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Post by Reefs on Mar 1, 2018 7:54:20 GMT -5
You have assassinated suffering by making it the same as pain. Not really. If we go with dictionary definitions, then Andrew is correct. I've been browsing thru some dictionaries and they all define suffering as experiencing physical or mental pain or distress. But you are right in the sense that these definitions are not really helpful in this conversation.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 1, 2018 8:09:55 GMT -5
You see, the consequence of recognizing suffering in another, is that YOU will suffer too, at least a bit... That's still optional. In fact, if recognizing suffering in another makes you suffer, it's highly likely that you are projecting and overestimating the suffering you witness because you are looking at it thru the eyes of the person and not thru the eyes of Source.
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Post by andrew on Mar 1, 2018 8:17:50 GMT -5
You see, the consequence of recognizing suffering in another, is that YOU will suffer too, at least a bit... That's still optional. In fact, if recognizing suffering in another makes you suffer, it's highly likely that you are projecting and overestimating the suffering you witness because you are looking at it thru the eyes of the person and not thru the eyes of Source. At a bare minimum, recognizing suffering in another requires finding or seeing it in yourself. That's the nature of projection. What we see in another, we find in ourselves. But as I said, that doesn't mean that we have to engage with the suffering and go into the suffering. Sometimes just the noticing is enough. On the flip side, if we are resistant to suffering, or have an image of ourselves as 'not a sufferer', then we also may try to deny the suffering of others, in order that we don't have to find it in ourselves. Like a happy face stickering pattern. The compassion you spoke of comes from recognizing the seed of suffering within ourselves, and therefore being able to relate to the others suffering.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 1, 2018 9:00:38 GMT -5
So you changed your mind and agree that babies suffer. He's playing with you. Remember, the context was persons.
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Post by laughter on Mar 1, 2018 9:14:11 GMT -5
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. SR is the end of existential suffering. Alignment is the end of psychological suffering. Well, the way I see it SR is the definitive and permanent end of what's at the centerpoint of the psychological attachments that can always be found at the root of psychological suffering. Tolle used a wheel as a metaphor for what can happen, and I think he likely got it from some other Advaita source. It's like a wheel that breaks off it's axle and keeps rolling on momentum. Now, whatever that period after SR has to do with alignment is what it is, but the distinction between alignment and realization is between the relative and the non-relative. Realized and unrealized people alike are interested in the relative effects of realization, and there's unlikely to ever be a broad consensus on that precisely because there's no way of caging the wind. The only realization Tolle wrote about is one that's relevant to what I think of as awakening, as opposed to anything permanent. He only writes about sudden and dramatic shifts in terms of his own story, and as far I as know he never talks or writes directly about SR in the way some of us do on this forum. Whatever positive assertions someone makes about "life after SR" are generalities that can't possibly apply to everyone who realizes the existential truth, but as what we're talking about is a loss, it's definitely possible to say what is absent from that life. Persistent psychological pain just can't happen to someone who's really realized what it is that's feeling that pain.
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Post by tenka on Mar 1, 2018 9:48:49 GMT -5
Reflections of self awareness are within experience . Did you understand the structure I spoke about? Do you understand that there requires an element of self identity in order to identify with something else? How would you say the bunny identifies and differentiates food from another bunny without the use of a mirror?Bunny uses his bunny brain. There's a difference between a sense of self, and mind/body identification. The latter involves a story that forms the basis for psychological suffering. So a bunny uses what's at it's disposal in order to distinguish one thing from another . If what's at it's disposal is a bunny brain, then it still needs to identify others in reflection of how it perceives itself . You say it's rather more a sense of itself rather than an identification of itself . That would infer that it just has a sense of what another bunny is or what a carrot is without identifying that . I can't see how you can separate a sense of yourself in reflection of another bunny without identifying that it's another bunny and not a carrot .
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Post by Reefs on Mar 1, 2018 10:08:15 GMT -5
I'm talking about a light, and I'll take this opportunity to offer another example that I feel perhaps the SR among us may be able to relate to. This is hard to put into words, and I'm not even sure if I'm talking more about the SR aspect, or the CC aspect, but when that vast Intelligence is first realised, it can be said to have certain manifest qualities. The best way to put it is to say there is a combination of an aliveness, and clarity about it that is radiant. It is quite literally divine, and it's divinity is recognised as such, and it's a transformative moment which henceforth imbues all subsequent experience. In Buddhism they would say one has "thus put their roots deep". It is to become consciously aware of the divine nature of that ever-present awareness that is the backdrop of all experience. But it's the vividity of that aliveness, and clarity combination which is the qualitative nature of the deathless itself that I'm specifically interested in here, and I wonder if the initiated here on the forum have ever made the connection between that, and the expression "seen the light". You literally see the light, and the light referred to is the vivid radiant clarity of awareness itself, once seen, never unseen, and a more magnificent thing to behold never existed, nor shall. It is Presence, it is Peace. The Tibetan Buddhists talk in terms of the Mind of clear light. That's CC.
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Post by andrew on Mar 1, 2018 10:08:27 GMT -5
Bunny uses his bunny brain. There's a difference between a sense of self, and mind/body identification. The latter involves a story that forms the basis for psychological suffering. So a bunny uses what's at it's disposal in order to distinguish one thing from another . If what's at it's disposal is a bunny brain, then it still needs to identify others in reflection of how it perceives itself . You say it's rather more a sense of itself rather than an identification of itself . That would infer that it just has a sense of what another bunny is or what a carrot is without identifying that . I can't see how you can separate a sense of yourself in reflection of another bunny without identifying that it's another bunny and not a carrot . yeah, it's just degrees of self-awareness really.
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Post by tenka on Mar 1, 2018 10:14:44 GMT -5
So a bunny uses what's at it's disposal in order to distinguish one thing from another . If what's at it's disposal is a bunny brain, then it still needs to identify others in reflection of how it perceives itself . You say it's rather more a sense of itself rather than an identification of itself . That would infer that it just has a sense of what another bunny is or what a carrot is without identifying that . I can't see how you can separate a sense of yourself in reflection of another bunny without identifying that it's another bunny and not a carrot . yeah, it's just degrees of self-awareness really. Well I would say it must identify a carrot and identify another bunny, otherwise it would try and mate with a carrot and eat a bunny .. or it may simply not see any difference between either . If you acknowledge sameness and difference then one must identify that in reflection of how you perceive yourself .
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Post by Reefs on Mar 1, 2018 10:20:22 GMT -5
What are you saying here? You aren't stating your points clearly in relation to the subject. Unless you are a psychopath (and I very much doubt you are), there are photos and videos that could be posted that would undoubtedly instantly trigger an internal reaction in you. That internal reaction is a response to the suffering you see in the photos/videos. I suspect that seeing an adult human suffering is probably easier than seeing a baby or animal suffering, because we know that babies/animals have no developed persona, thus there is a sense of 'innocence' to them. It makes sense to me why one would want to NOT see suffering in babies/animals, but your gut will tell you the painful truth. It's in response to what I imagine is happening internally in the characters I see, not in response to the suffering I see. I can't see suffering in another, I can only imagine it. Then I can call it intuition of gut or obvious truth or whatever floats my little row boat. That may be true for a video/photo reference where the context is purely intellectual. But it would be a mistake to extend this theory to actual real-time face to face encounters where the context is one's entire beingness.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 1, 2018 10:30:46 GMT -5
But notice how we can all agree now that animals and babies are genuine perceivers. haha I had exactly the same thought yesterday, but in the interest of the forum, I kept that one to myself. I'm guessing tenka has also had that thought! Well, you either see the absurdity or you don't.
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Post by andrew on Mar 1, 2018 10:30:47 GMT -5
yeah, it's just degrees of self-awareness really. Well I would say it must identify a carrot and identify another bunny, otherwise it would try and mate with a carrot and eat a bunny .. or it may simply not see any difference between either . If you acknowledge sameness and difference then one must identify that in reflection of how you perceive yourself . yes I agree, I'm just saying the way the bunny identifies isn't as sophisticated or highly developed as it is for humans. Hence humans are able to wonder who they are and where they come from etc
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Post by Reefs on Mar 1, 2018 10:36:53 GMT -5
I'd say the reason is the moving goal post problem (similar to the perpetugasm issue). There's likely going to be some self deception about what one's subjective experience really is. Is that what you mean? That too. But what I had in mind is the normalization effect that applies to feelings in general.
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Post by tenka on Mar 1, 2018 10:43:29 GMT -5
Well I would say it must identify a carrot and identify another bunny, otherwise it would try and mate with a carrot and eat a bunny .. or it may simply not see any difference between either . If you acknowledge sameness and difference then one must identify that in reflection of how you perceive yourself . yes I agree, I'm just saying the way the bunny identifies isn't as sophisticated or highly developed as it is for humans. Hence humans are able to wonder who they are and where they come from etc Yep .. it does appear to be so because it fails the mirror test . .
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Post by enigma on Mar 1, 2018 11:06:37 GMT -5
I'll fess up to my evil frogness if you cop to your evil gabweaselness. Hey, why the indignant look? It is what it is.
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