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Post by Reefs on Feb 12, 2018 0:27:24 GMT -5
Knowledge can be a map. If you are in a new city and stop and ask me directions to so-n-so. If I tell you "go 1 mile to x street, T/R, go 3 miles T/L on to x street, follow it until it dead ends, T/R go 2.8 miles, your destination is there; if you end up at the place you intended, then the knowledge was not illusory. If you do not end up where you wanted to be, the knowledge was either illusory, or you did not follow precisely the directions. It's illusory to say all knowledge is illusory. The problem with maps is that one needs to know where one is first in order to get to where one's going. Have you found that out yet? Now, what is being pointed to is that the necessary condition for having to get from here to HERE requires one thinking one is somewhere other than HERE. As for identification, Source is Truth. Identifying with something that one is NOT is ignorance of what one is as being primary. Identification with the false self is the condition needed for having to search for the labeled True Self. That is, you must identify with something false to need to get to Source/Truth. If one didn't, one wouldn't have to. Therefore, as Source, one doesn't. Pain happens. Suffering requiring ignorance is a pointer to Truth, which is unconditional. Now, where was I....? You were hitting home..
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Post by enigma on Feb 12, 2018 0:29:56 GMT -5
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? Again, not so. It's just that most of these teachers are overrated, they don't know suffering, and haven't really found their way out. Even Buddha who says there is an end to suffering? It's not more likely that us dudes on a speeratchual forum are actually the ones who are misinformed?
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Post by Reefs on Feb 12, 2018 0:40:30 GMT -5
From my perspective, your definition is a bit problematic because it may contain a hidden Katie trap. Well, pretending to not struggle is a different issue, but yes, defining suffering is always problematic because it is subjectively experienced. I'd say the reason is the moving goal post problem (similar to the perpetugasm issue).
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Post by Reefs on Feb 12, 2018 1:21:58 GMT -5
It is obvious that a baby screaming from colic is likely experiencing pain. I think most (present company excluded) would say that the experience of such pain incessantly for long periods of time would mean that one was suffering. The topic of suffering (for which, I believe, there was a dedicated thread some time ago) has been and will probably forever be hotly debated. The reason why this is, I think, is because of the very definition of "suffering", which tends to be subjective. I once witnessed a dog yelping incessantly in pain, and it hurt me so much to hear it, I couldn't help but shed tears, myself. Long ago, I mentioned this to E, and he convinced me that the dog (not unlike the baby in the video) might have indeed been in pain, but was not suffering. By E's definition (which comes closer to the Buddhist definition), that dog, like the baby, Is not suffering. My own understanding is that suffering is what we bring on ourselves through belief that we are persons (with dignity and rights, etc.). That said, I don't think the baby is suffering. well definition is everything here, and we are free to define 'suffering' however we like, but there is a level at which we can't help BUT recognize when another sentient being is suffering. This is an intuitive, innate, pre-conceptual, empathic, paternal and maternal recognition. So when we re-define it, it is really for intellectual purposes, and this may well have value at times. But it is an artificial change of definition, it really only has relevance in a very small context, and even then we can't escape what we know to be true. I'm sure the dog you saw was suffering, and I'm sure the baby in the video is suffering. And then on the flip side, the problem with re-defining 'suffering' for intellectual/spiritual purposes, is that causing pain to others becomes morally justifiable. It's just another sensation after all. If you hurt someone, or an animal, physically.... and they suffer, well that's their mental issues, nothing to do with what you did. If you see a starving baby...it's fine...they're not suffering. Yeah, there's the risk of escapism and self-deception. How we see others has very much to do with how we see ourselves. People who are quick to rationalize away suffering in others may do the very same thing as they relate to themselves. It's the happy-face-stickering issue again.
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Post by tenka on Feb 12, 2018 2:53:50 GMT -5
It's really quite simple . You are either aware of yourself of the mind-body experience or you are not . If you are, then you are suffering compared to not . Beyond awareness of yourself there is no-one to suffer.
All this talk about animals and babies are peeps and bunnies aware of themselves of the mind-body, all this talk about pain being related to suffering or not is irrelevant .
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Post by laughter on Feb 12, 2018 4:26:04 GMT -5
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. Yes, I can't disagreertion with any of that. Right, the issue isn't whether or not the end of dukkha is apprehendable, it's more about what that would entail, because of the extent of the range of dukkha. The first Truth is often summarised as 'life is dukkha', and as the third is, 'the cessation of dukkha is apprehendable', it seems like the implication should be fairly clear. (It's not really because what the cessation of 'life' is, over and above not-nothingness, isn't something mind can ever make much sense of). But SR is the end of a certain level of delusion, which shouldn't be understated, but shouldn't be overstated either, and generally it is. Rather than the be all and end all, SR is mostly merely access to reality, in the even bigger, bigger picture at least. I think of that as awakening, not self-realization. The end of suffering has everything to do with one's orientation to the relative, and nothing to do with a set of conditions that make the world a comfy place for the individual. There are no levels to the realization, it's binary. The conditions that lead to pain will be as they were before the moment of realization in the moment after. What changes is the capacity for those conditions to ever again mask the true nature of reality. Awakening, in contrast, is a relative state of being consciously on notice that there is an existential truth worth seeking, and the four noble truths are as good as any a statement of what that is. What you wrote about sainthood (that I promise to come back to) reflects the point that life will express through a realized individual by and through a set of conditioning and conditions that will keep changing for as long as they remain alive. But no two individuals are exactly alike, and realization is absolute freedom, so expecting the process of life post realization to manifest in one way or another is like trying to box the wind.
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Post by laughter on Feb 12, 2018 4:31:53 GMT -5
But is the resistance to pain always suffering? The resistance to pain can be reaching for an Asprin. And this can happen with or without suffering. Equating suffering to the resistance to pain is, quite literally reducing suffering to an equation. An equation like that one is an example of thinking of a human being as a sort of a machine. To get wonky about it, the equation is true but the commutative law doesn't hold. Where there is suffering, there is always some resistance to some pain, but the resistance to pain isn't always suffering.
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Post by laughter on Feb 12, 2018 4:39:10 GMT -5
Well then, is the only way to end suffering to end pain? I'm thinkin drugs is the answer, right? The theme of this and your last is actually quite poignant in light of the current opioid epidemic. Not that this is really anything new under the sun or that it's a sign of a broken world that needs fixing .. but suffering happens in matters of degree, and sometimes it's very clear when peeps take actions that generally lead to increasing the probability that large numbers of other people will suffer. The profit motive is a powerful force for demonstrating the intense irony of a magic pill that promises to make all the pain and suffering go away.
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Post by laughter on Feb 12, 2018 4:43:03 GMT -5
Always eventually a double bind slowly emerging from the swamp somewhere all wet and draped with dead vegetation and stuff. D@mn .. .. looks like swamp guy's been keepin' lolz company in the weight room.
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Post by laughter on Feb 12, 2018 4:54:43 GMT -5
I'd call that pain. I'd say that emotional pain that isn't from a physical sensation is pain as well, and not imagined pain, just pain. Not interested in agreeing to disagree, eh? The memory of what it was like to suffer suffices, and anyone who thinks they're "enlightened" but still suffering isn't really in a position to point others toward "enlightenment". Tolle actually did continue on with his post grad work. I'm not sure for how long (as I recall, not long) but there is a gap in his story from the preface of "The Power of Now" up until his time on the park benches. You can find that gap explained in old interviews -- or that material used to be out there anyway. Jed wrote about how he was losing touch with what it felt like as time went on in his fist book, and I've never really been able to relate to that. Like I said, I've got no theory to present to try to change your mind. Try to come up with a layer cake theory. He'll eat that up. Well, it's a pretty common outlook that suffering is an inescapable fact of life. It's an outlook with a convincing case behind it. Perhaps it might be easier to interest peeps with that outlook in an alternative from some sort of common ground. I'd opine that the first necessary step to that is to acknowledge both the validity of how they arrived at that position, and the relative threads of truth and sanity that weave through the fabric of their thoughts on the issue.
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Post by andrew on Feb 12, 2018 7:04:29 GMT -5
I'm very on board with this. I have three guinea pigs and have been astonished at times by their intelligence, the way they communicate with each other. They sometimes try and help each other escape from the already very large space they have (they have half of a large conservatory). For the record, I feel like I have overstated a couple of points I have made, and from experience, I have found this happens when I go deeply into a subject on a forum. In this discussion my point is as simple as you have made it here. I have no problem at all exploring the nature of the adult human struggle, but I do have a problem with the idea that the concept of 'suffering' should be reserved and applied ONLY for a particular form of adult human struggle.Yeah, I have a concern it's all part of an elaborate unconscious, have your cake, and eat it ruse, hehe. Still, I'm sure the guys probably think our approach is agenda driven too. It's an interesting topic. Do love the piggies though!! There's no 'like' button in existence that expresses how much I like that piggy
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Post by andrew on Feb 12, 2018 7:04:53 GMT -5
okay, but if there is pain being felt, then there is a psychological movement (and suffering). Doesn't have to be an adult abstract 'conceptual' psychological movement though. Pilgrim is right, and the sensing of pain is not a psychological movement. It can be just a sensation. sensing is a movement.
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Post by andrew on Feb 12, 2018 7:07:06 GMT -5
Hehe. The only thing I could sanction there without comment, is that suffering that doesn't appear to be existential in nature should be included. Ok, that's good. After I posted that example I paused to consider whether what I said might be considered to be a case of engaging in reductio ad absurdum (appeal to extremes). But decided that wasn't really the case, as it was a fairly direct implication of the position that suffering is entirely exclusive to human children and adults.
Sure. I've always said biological self awareness is a prerequisite to suffering, and it applies to all animals. Babies aren't lacking that biological self awareness, it just isn't highly developed initially.
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Post by andrew on Feb 12, 2018 7:16:52 GMT -5
Well yeah, but that could be said about the determining of anything, as talked about here. The only real issue is the accuracy of the determining, the insight behind it, and how conciously one is operating.Zackly. I'm just saying we can't refer to experience to prove the truth of the matter. As in, watch this video and you'll see that the baby subjectively suffers. It's not a matter of proof, it's a matter of intuition. We have the capacity to rationally ignore intuition, and to distance ourselves from it, but in the case of 'suffering', one can only only rationalize and distance themselves so far. It would be repulsive of me to post photos that would illustrate the point to you, but intuitively you can recognize that you don't want to see those photos, because you aren't insensitive to the suffering of others.
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Post by andrew on Feb 12, 2018 7:21:31 GMT -5
But is the resistance to pain always suffering? The resistance to pain can be reaching for an Asprin. Reaching for the aspirin is a response to the suffering component of pain. It is a response to the recognition that the pain is undesirable. When something is known to be undesirable, there is suffering to varying degree. If pain had no suffering component, it would be neutral. In fact it wouldn't even BE 'pain' or felt AS 'pain' if it had no suffering component.
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