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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 2, 2022 9:44:26 GMT -5
Exactly! Necessity is the mother of all invention. Necessity triggers curiosity. Seekers have the necessity to escape suffering. This is selfish cowardice. In my opinion, the "Buddha"'s necessity, that triggered his curiosity, was to end universal suffering. But suffering doesn't mean you will become a seeker. Correct. Some people do alcohol, drugs, even very nasty drugs...there are a whole host of means of escaping. |
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Post by laughter on Sept 2, 2022 9:47:46 GMT -5
I cannot agree. I think the Buddha nailed it by identifying suffering caused by craving and grasping. Even if there was no suffering there would still be curiosity about the world. There will always be curiosity about making discoveries and inventing stuff and learning new things just for the sake of it. But curiosity as a driver of the search? What would the search be for? If there was no suffering then there would be no feeling of lack and unfulfillment. There would only be a search if you felt you had to find something. But if there was no suffering you would be complete and fulfilled and there would be nothing to look for. As one sage put it, "The desire for truth is the only worthwhile desire." Those who are driven by curiosity intuitively suspect that the conventional explanation regarding the nature of reality is somehow flawed, but they don't know how. They certainly don't suffer in any ordinary sense. They are exactly like scientists who search for explanations regarding conceptual issues. Was Einstein suffering when he contemplated discrepancies between the scientific paradigm of his time period and the conceptual framework that supported it? I think not. In fact, most scientists I know ENJOY the process of scientific investigation and discovery. Enjoyment doesn't seem like a component of suffering.  |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2022 9:47:49 GMT -5
But suffering doesn't mean you will become a seeker. Correct. Some people do alcohol, drugs, even very nasty drugs...there are a whole host of means of escaping. becoming intoxicated is a way of trying to avoid suffering. So it's an escape from suffering not an escape from what you are. |
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Post by sree on Sept 2, 2022 9:48:13 GMT -5
Yes, one could define curiosity as a form of suffering, but only if one expanded the definition of suffering a lot more broadly than the conventional definition. As one sage put it, "The desire for truth is the only worthwhile desire." Those who are driven by curiosity intuitively suspect that the conventional explanation regarding the nature of reality is somehow flawed, but they don't know how. They certainly don't suffer in any ordinary sense. They are exactly like scientists who search for explanations regarding conceptual issues. Was Einstein suffering when he contemplated discrepancies between the scientific paradigm of his time period and the conceptual framework that supported it? I think not. In fact, most scientists I know ENJOY the process of scientific investigation and discovery. Yes that's what I said. Curiosity about the world will be there whether there is suffering or not. Curiosity isn't suffering. But trying to find some ultimate truth about oneself is a completely different matter. If you're not suffering then you won't feel you are lacking in anything just like the Buddha when he lived in his Palace. But that all changed when he left the palace and saw death and suffering outside. The definition of "you" is critically important. If you are the boatman, your suffering will trigger a curiosity quite unlike that of the "Buddha"'s.
You've got to begin with the boatman, look in the mirror and ask: "What the hell are you!?"
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Post by sree on Sept 2, 2022 9:49:28 GMT -5
Exactly! Necessity is the mother of all invention. Necessity triggers curiosity. Seekers have the necessity to escape suffering. This is selfish cowardice.
In my opinion, the "Buddha"'s necessity, that triggered his curiosity, was to end universal suffering. But suffering doesn't mean you will become a seeker. What does it mean then? |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2022 9:49:41 GMT -5
Yes that's what I said. Curiosity about the world will be there whether there is suffering or not. Curiosity isn't suffering. But trying to find some ultimate truth about oneself is a completely different matter. If you're not suffering then you won't feel you are lacking in anything just like the Buddha when he lived in his Palace. But that all changed when he left the palace and saw death and suffering outside. The definition of "you" is critically important. If you are the boatman, your suffering will trigger a curiosity quite unlike that of the "Buddha"'s.
You've got to begin with the boatman, look in the mirror and ask: "What the hell are you!?"
So you need to look in the mirror and discover that you are not The Boatman. That's why you're suffering because you think you are the boatman. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 2, 2022 9:50:54 GMT -5
Correct. Some people do alcohol, drugs, even very nasty drugs...there are a whole host of means of escaping. becoming intoxicated is a way of trying to avoid suffering. So it's an escape from suffering not an escape from what you are. Correct. Probably a lot of people don't make the connection, *~I~* am the problem. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2022 9:52:04 GMT -5
But suffering doesn't mean you will become a seeker. What does it mean then? if you are suffering and you don't seek release as a seeker it means that you believe the avoidance or cessation of suffering comes from objects. |
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Post by laughter on Sept 2, 2022 9:56:11 GMT -5
Yes, one could define curiosity as a form of suffering, but only if one expanded the definition of suffering a lot more broadly than the conventional definition. As one sage put it, "The desire for truth is the only worthwhile desire." Those who are driven by curiosity intuitively suspect that the conventional explanation regarding the nature of reality is somehow flawed, but they don't know how. They certainly don't suffer in any ordinary sense. They are exactly like scientists who search for explanations regarding conceptual issues. Was Einstein suffering when he contemplated discrepancies between the scientific paradigm of his time period and the conceptual framework that supported it? I think not. In fact, most scientists I know ENJOY the process of scientific investigation and discovery. Yes that's what I said. Curiosity about the world will be there whether there is suffering or not. Curiosity isn't suffering. But trying to find some ultimate truth about oneself is a completely different matter. If you're not suffering then you won't feel you are lacking in anything just like the Buddha when he lived in his Palace. But that all changed when he left the palace and saw death and suffering outside. The Buddha's life story is quite extreme. To understate matters, not everyone who eventually takes up a conscious search for the existential truth has been sheltered from the sight of human pain, misery and death at the time that they do. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2022 10:00:54 GMT -5
Yes that's what I said. Curiosity about the world will be there whether there is suffering or not. Curiosity isn't suffering. But trying to find some ultimate truth about oneself is a completely different matter. If you're not suffering then you won't feel you are lacking in anything just like the Buddha when he lived in his Palace. But that all changed when he left the palace and saw death and suffering outside. The Buddha's life story is quite extreme. To understate matters, not everyone who eventually takes up a conscious search for the existential truth has been sheltered from the sight of human pain, misery and death at the time that they do. if you have been sheltered from those extremes then you are still suffering from one moment to the next. Dissatisfaction, uncomfortableness, unfulfillment, anxiety, incompleteness, lack of self-esteem and self worth etc. This is all Dukkha, suffering. |
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Post by zendancer on Sept 2, 2022 10:00:58 GMT -5
Well, some of us who were driven by curiosity did not think that we were searching for some ultimate truth about ourselves. We simply wanted to understand things that we saw that didn't make sense. As one trivial example, in a logic course the instructor explained that good decision making requires listing the pros and cons regarding some decision, and the preponderance of items on one list versus the other list would make it clear which decision to make. I knew, from my own experience, that his assertion was absurd because people frequently choose to do things despite a preponderance of reasons NOT to do those things. It seemed to me that the entire field of logic was floating in mid-air, so to speak, and that there must be something fundamental and unseen underlying it if there were any validity to it. As another example, a physics professor claimed that subatomic particles sometimes move from point A to point B without crossing the space between those two points. What could explain that kind of statement? There was also the observer paradox that permeates all of the scientific disciplines. There were dozens of other issues of a similar nature, but they all led me to intuit that scientists were overlooking something fundamental, but I didn't know what it was. I didn't feel that I was lacking anything other than an explanation that might resolve the paradoxes that I saw. You wrote, "Curiosity isn't suffering." That was my point. I'm well aware that a lot of people searching for the truth are driven by suffering, but that's NOT what drives the search for people whose motivation is solely curiosity. What you are describing here is not the search for liberation. You are talking about the relative field of existence. This is not spirituality. I wasn't interested in a search for liberation because I didn't feel bound. Only after an initial kensho event, during which the Infinite was apprehended and several of my existential questions got answered, did I realize that my search for scientific truth had actually been a spiritual search in disguise and hadn't been recognized as such. Your path was different, and that was another point I was making. Someone who wants to understand scientific paradoxes at a deep level may, without any intention to do so, penetrate the consensus paradigm and discover that reality is NOT what one has culturally been conditioned to imagine. It bears repeating that many different paths can lead to Rome. One size does not fit all. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2022 10:10:15 GMT -5
What you are describing here is not the search for liberation. You are talking about the relative field of existence. This is not spirituality. I wasn't interested in a search for liberation because I didn't feel bound. Only after an initial kensho event, during which the Infinite was apprehended and several of my existential questions got answered, did I realize that my search for scientific truth had actually been a spiritual search in disguise and hadn't been recognized as such. Your path was different, and that was another point I was making. Someone who wants to understand scientific paradoxes at a deep level may, without any intention to do so, penetrate the consensus paradigm and discover that reality is NOT what one has culturally been conditioned to imagine. It bears repeating that many different paths can lead to Rome. One size does not fit all. it doesn't matter what the paths are. It's the end result. And there can only be one. That's why it cannot be based on a Kensho experience. Because if you have one such experience then why not 7? Why not 57? When does that end You could go on for ever having more and more kensho experiences. That cannot be liberation which is clear and final, which is peace of mind and the cessation of suffering. There is no doubt about it. There cannot be different interpretations or versions of that. And If you were an unrealized quantum physicist and then attained SR it is likely you would still carry on with your physics pursuits where you experienced insights before and you will experience insights about physics afterwards. But such insights have nothing to do with liberation which is the living reality of being free in the natural state regardless of whatever interests you might have in the relative. |
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Post by andrew on Sept 2, 2022 10:20:07 GMT -5
Just caught up with this conversation and it made me realize that Buddha must have foreseen this kind of complicated dialogue and therefore kept it simple by saying, "I have come to teach the nature of suffering and the cessation of suffering." That is the be all and end all of it. Everything derives from that. From a state of suffering. If there was no suffering there would be no such thing as spirituality or religion. This forum wouldn't even exist. If you mean that suffering drives the interest in spirituality/religion, I would agree. This wouldn't happen if we weren't also curious in our nature, so I take other folks' point that curiosity is central to that interest too. I would say suffering (in its many forms) is the fire that gets our ass moving though. . |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2022 10:24:57 GMT -5
Just caught up with this conversation and it made me realize that Buddha must have foreseen this kind of complicated dialogue and therefore kept it simple by saying, "I have come to teach the nature of suffering and the cessation of suffering." That is the be all and end all of it. Everything derives from that. From a state of suffering. If there was no suffering there would be no such thing as spirituality or religion. This forum wouldn't even exist. If you mean that suffering drives the interest in spirituality/religion, I would agree. This wouldn't happen if we weren't also curious in our nature, so I take other folks' point that curiosity is central to that interest too. I would say suffering (in its many forms) is the fire that gets our ass moving though. . It makes sense to talk of being curious about things and ideas but it doesn't sound right to say I am curious about avoiding suffering. Wanting to avoid it or make existing suffering go away is a visceral reflex action, it's not someone saying you know I'm really curious about finding a way of not feeling this bad! It's like putting your hand on a hot stove you just recoil from it you don't say I'm really curious about how to stop my hand burning. |
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Post by zendancer on Sept 2, 2022 10:24:59 GMT -5
I wasn't interested in a search for liberation because I didn't feel bound. Only after an initial kensho event, during which the Infinite was apprehended and several of my existential questions got answered, did I realize that my search for scientific truth had actually been a spiritual search in disguise and hadn't been recognized as such. Your path was different, and that was another point I was making. Someone who wants to understand scientific paradoxes at a deep level may, without any intention to do so, penetrate the consensus paradigm and discover that reality is NOT what one has culturally been conditioned to imagine. It bears repeating that many different paths can lead to Rome. One size does not fit all. it doesn't matter what the paths are it's the end result. And there can only be one. That's why it cannot be based on a Kensho experience. Because if you have one such experience then why not 7? Why not 57? When does that end You could go on for ever having more and more kensho experiences. That cannot be liberation which is clear and final, which is peace of mind and the cessation of suffering. There is no doubt about it. There cannot be different interpretations or versions of that. And If you were an unrealized quantum physicist and then attained SR it is likely you would still carry on with your physics pursuits where you experienced insights before and you will experience insights about physics afterwards. But such insights have nothing to do with liberation which is the living reality of being free in the natural state regardless of whatever interests you might have in the relative. According to what Buddha told his disciples, he had one experience that resulted in liberation and freedom. He supposedly told them that after meditating for a certain period of time, he looked up into the morning sky from where he sat and saw the planet Venus. This sensory event triggered realization, and that's a classic kensho event. What's unusual is that the Buddha apparently attained freedom, realization, and permanent liberation as a result of that one event. Most people who have such things happen do not. Nevertheless, I'll drop this issue because you obviously have a deep attachment to the idea that liberation can only happen in one way. Having read hundreds of spiritual biographies and autobiographies of sages, it's clear to me that each human's path to realization is quite unique. |
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