Is All Suffering Caused By The Illusion of Self & Other?

[PlayOnWords]

When we are coming into the world, as children, we develop survival mechanisms to ensure our basic needs are met. Food, shelter, acceptance and so on. For example: if I grow up with racist parents, at a young age I will develop a racist streak in order to fit in with my 'tribe' and not be ostracised. This happens at an instinctive level, outside the realm of awareness. Then suddenly, in adulthood, one will have this deep-rooted survival mechanism of racism, and possibly not even question it.

Until... Let's say this person is on a bus, black people on every chair, except for them. This white person is the minority now. They will undoubtedly feel fear in this moment, due to the separation they have created with, in this example, a black person, which is a completely unjustified belief. This causes them suffering. Whereas if they saw black people as just another version of themselves, an expression of the same Source, why the need for fear?

This may not be the most poignant of examples, but you can make your own from the same formula. 

Looking at our own little ego identities, we think we are this way, we're not that way, we do this, we dont do that. This literally creates ego, the conceptual self. Now, when we find ourselves in positions/thoughts/feelings that contradict this survival-driven identity, that go against the grain of the self that we have constructed and identified with out of neccesity, we suffer.

Is this what is meant by total surrender? Is this actually what all of us are doing here? Unwiring all of the beliefs and judgements we think we are, only to find that we are none of them? We are just here, we are just doing what we are doing in this moment. We are all capable of wrong-doing, anger, hostility, all the things we label as 'bad'. And on the flip side, we are all capable of love, compassion and all the things we label 'good'. To deny any of them is ego, and is not authentic or true. 

I think I'm pretty spot on with this. It may not be the cause of all suffering but surely most?

What do you guys think? 

Edited February 14, 2020 by PlayOnWords

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

Jeez, have you turned into Buddha overnight?

Edited February 14, 2020 by Bazooka Jesus

[Forestluv]

@PlayOnWords I think that's a nice description of self survival dynamics. I would add a couple points. The dynamic can be "external" (e.g. that other person is a threat to me). It can also be "internal". For example, someone may have been conditioned to identify as "a kind person" and try to protect the survival of their "kind person". They may hyper-analyze their behavior and be hyper-self critical. They may try to people please and seek validation from others as being a kind person. Anything that contrary to their "kind person" identity is a threat to the survival of the "kind person" identity. The person may worry about if someone interpreted something they said as "mean" and suffer. The person may be cranky and snap at another - then beat themself up and suffer. Someone else may say "you were rude" and the person will suffer. All because it threatens the "kind person identity".  For someone with a "I'm a badass who doesn't take any shit" identity would not be bothered by the above, because it does not threaten the survival of their particular identity. 

As well, I would make a distinction between egoic-related suffering and mind-body pain/suffering. If I burn my hand, their will be mind-body pain. I could add in extra egoic pain/suffering with thought stories like "I'm so stupid to burn myself. Why does this always happen to me? I can't do anything right."

[PlayOnWords]

@Bazooka Jesus merely a poor imitation 

@Serotoninluv thanks for the input and clarity. The 'kind people pleaser identity' is in fact something I am currently struggling with and have been for a good while. My question now would be: how can someone relinquish these survival mechanisms that once did have their place in order to become more authentic, genuine and free? I suppose radical acceptance and love for one's self, and maybe continously pushing the boundaries and going against one's beliefs that are clearly causing problems? It just feels so fucking wrong, I guess. The survival habits have so much weight behind them, and for good reason I guess, as it has kept me alive this long and did once have a 'somewhat' useful function. 

[Forestluv]

@PlayOnWords I used the "kind person" identity as an example because it's one of my own conditioned identities. The simple awareness of the dynamic was key for me. With this awareness, I could start seeing it pop up. . . For example, I went on a few dates with a gal and then she said "You are such a kind person". Part of it was meant as a compliment, yet I could tell there was also an energy of expectation. That she is portraying a "kind person" expectation on to me. In the past, I would have internalized this and then I would have felt pressure to always be a "kind person" around her. I didn't want this dynamic to take root, so I playfully said "Awww thanks. I'm often kind, yet sometimes I get grouchy". . . . This simply statement diffused the "kind person" expectation and dynamic. 

[PlayOnWords]

@Serotoninluv so the awareness brings the opportunity for change. Nice.

Can I ask how long the process took you to fully correct this kindness drive? Or to notice a significant diminishment? 

[SOUL]

A lingering pain or discomfort is suffering and the type of suffering you are talking about is self suffering. Even though it seems nearly impossible it's actually much simpler to cease self suffering than physical suffering.

[VeganAwake]

It seems like there's a lot of things that can cause suffering but It ultimately boils down to "the resistance to what is happening".

And yes, when you are identified as a separate self and it feels like it's happening to an individual ME character, it can intensify the feeling of personal suffering.

 

[Nahm]

16 hours ago, PlayOnWords said:

The survival habits have so much weight behind them, and for good reason I guess, as it has kept me alive this long

Alive is basically not-dead. As sneaky as it is, you’d have to experience dead (or realize you can’t), to justify the ‘alive’ in contrast. Amongst the arising memories, and this moment, try to pin point the exact evidence of ‘alive’, it might be a belief.

[Leo Gura]

Suffering comes from attachment to survival and the self-biased perspective that one thing is better or worse than another thing.

If you were willing to die at any moment and you had no sense of one thing being better or worse than another, you wouldn't suffer.

But this is not possible to do from your current state of consciousness, so don't even try to think your way to it.

[Inliytened1]

It's selfishness.  Lose the self and lose suffering.  

The fear of death evaporates because there is no one to die.

[Maharani]

I would say the original post is a pretty good summary of the underlying cause of suffering. Suffering is an attitude towards circumstance that is rooted in a sense of being an independent individual who is "separate" from Life. Once we recognize that human beings are extrusions of Life, designed and conditioned in each moment by Life, lived by Life in the one and only possible way, our psychological narrative of guilt, blame, arrogance, anxiety and expectations no longer makes sense and falls away. Enlightenment, then, is unbroken peace of mind regardless of circumstance.

20 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Suffering comes from attachment to survival and the self-biased perspective that one thing is better or worse than another thing.

If you were willing to die at any moment and you had no sense of one thing being better or worse than another, you wouldn't suffer.

But this is not possible to do from your current state of consciousness, so don't even try to think your way to it.

We can still distinguish between (relative) good and bad (penicillin = good, Holocaust = bad). The middle path is to recognize that any point on a duality spectrum, regardless of being relatively good or bad, is inherently valid. So the "mistake" is not in discerning between good and bad, but in labeling the bad as unacceptable or wrong. I hope this doesn't come across as semantics.

If one's current "state of consciousness" is one way (OP's seems to be relatively "advanced" (peaceful) to me), why wouldn't contemplation be a useful tool for "progressing"? Although of course, "feeling" might be more useful than thinking.

Edited February 16, 2020 by Maharani

[cetus]

34 minutes ago, Maharani said:

So the "mistake" is not in discerning between good and bad, but in labeling the bad as unacceptable or wrong.

Isn't that comparing oranges to oranges?

[VeganAwake]

A crazy thing to recognize is nothing matters at all.

Whether you suffer your whole life or have the best experiences and visit every single world attraction.

Glancing down at a pile of dogshit on the sidewalk is exactly equal to any other life experience.

None of it matters or holds any value whatsoever. Or you could say they both hold the exact same value. Completely neutral...equal 0.

Nothing needs to happen, nothing needs to be done, nothing needs to be achieved.

Everything is perfectly whole and complete nothing is missing, the separation never occurred it was an illusion. ❤ 

[Maharani]

1 hour ago, cetus56 said:

Isn't that comparing oranges to oranges?

I guess it does get a bit semantic. "Good" would denote pleasant outcomes, like the invention of medicines. "Bad" means painful circumstance, like the Holocaust. Labeling painful outcomes as "wrong" or "unacceptable" means to have an attitudinal resistance to the circumstance, in other words suffering. We can discern painful outcomes from pleasant outcomes without resisting them attitudinally... is what I meant to say.

[SOUL]

All this imaginary nothing matters, it's all the same, it doesn't exist stuff just gives rise to the it does matter, it's all different and it does exist inevitability in the mind..... transcend the hustle.

[VeganAwake]

Like it's real and unreal like it matters and doesn't matter. To an individual things matter to existence nothing matters.

Ultimately nothing matters. Whether you spend your life in a cave or become the president of the United States they're both exactly the same thing. 

Pure free Boundless Energy with no meaning purpose or value whatsoever ❤