Suffering

[Who Knows]

If life is suffering, then surely the existence of life - and, more relevantly, the creation of new life - is a negative. That is not to advocate suicide, though the pursuit of enlightenment does seem equatable to deathless suicide, but simply to pose the question: is life worth it? I don't know why I would choose to play a game in which my only objective is to unfuck myself. 

Whilst I am aware that most of our suffering, that which is produced by our egos, can be transcended with spiritual practises, my past experiences with physical suffering have led me to believe that it is something very real - and with that, really negatively valuable. I notice even most generally wise gurus speak implicitly about the inherent beauty of life - a fabrication that, as far as I can see, has little to do with the true nature of existence.

[Neo]

If we live in an infinite universe, it's not really possible that all life is suffering. There will be every permutation of possible lives out there. It's just our particular version of seemingly intelligent species has developed an ego whose job it is to make life hard for us.

[abrakamowse]

22 minutes ago, sadlabounty said:

If life is suffering, then surely the existence of life - and, more relevantly, the creation of new life - is a negative. That is not to advocate suicide, though the pursuit of enlightenment does seem equatable to deathless suicide, but simply to pose the question: is life worth it? I don't know why I would choose to play a game in which my only objective is to unfuck myself. 

Whilst I am aware that most of our suffering, that which is produced by our egos, can be transcended with spiritual practises, my past experiences with physical suffering have led me to believe that it is something very real - and with that, really negatively valuable. I notice even most generally wise gurus speak implicitly about the inherent beauty of life - a fabrication that, as far as I can see, has little to do with the true nature of existence.

It's like the story of the glass with half of it filled with water. You can choose to see it like half empty or half full. You choose.

I think the idea of the game is to see that you have power really over your way to see reality. The reality "out there" we don't know, we have no idea how it is. We can only see our reality. 

Right now I am writing answering your question, when in fact, I am answering my interpretations of what you have written, I would never know your reality. It's not possible. We don't know nothing.

[jjer94]

You dug yourself into a linguistic hole with your first sentence.

Life is not suffering. Life is not beautiful either. Life just is. Words can never approach life itself. Suffering, beauty, and all these other interpretations are just the stories told in an otherwise undescribable book full of black ink. 

You also dig yourself into a linguistic hole by asking the question, "Is life worth it?" Which wouldn't be an issue if you also saw that worth is just another interpretive overlay. 

Do you think your heartbeat has any questions? Do you think breathing is confused? Realize that life has no questions; only thoughts do. 

Cheers.

[Neo]

@sadlabounty Are you asking these things because it's of interest to you, maybe in a philosophical way, or are you troubled by suffering right now?

[Neo]

32 minutes ago, sadlabounty said:

Whilst yes, this is a largely philosophical inquiry, I have never tasted existence entirely devoid of suffering - nor it seems have most people. 

OK, I'll hold off sending you the Samaritans phone number (in the UK)

This is my unenlightened reply: (I don't claim to be enlightened in any way)

There is something called the anthropic principle. While the principle is complex and exists in many forms It argues something along the lines of "why are the conditions for life just perfect on earth, isn't it too much of a coincidence?", and the answer is, "you wouldn't be able to ask the question if you existed in an inhospitable galaxy or universe." I've really over simplified that but you get the idea.

And so in similar fashion, you are a developed creature evolved from many competing creatures who suffer high infant mortality rates, high rates of disease and population fluctuations, natural disasters and complete extinction events, and you reach a point where you have the intelligence to ask, basically, "is life full of suffering?" The answer is "yes" but had you not had to compete through evolution through the whole process and develop according to the ecosystem of earth along with other organisms in the environment and time frame as allowed, you would not have been able to ask the question.

Or to put it the other way, if you developed as a squishy happy marsh mellow flavoured happy bunny thingy always high and ever friendly, you would have just been eaten by something and wouldn't be sat on your couch asking this question.

 

 

Edited December 13, 2016 by Neo

[abrakamowse]

On 12/13/2016 at 5:37 PM, sadlabounty said:

@abrakamowse That's just it though, you can't make a broken leg into an orgasm, however optimistic your outlook is. Perhaps you can learn to divert your awareness elsewhere, but you will still be suffering to some extent.

What's a thought? Everything is thoughts...

[Leo Gura]

@sadlabounty Life is suffering when lost in falsehood.

You have no idea yet the infinite love and beauty of TRUTH.

Reality couldn't be any more beautiful and lovely than it already is, because it's already infinity so. There's nothing higher. Whatever your greatest fantasies of paradise might be, they are less lovely than what's actually true.

But this will require work to realize. Don't expect to feel it without doing the work. The self is too small and petty to understand such profundity. You literally lack the physical and emotional bandwidth to feel the full power of love that reality has to show you.

It's sort of like you're an off-the-shelf toaster trying to plug itself directly into the Hoover Dam generators. If you did, the raw power would blow you to smithereens. You would die and be reborn, never again questioning the source.

[abrakamowse]

@sadlabounty  Try with any silly painful thing, like when they extract you blood, or when you feel some pain because an accident or simple things. I am not talking about big stuff. But try to begin to become more aware of pain.

If you don't try to avoid the pain, if you feel it... try to feel it without thinking, and study what it is. It's not painful. It's a feeling that it's not painful per se, our ego interprets it as painful. I am not so aware to tell you that I don't feel pain, but once you begin to have a little glimpse of this you will understand how yogis "supported" so much pain, or how Buddhist monks get almost naked on frozen water and don't feel anything. 

They are capable of generating heat with their bodies to not feel the cold water in the mountains.

[Aware]

To wrap things up: Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.@abrakamowse @sadlabounty

[Paulo Barbosa]

What about animal suffering? Have you guys watched how animals suffer at the hands of humans? Laboratory experiments and especially, animal farming should be enough for one to ask questions about the incongruent nature of reality. Why does a cow or a pig have to suffer so much? Being bred for food, clothes and cosmetics in appalling conditions... what do you say to that? That animals should practice non duality or be more positive about life in general? I honestly don't buy it!!!

[Aware]

@Paulo Barbosa The law of action and result Paulo, doesn't change.

Its not how animals suffer by the hands of humans, or the humans at the claws of animals. Its how they suffer by the hands or claws of their own. Life feeds on life.

 

[Paulo Barbosa]

@Aware What is that even supposed to mean? That is the same as saying: because it is the way it works!

[Aware]

@Paulo Barbosa

4 minutes ago, Paulo Barbosa said:

What is that even supposed to mean?

It means, that it will never stop. That only the person who worries about it, should and can make a change for himself by seeing that one suffers by his own hands, and changing, doing something about this, will stop ones worries about the world that will always be in duality of some kind.

What it means is, that they are not in fact animals, their physical garments, but are Awareness, not separated from one another. And there for I stated: 

18 minutes ago, Aware said:

The law of action and result Paulo, doesn't change.

Its not how animals suffer by the hands of humans, or the humans at the claws of animals. Its how they suffer by the hands or claws of their own. Life feeds on life.

 

 

[Paulo Barbosa]

@Aware But why does it have to be this way? Why all this suffering in a world created by a force that many call "Love"? Because these so called physical garments do suffer you know...? The question is not how I can be free from suffering but why does suffering exists in the first place (especially in the realm where creatures can't do anything to escape from it)!

[Aware]

13 minutes ago, Paulo Barbosa said:

The question is not how I can be free from suffering but why does suffering exists in the first place (especially in the realm where creatures can't do anything to escape from it)!

I think both statements are serving the same purpose of doing something about ones own suffering.

 

13 minutes ago, Paulo Barbosa said:

But why does it have to be this way? Why all this suffering in a world created by a force that many call "Love"? Because these so called physical garments do suffer you know...?

You have a good heart, it doesn't have to be this way, however, it happens anyway by the laws of nature. Buddha, and others therefor did their utmost to get them to understanding, teaching the Dharma for the sake of suffering. By that this does not change, therefor when you get rid of your suffering, you will be compassionate, due to that it can be different, but will never be different for most. Only some will understand the Dharma, and they end suffering, and many will continue to suffer by their own doing, thinking they do it to others (while we are essentially one, Awareness).

Edited December 26, 2016 by Aware

[Paulo Barbosa]

@Aware Thanks for your answers so far.

I used to think that the world was completely random and with no intelligent principle behind it.

Within that view, suffering was perfectly normal.

But more recently I have started to watch Leo's videos on enlightenment and 5MeoDmt and I became convinced that I was probably wrong.

The world has to have an architect.

Now my problem with that new worldview of mine is that I am having trouble to fit the suffering with a work of an infinite loving force.

I always thought that because the world was so twisted there was nothing I could do in order to make it better.

But with my new way lenses onto the world I started to be more compassionate and started to make some changes in my life, like becoming vegan and supporting causes with my own money and time. 

And now I find myself in a situation where I am as confused as ever.

Many proponents of consciousness liberation seem to advocate that you take care of yourself and let the world go round.

But my gut feeling is telling me otherwise.

I don't want to go down that road again where everything seems to be senseless.  That is a game that I cannot play anymore.

[Aware]

@Paulo Barbosa Great advancements I hear, good!

All things seem different, and in believing so, suffering is indeed perfectly normal and does not have to be dealt with.

However, seen from a oneness perspective, it is indeed a whole other piece of cake. 

18 minutes ago, Paulo Barbosa said:

Now my problem with that new worldview of mine is that I am having trouble to fit the suffering with a work of an infinite loving force.

Awareness, is all pervasive. It means, that if your view becomes: All things are temporary, previous states have led to this one, and this state will lead to the next one, then there is no room in this continuity for an separated I.

So all beings that do suffer, due to thirst, attached to desires, are not differently attached. So without their attachment, they are You. Your neighbor without attachment to desire, is also you. So we don't differ by being Awareness, or having not a body (we do have a body, and the attachment to desire doesn't differ either). And there for, the illusion of separation isn't different in one either. Now the world is a lot smaller suddenly. The only thing that now matters is: Is one attached or not.

But if you are not attached, and in line with One, you can make a difference to Yourself, by helping others that are deluded by thinking they are separated from anything else. And I see this as the true duty being Awareness, always sharing medicine for one that is attached to ones desire, that would be also himself if no longer attached to ones desires. (he or she is already, but just fails to realize the pretending game of not being himself)
So I completely agree, just sitting there as a sitting duck, is just not the highest form of devotion to ones True self. (Awareness).

Edited December 26, 2016 by Aware

[Paulo Barbosa]

@Aware So, if I get it correctly you are saying that:

1. We are all one;

2. Attachment is the root cause of suffering;

3. Karma perpetuates that suffering;

4. The only way of escaping suffering is by achieving perfect awareness;

5. The only way of helping others is by achieving perfect awareness and spreading that teaching to others.

Please, do correct me in the point where I am wrong.

Also, even if I settle for the Karma explanation, it does not answer why was this world created with these rules in the first place.

Would you be so kind to share your views on this subject: why would an infinitely loving God create a world where suffering exists and where only through "purification" can one liberate from it?

 

[Aware]

1 minute ago, Paulo Barbosa said:

2. Attachment is the root cause of suffering;

Its our attachment to our attachment. (Craving, thirst, attachment to desire = Thirst, craving). (we need some attachment, attachment is not in itself wrong, but attached to desires, its thirst.

4 minutes ago, Paulo Barbosa said:

The only way of helping others is by achieving perfect awareness and spreading that teaching to others.

The teaching part is a complex one. Awareness is all pervasive, its duty is beyond our imagination. Arjuna needed to fight ones own relatives in a great war as being in alliance with Krishna (personification of Godhead, Awareness). He was bewildered by doubt of course.

One does then the duty that is at resonance with ones true self, what ever that may be.

6 minutes ago, Paulo Barbosa said:

Also, even if I settle for the Karma explanation, it does not answer why was this world created with these rules in the first place.

I do not think that this truly matters. Awareness has no origin.