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Post by enigma on Feb 10, 2018 19:37:32 GMT -5
I'm unclear as to why this essence requires protection. In what way? From what? First, sometimes physical pain is inflicted on babies and young children. Then they are also exposed to verbal abuse, I wish you were never born, Shut up, quit crying, etc. A persona is formed to deflect injury. The persona is part of the structure that causes injury. How is it in a position to deflect injury?
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Post by enigma on Feb 10, 2018 20:04:31 GMT -5
Seems like one is born with various propensities, making it a unique expression. An imaginary self is built on that, and eventually needs to be seen for the illusion it is. Simple, simple. I'm pretty confident that the 'one that is born with various propensities, making it a unique expression'...is the true self that sdp is speaking of. I am too.
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lee
New Member
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Post by lee on Feb 10, 2018 21:13:46 GMT -5
Following this thread has been very useful to me as someone who sees himself living in his head 99% of the time. I struggle with that distinction. Here's a question. From my observations of my own mind, not sure if it applies to anyone else's, emotions are triggered by life events, deaths, "problems" (also sometimes errant thoughts), these emotions in turn trigger thoughts which feed or attempt to soften the emotions -- crazy huh?. These emotions affect the body which cause sensations, bodily sensations, but also affect my view of the so-called external world. Concrete example, someone I love very much is dying. No matter how much I want to focus on the beautiful water birds that fly into the pond near my house, there is a gnawing pain that I feel compelled to return to daily even when observing the water birds. Occasionally they provide a very short respite from the pain, but it's very short. I want to get rid of the pain. I see that. Probably why I visit the pond. Should I attempt to ignore the pain and focus on the life outside my head? I've experienced this many times before. It doesn't seem to get any easier. I guess I have that expectation. Enlightenment is a journey more than a destination and we will always have something to learn/heal and further room for growth, so I would say being authentic about our suffering is the way to go. So if for some reason we have to partake of a beloved’s suffering or suffer as a result of parting with a beloved, then the more enlightened response is to be authentic about it and express that suffering wholeheartedly than to suppress it or complicate it with additional negative emotions. When we are completely and wholeheartedly crying, there isn't as much suffering, there is mainly grieving and crying. When we hold back our tears and stop ourselves from crying, and perhaps even force and fake a smile, then that would be really suffering and not just here and now but for many years to come as our unexpressed grief will continue to weigh us down energetically and emotionally until such time when we are able to express it and release it. There too would be more suffering if we cry while also having anger, resentment, blame and/or guilt, leaving not much space for grieving and crying which are what we really need as part of our healing process. And being on the ND path, we do need to totally immerse ourselves in whatever it is that we are experiencing, be it grieving, crying or suffering, or laughing and enjoying, so as to realize that these are none other than the Absolute or Source in disguise.
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Post by enigma on Feb 10, 2018 22:01:16 GMT -5
I'm unclear as to why this essence requires protection. In what way? From what? If I go with the true self/essence idea, then it needs protection from the unconscious, insane and violent world in which we live. Physiologically a 'shell' is created to protect us, otherwise it would likely be too much for our nervous system. The emotional pain of it all would be too much. This 'shell' is what you mean by imagined or false self. Okay. I think I get it.
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Post by enigma on Feb 10, 2018 22:06:01 GMT -5
[/b]unconscious sense of itself, and therefore although pain is experienced differently by babies (to older humans), there is still an apparent sufferer. [/quote]A sense of self is not a 'me' structure in the mind. A sense of self does not lead to suffering. Your premise was that ''pain is just sensation until it is attached to a 'me' structure and it becomes suffering''. I'm saying that GIVEN that premise, the baby must be suffering because there IS a 'me' structure, just not an abstract conceptual structure.
We are moved to comfort simply because we believe it is suffering because it is acting like we do when we suffer. I'm suggesting we're missing something about how suffering happens. [/quote] Well it would be interesting to see if one would be moved to provide comfort to an AI robot when they demonstrated that they were responding to pain. [/quote] ------------------------------------------ Andy:Your premise was that ''pain is just sensation until it is attached to a 'me' structure and it becomes suffering''. I'm saying that GIVEN that premise, the baby must be suffering because there IS a 'me' structure, just not an abstract conceptual structure. And I'm saying there isn't a 'me' structure in the infant. Andy:Well it would be interesting to see if one would be moved to provide comfort to an AI robot when they demonstrated that they were responding to pain. Not if you knew it was a robot and that robots can't feel pain. What did I miss? [/quote] Well, you are missing the point that there is a 'me' structure in a baby, and this 'me' structure is the difference between AI robot and intelligent being. Apparently the AI robot can artificially 'experience' sensation, such as pain. They can be given artificial sensors apparently. [/quote] How do you figure I missed that point? I addressed it directly? [/quote] If a baby has no me structure of any kind, then it is the same as an AI bot. The 'me' structure becomes conceptual as we develop, but in essence it is just a primal and preconceptual sense of self. This is what differs to the AI bot, it has no 'me' structure. You have yet to explain to me what you see as the difference between a baby and an AI bot. [/quote] Without a 'me' structure, the baby becomes a robot?
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Post by enigma on Feb 10, 2018 22:10:15 GMT -5
Always? Any kind of pain is suffering? This is why I talk about the point of suffering; because pain is not suffering. Fear is not suffering. Not getting what you want is not suffering. None of that needs to be struggled with. When it is, it turns to suffering. The moment pain is noticed, there is suffering (I explained this in a different message). It is a physiological necessity, so that we can act ON the pain. If pain contained no component of suffering, then it would have no consequence, it would be irrelevant. Toothache? No problem, no point in going to a dentist. Tummy ache from too much food? No problem, just keep eating, Glass on the floor? No problem, just step on it. It is important that there is suffering, for as long as we manifest and create pain. It is the suffering that we act on, not the pain. In fact, when I have observed this very closely, what I have noticed is that one of the key pains of being in pain is the enforced contraction of focus and attention. We act to resolve pain (and suffering) so that we can relax our focus/attention. As I also said, I think you are talking about a particular kind of struggle, and that's fine, but then it is useful to specify this struggle, rather than assassinating the word 'suffering', which already has a very appropriate and inescapable meaning. You have assassinated suffering by making it the same as pain.
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Post by enigma on Feb 10, 2018 22:33:26 GMT -5
[/b]unconscious sense of itself, and therefore although pain is experienced differently by babies (to older humans), there is still an apparent sufferer. [/quote]A sense of self is not a 'me' structure in the mind. A sense of self does not lead to suffering. Your premise was that ''pain is just sensation until it is attached to a 'me' structure and it becomes suffering''. I'm saying that GIVEN that premise, the baby must be suffering because there IS a 'me' structure, just not an abstract conceptual structure.
We are moved to comfort simply because we believe it is suffering because it is acting like we do when we suffer. I'm suggesting we're missing something about how suffering happens. [/quote] Well it would be interesting to see if one would be moved to provide comfort to an AI robot when they demonstrated that they were responding to pain. [/quote] ------------------------------------------ Andy:Your premise was that ''pain is just sensation until it is attached to a 'me' structure and it becomes suffering''. I'm saying that GIVEN that premise, the baby must be suffering because there IS a 'me' structure, just not an abstract conceptual structure. And I'm saying there isn't a 'me' structure in the infant. Andy:Well it would be interesting to see if one would be moved to provide comfort to an AI robot when they demonstrated that they were responding to pain. Not if you knew it was a robot and that robots can't feel pain. What did I miss? [/quote] Well, you are missing the point that there is a 'me' structure in a baby, and this 'me' structure is the difference between AI robot and intelligent being. Apparently the AI robot can artificially 'experience' sensation, such as pain. They can be given artificial sensors apparently. [/quote] How do you figure I missed that point? I addressed it directly? [/quote] I'm going to have to agree with andrew, from what I recall you never give an indication there is a 'self' (a me structure) until about the age of 2. [/quote] Right, no 'me' structure until it can be conceptualized. This is the reason for the 'terrible twos', when everything becomes 'ME!' and 'MINE!'
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Post by enigma on Feb 10, 2018 22:36:10 GMT -5
I'm pretty confident that the 'one that is born with various propensities, making it a unique expression'...is the true self that sdp is speaking of. Precisely, that's why I agreed. That's been clear for a while now, but propensities don't make a self, true or otherwise.
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Post by enigma on Feb 10, 2018 22:38:25 GMT -5
[/b]unconscious sense of itself, and therefore although pain is experienced differently by babies (to older humans), there is still an apparent sufferer. [/quote]A sense of self is not a 'me' structure in the mind. A sense of self does not lead to suffering. Your premise was that ''pain is just sensation until it is attached to a 'me' structure and it becomes suffering''. I'm saying that GIVEN that premise, the baby must be suffering because there IS a 'me' structure, just not an abstract conceptual structure.
We are moved to comfort simply because we believe it is suffering because it is acting like we do when we suffer. I'm suggesting we're missing something about how suffering happens. [/quote] Well it would be interesting to see if one would be moved to provide comfort to an AI robot when they demonstrated that they were responding to pain. [/quote] ------------------------------------------ Andy:Your premise was that ''pain is just sensation until it is attached to a 'me' structure and it becomes suffering''. I'm saying that GIVEN that premise, the baby must be suffering because there IS a 'me' structure, just not an abstract conceptual structure. And I'm saying there isn't a 'me' structure in the infant. Andy:Well it would be interesting to see if one would be moved to provide comfort to an AI robot when they demonstrated that they were responding to pain. Not if you knew it was a robot and that robots can't feel pain. What did I miss? [/quote] Well, you are missing the point that there is a 'me' structure in a baby, and this 'me' structure is the difference between AI robot and intelligent being. Apparently the AI robot can artificially 'experience' sensation, such as pain. They can be given artificial sensors apparently. [/quote] How do you figure I missed that point? I addressed it directly? [/quote] If a baby has no me structure of any kind, then it is the same as an AI bot. The 'me' structure becomes conceptual as we develop, but in essence it is just a primal and preconceptual sense of self. This is what differs to the AI bot, it has no 'me' structure. You have yet to explain to me what you see as the difference between a baby and an AI bot. [/quote] Yes, exactly, the newborn baby is a person. [/quote] Now we just have to figure out what a person is.
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Post by enigma on Feb 10, 2018 22:51:04 GMT -5
The moment pain is noticed, there is suffering (I explained this in a different message). It is a physiological necessity, so that we can act ON the pain. If pain contained no component of suffering, then it would have no consequence, it would be irrelevant. Toothache? No problem, no point in going to a dentist. Tummy ache from too much food? No problem, just keep eating, Glass on the floor? No problem, just step on it. It is important that there is suffering, for as long as we manifest and create pain. It is the suffering that we act on, not the pain. In fact, when I have observed this very closely, what I have noticed is that one of the key pains of being in pain is the enforced contraction of focus and attention. We act to resolve pain (and suffering) so that we can relax our focus/attention. As I also said, I think you are talking about a particular kind of struggle, and that's fine, but then it is useful to specify this struggle, rather than assassinating the word 'suffering', which already has a very appropriate and inescapable meaning. Precisely. If pain is suffering, then there is no way out of suffering, and teachers have lied to us for thousands of years. You guys both okay with that?
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Post by enigma on Feb 10, 2018 23:10:01 GMT -5
Do you mean in a 'formlessness is form' way? No, I'm saying that speaking of an imagined self suggests that there is some kind of imaginer, that is imagining a self. Which is fine if you aren't wanting to point away from the idea of an imaginer, but it seemed initially like you were wanting to do that. I was pointing away from the idea of a personal self born with propensities and such, or a personal self on any one of the other cake levels. There IS an imaginer, which we call Awareness, Consciousness, Intelligence.
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Post by laughter on Feb 10, 2018 23:18:14 GMT -5
There is no physiological benefit to pain if there is no suffering component. Even animals learn (or perhaps know) that pain is to be avoided? Why? If you hit a dog it will come to fear you. Why? I think what you mean is that animals can experience pain without resisting it, and maybe you equate resistance with suffering but resistance and suffering isn't QUITE the same thing. I think the key misconception is the very first thing you said. While it has been shown that it is possible for some humans to experience an absence of pain, when others do experience pain.....a component of noticing the pain sensation is suffering. One can go deeply into pain, or detach from pain, or do any number of things such that the pain sensation is gone...but the moment the pain is noticed, there is suffering. So an animal may lay very still because to move is to notice the pain sensation. In this sense, it is the noticing that is the key to the suffering......the noticing, the pain, the suffering all go hand in hand. ( I mean 'noticing' in the normal sense, I'm not assassinating it by equating it with 'realizing'.). The affect of resisting the pain, is noticing the pain, and then suffering! And hence resistance is linked to suffering, but isn't the same thing. No, resistance is not suffering, and in the same way, pain is not suffering. But is the resistance to pain always suffering?
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Post by laughter on Feb 10, 2018 23:19:35 GMT -5
And then it follows that trying to describe the subjective experience of life without suffering to someone still suffering will never be free of the possibility of leading them into a set of misconceptions. Agreed. That's why I've resisted defining suffering in the past, but that's just an invitation to misuse the term anyway. Always eventually a double bind slowly emerging from the swamp somewhere all wet and draped with dead vegetation and stuff.
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Post by laughter on Feb 10, 2018 23:47:57 GMT -5
What happened to that elephant (plural?) is a particular, and apparently real-life example of one of those gruesome extreme hypothetical's I was referring to. I'm not sure if you're intimating reductio ad absurdum, but if so refer to my previous post. I do think that where we narrowly define suffering, ending up in the situation you describe is unavoidable, and Andrew addressed the situation quite well here, talking about where the intuitive visceral response doesn't match, or fit in with the definition. I'm not entirely convinced it's all to do with what you go on to talk about below, for me it only becomes an issue when we begin to talk about SR as the end of all suffering, which is a notion I've never subscribed to, so it's not really an issue for me. Yes, it occurred to me that the other day I said that the Buddha didn't actually define suffering, and whilst that is technically true, otoh everything he taught was essentially an expansion of dukkha, it's causes, it's cessation, and the pathless path to its cessation. Voluminously he characterised dukkha, and corresponding various qualitative experience, yet steadfastly maintaining that ultimately it would remain anathema in any instance other than direct realisation. However, fwiw it's precisely because the conditions for the arising and cessation of suffering can be categorised that I don't see suffering as something strictly subjective. Therefore, for me this isn't quite accurate. Really suffering can't be classified as soley subjective, for that reason, nor soley objective for others. My point about the extreme scenarios is that they bring the mind to the limit of the distinction between pain and suffering. That distinction is valid, useful and valuable in two different contexts: one in which the dialog is about mitigating suffering, and another in which the nature of suffering is being pointed to in absolute terms. But every conceptual structure has it's limits, and it just so happens that exploring this one involves describing events that are quite dramatic, and that the limit reached applies to either of the two contexts. I'd say that the critique of reductionism does apply to that exploration of the limits, but also hasten to add that the critique doesn't fully reach the depth of what the exploration reveals, or account for what's at stake. Yes, the extreme scenarios are reductionist, but in this they're sort of reflecting the reductionist nature of the distinction between pain and suffering. For all the value and potential in the distinction, it is abstracting two characteristics of the human experience that are undeniably central to a common arc of self-inquiry. In terms of the end of suffering, isn't that possibility precisely the third noble truth? So should I interpret what you wrote to mean that you don't subscribe to the idea that what we mean by "SR" is the end of suffering? As far as the subjectivity of suffering is concerned, how would you know if someone was free of it? Here, that resort to the extreme can be helpful in shedding light on the issue, but will always be unnecessarily gratuitous if it's spelled out.
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Post by lolly on Feb 11, 2018 0:01:27 GMT -5
The main thing is an animal in pain isn't imagining any alternative (that it desires), so the very dynamic between aversion and craving isn't there. I think the same applies to infants because they haven't developed the 'knowledge of' alternative sensations, so they don't have anything the crave after, and they don't try to avoid the pain they feel. In the Buddhist philosophy, 'illness is suffering' (that's a direct quote), so they conceptualise suffering in more or less the way you do, which is actually a very sensible way to conceptualise it, but there is still the aspect of 'volition', which for any practical purpose is no different to 'craving' (as Buddhists use that word), and is the cause of suffering. Then if one can feel sensation sans the volition that is the aversion/craving dynamic I described, then what we consider pain is completely transformed as a subjective experience - in that is is not hated. If we go to a deeper level, at which everything is momentary, there is no sensation which has any endurance at all, and this is where there is no pain or volition aversion/craving/suffering - as nothing endures at all. The lived reality of our lives, however, is such that at some extreme of experience the reactivity starts to overwhelm that equanimity of the mind, most probably ultimately as a necessity of the organism's survival, but most of us don't actually take it that far, and rather, overreact to very mild discomforts out of egocentricity. So this makes what we call suffering a little bit complex, because it has elements of sensation and elements of 'volition'. This is a good point, but it also shows the significance of memory. A newborn lives in the present moment, almost can't otherwise. But from birth the baby begins storing information of its experiences and its encounters with the exterior world. So very early baby begins to have a ~psychology~. Babies cry because the are wet, have poop, are cold, hot, hungry, or ate too much, etc. Baby cries, mother comes and fixes the problem. But baby then *learns* that when it cries, mother comes. So baby learns it can cry when there is no problem whatsoever, just because it wants mother. This is the beginning of its psychology, its psyche, its ego/persona/cultural self. Ego/persona/cultural self/psyche-psychological self, exists in time, past and future. Essence/true self exists in the present moment. Yes, so in the overall sense we develop ego in relation to environmental/social/cultural conditions.
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