to be empty (devoid of any defining essence). 

How exactly is that the end of suffering, it is plain contradiction.

[Odysseus]

10 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Therefore the only path is to enter a state of freedom from suffering. 

Suffering is nothing more than an indicator that we aren't in a conscious state. 

Why then in so many spiritual traditions is the emphasis on seeking suffering? Isn't that completely backwards? 

Enlightenment is nothing you can work toward, you can only experience it now. 

Does the conscious state include the ego/mind? I think so. Must the ego be transcended? I think so too, but sounds like effort (doing). Maybe the mind refuses to transcend and therefore we suffer sometimes. But this implies a duality between mind and being.

Concepts: Go directly to jail 

[Markus]

@David Hammond The mind does indeed not vanish with awakening. Which is why I consider it silly for people to bs themselves into thinking they don't suffer. With good enough circumstances and relative stability, it is just another form of denial, just like people in duality trying to deny their problems. However empty you may be, suffering is suffering. Whether you are somebody suffering or nobody suffering. The Buddha was talking about actual elimination of craving and desire, an actual falling away of the ego, which is not at all the same thing as simple awakening.

[Markus]

49 minutes ago, David Hammond said:

@Markus

Would you still consider some relatively benign forms of desire ok for an enlightened being? In terms of sexual desire and hunger for food? Nothingness still needs to survive and procreate with itself, there are still physical mechanics, hormones, etc etc. Maybe what the Buddah was speaking of is the craving to escape the isolation created by ego? 

Can't say for certain since both I and some awakened people I know have plenty of cravings left. I think the craving that binds people to samsara and causes suffering is a different mechanism than bodily signals and impulses in their pure form (sexual desire, hunger, physical discomfort).

Awakening or entering non-duality is a major step for people, seeing beyond the constraints of identification with the body-mind. After that, some people may settle. With a relatively stable emotional life, it's not all that bad of a place to be, and it's quite remarkably better and more freeing than duality. Just like some people find relative stability and satisfaction in duality. Others, who have bigger emotional issues, or more difficult life circumstances, or something like chronic pain, can still experience immense dissatisfaction and suffering. Another way to say this is, awakened people have a lot of ego and craving left, and under the right circumstances those things will be triggered.

That can open up a cyclical process of breaking down and building the ego back up, dropping fragments of it each time. Aspects of self are seen through and then the self tries to once again redeem itself, to redeem samsara. That can go on for a long time until there's an undeniable experience of the very nature of life being dukkha (inherent lack of satisfaction), and there is no possibility of redemption. It is seen clearly that satisfaction cannot be found in this life. That craving is an inescapable loop. This realization, which can repeat itself again and again more clearly, leads to dispassion, which leads to cravings starting to  completely fall away, as the futility of their mechanism is seen. And that will supposedly continue until there's nothing left. Until the entire mechanism that traps us is samsara is burnt out.

[mandyjw]

@Odysseus What we usually mean by conscious state yes that includes the ego, I'm referring to pure consciousness though, consciousness without thought. 

[mandyjw]

There's a difference between yearning and suffering because you don't have what you want and having a pure positive desire, or knowing that pursuing something is right. One is enjoying the journey and the other is holding out for what't at the end. One lives in the present moment and one lives for the future. 

There's also a difference between suffering and being aware of pain.

The ego identifies with what it wants or identifies with pain and doesn't know it is separate from those things it experiences. It's constantly latching on to things and saying "this is part of me", "this is who I am".  I won't be fulfilled until I have a nice career, or I can't have any nice experiences because instead I have this pain. Again, one is in the present moment experiencing the pain as a sensation and one is in the future and the past defining himself by his experiences. 

I'm starting to do some cold exposure training, the most suffering I experience is not the intense cold but the time leading up to it or when I first feel the cold and my brain is saying what is happening here. It forces you into the present moment. 

[mandyjw]

@David Hammond What you describe is the state of the mind post enlightenment experience. The word "understanding" implies that the mind has come in to make sense of what happened after the experience. The experience itself is the present moment, which can only be fully experienced without thought. 

The state you describe is important because otherwise it could not be taught to others and after all the mind allows us to exist and survive as form. But the actual enlightenment, the actual experience, the actual embodiment can only happen in the now. 

We really like to inflate enlightenment into some sort of future state of mystical salvation but it's always here, has always been here, and anyone is capable of it but only ever in the present moment. People are doing it accidentally everyday. That's the appeal of drugs and sex and extreme sports. The difference is that this community is cultivating a practice where they do it purposefully rather than on accident. 

[thesmileyone]

So I spent the last day trying to figure out if I actually suffer in day to day life, without trying to BS myself. I have come to the conclusion that, I simply don't know.

LIke I would like X car but whereas before I wouldn't have X car and it would make me depressed and I would have thoughts like "You're such a loser 'cos that guy has one and you don't" but now it's like "shrug" and I forget about it; no attachment is created to even be depressed about. And the mind moves on to the next desire and the same thing happens.

Having said that my grand dad is in hospital slowly dying at the moment and due to die any time so it will be interesting to see how grief (suffering) affects me. At the moment whereas everyone else in the family is sad over it I am surprisingly impartial about it.

Edited March 19, 2019 by thesmileyone

[mandyjw]

@thesmileyone Just be aware, because the no attachment thing creates ego backlash and a lot of suffering if it's faked or repressed. I recently learned that the hard way and it's easier to repress wants than you'd think. I'm learning to let myself want things again by purely enjoying the idea of them, and doing whatever steps I feel like taking to follow the desire, rather than creating suffering by the fact that I don't have them. 

My grandmother passed away two weeks ago. In some ways it was way harder than I expected but in other ways easier. I went back and forth between grief and being much more open spiritually than my normal state. The hard part is that you have to be with your family and that's also a really important part of grief so don't avoid it. But it's easy to get pulled into looking at it as a loss rather than a transition when you're around family or at a funeral. When you're outside looking at the sky it's a lot easier to understand that they aren't really gone.

[SOUL]

That is quite close @mandyjw, except that the type of suffering that we are free from in liberation is self suffering. We experience pain with the body and a lingering pain in the body is what is called suffering but the type of suffering that happens within consciousness is the self suffering that can happen even when the body is free from pain.

The awareness of emotional pain, reputational pain of the ego, past pain, potential pain in the future and mortality are what can cause self suffering in us. So yes, you accurately assess that freedom from suffering is a present moment experience but that freedom is experienced in self conscious though we may experience pain in the body, even lingering pain.

In liberation we can experience all kinds of pain and emotion without it ever causing self suffering.

Edited March 20, 2019 by SOUL

[Inliytened1]

@mandyjw if you are forcing yourself to suffer just in order to get enlightenment - that's probably not going to work.

 

If you have experienced suffering not of your own purposeful doing and you have experienced deep suffering which also heightens your emotional state, then that actually can be one of the factors that can lead to enlightenment.  But there are a lot of other factors to.

Open Mindedness, being free of dogma, humility, sensitivity, (need to be open to both masculine and feminine sides), basically as egoless as is humanly possible,...if you notice, the ego is the opposite of all of this.

 

Even if you had a big ego at one time and became conscious of your foolish ways and you changed, with that change came suffering, and you will be closer to enlightenment.  When you are in the state you can become enlightened fast, as I did.

Edited March 19, 2019 by Inliytened1