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Fri 19 Dec, 2008 08:20 pm
According to many eastern religions, life is suffering. I want, with all of your help as well, to examine an idea I had that I just kind of slipped into through an impulse, so I decided to share, therefore it might not be worth your while. Fair warning.
Now, our life begins, we are essentially given life. That is a positive, however for life to sustain itself, it needs many things. Shelter, food, water, interaction, etc. So the human born, is essentially, in the negative, in the sense that we discard all assumptions of interaction from parents and etc... So in doing this we find that the human is in the negative because it cannot sustain life without the positives that are, through human nature or not, brought into their life.
Now in expanding this, humans also to be healthy need other humans, another positive gain. They need some sense of purpose to do things, even if it is simply sustainability. And as we all know, nowadays especially, we require much much more. So in adding all these positives in our lives all the time, we replace negatives that naturally exist with us in life, perhaps our creator or nature, sure, may have intended parents or other humans to take care of a new born, but by ourselves, we are essentially in the negative at birth.
Therefore, once these people may leave our lives or if we just age, we of course become individuals with more complex psychological needs. If we are always supplementing ourselves positives to suppress the negative, we can come to the conclusion that life itself is suffering, from that which we must create our own comfort. Through whatever that may be. I would suggest that primarily having purposeful things in your life that cannot be taken from you by nature, to avoid or combat the suffering. Perhaps, as the Buddhists believe, you should experience within yourself, your ego's death, and without the ego's oppression, you then can become content.
Thoughts?
@alex717,
Suffering means something rather different in Buddhism, and there is no direct translation.
My understanding of it is that suffering as understood by Buddhists refers mainly to the human penchant to always want, to never be satisfied. It's a state of instability.
@Aedes,
Aedes wrote:Suffering means something rather different in Buddhism, and there is no direct translation.
My understanding of it is that suffering as understood by Buddhists refers mainly to the human penchant to always want, to never be satisfied. It's a state of instability.
Doesn't that directly relate to my post? I never said my idea was the Buddhist idea or my interpretation of it, I simply stated my source for the root belief, your definition fits perfectly into my post...
@alex717,
You expound on this in a way that seems much more psychological than that which is implied in Buddhism.
@alex717,
I agree that I helped explain their view of suffering with psychological needs, which may be foreign to them, however it is showing why, at our base, we are in a suffering state. Thanks for the reply anyhow.
@alex717,
I think that there is one interpretation of Buddhism that sees nirvana as a goal and sees the journey (really the cycle of births and rebirths) as negative.
But the mahayana elaboration of the bodhisattva ideal is a different take on it. It sees good arising from the
process.
And I find myself more sympathetic with this view. The journey of life need not be seen as negative just because we strive for things that cannot be fulfilled.
@Aedes,
I agree it should not be seen as negative, but I believe that because we are not self sustained there is always negativity in our lives. And without superficial things or individual ideologies, there is suffering. This should be natural because we are, of course here, removed from God.
@alex717,
As has been suggested, the Buddhist notion of suffering may be translated as disatisfaction. It would be superficial things and individual ideologies which perpetuate this disatisfaction. Hence the Buddha advises us to abandon our views and simply go and find out what's true. In this way suffering may be overcome by the ending of ignorance. This is not quite the same idea as suffering caused by our removal from God but it's very nearly equivalent, and would be equivalent if God is defined appropriately.
@alex717,
alex717 wrote:I agree it should not be seen as negative, but I believe that because we are not self sustained there is always negativity in our lives.
How do you determine that there is always negativity in our lives?
To oversimplify here -- we have things we biologically need, like food and liquid and shelter, and thus we have unpleasant sensations when we
lack these things. We feel physical pain, which is biologically necessary. And at a higher level we care deeply about things, such as our families -- but our family members can suffer and they can die, and we can feel emotional pain and loss.
This is natural and human, and to prevent this kind of phenomenon (not being self sustained, as you phrase it), would be to give up the very core of our humanity.
Quote:This should be natural because we are, of course here, removed from God.
That makes assumptions about the existence of God, and if he exists what is his nature in this universe. I mean that is a ridiculously complex topic that does not have any uniform consensus. Buddhists certainly do NOT believe this. But even within my own background, which is Judaism, there is great disagreement -- the Kabbalists
uniquely believe that we are distant from God, though in their case they believe that
it is God who recedes from us, not the other way around.
@Aedes,
To call oneself God, does that not mean the God would have to of never suffered in its life?
How can the christian God have a form of relationship in which we are meant to love him if he is perfect, unable to suffer... yet he is able to
love?
@Aedes,
Aedes wrote:How do you determine that there is always negativity in our lives?
To oversimplify here -- we have things we biologically need, like food and liquid and shelter, and thus we have unpleasant sensations when we lack these things. We feel physical pain, which is biologically necessary. And at a higher level we care deeply about things, such as our families -- but our family members can suffer and they can die, and we can feel emotional pain and loss.
This is natural and human, and to prevent this kind of phenomenon (not being self sustained, as you phrase it), would be to give up the very core of our humanity.
That makes assumptions about the existence of God, and if he exists what is his nature in this universe. I mean that is a ridiculously complex topic that does not have any uniform consensus. Buddhists certainly do NOT believe this. But even within my own background, which is Judaism, there is great disagreement -- the Kabbalists uniquely believe that we are distant from God, though in their case they believe that it is God who recedes from us, not the other way around.
I understand what Buddhist's believe, perhaps they were a bad example, I was just showing my idea of maybe why life is suffering, using their view as a reason to show why this is even appropriate.
What I was trying to say, and granted the OP is not very well layed out, my idea came fast, and I was rushing through, is that because we aren't self-sustained, we are always in the negative, in life. Not as in a psychological negative, even though that may come, but in a negative to human nature, we always need something. And, this is where I was trying to conclude where suffering comes from in our lives, always being in need to nature and humanness. Which could be because we are not self-sustained, which I was saying could be justified, because we are not with God. It is easy to imagine that, in His realm, we would be self-sustained, not needing any human things, and therefore his presence would be enough for complete fulfillment and enjoyment, because we would be removed from constant mortal needs. So, no suffering (negativity, from life or to psych) could affect us.
Sorry again, If the OP is choppy. I don't want to change it out of respect for those who are already discussing this. And no, this is not what I believe, rather an idea I thought worthy of introduction on a free philosophy online forum
@Holiday20310401,
Just throwing this out there, but I don't believe God is unable to suffer. According to a Christian, he sent his son "Jesus" who is a part of the "trinity" which is three entities that constitute one: God. God suffered through Jesus, so I believe according to Christianity God is capable of suffering. Kinda like the old adage: You have to carry your cross.
I'm not Christian, but I believe that is what (on a basic level) a Christian would say.
@quandary,
quandary wrote:Just throwing this out there, but I don't believe God is unable to suffer. According to a Christian, he sent his son "Jesus" who is a part of the "trinity" which is three entities that constitute one: God. God suffered through Jesus, so I believe according to Christianity God is capable of suffering. Kinda like the old adage: You have to carry your cross.
I'm not Christian, but I believe that is what (on a basic level) a Christian would say.
Yea... he suffered because he was mortal though. And lets not get in this debate, way off subject.
@alex717,
alex717;39441 wrote:Yea... he suffered because he was mortal though. And lets not get in this debate, way off subject.
Well to put an end to it: God is omnipotent. If he couldn't suffer he wouldn't be all powerful - suffering would be beyond him.
@quandary,
Everything we can conceive would be beyond him. This perfection nonsense is not getting at anything relevant to man's spirituality as it truly is. It's all just a delusion. Anyways... back to buddhism because it is much more fascinating to learn about.
@quandary,
quandary wrote:Well to put an end to it: God is omnipotent. If he couldn't suffer he wouldn't be all powerful - suffering would be beyond him.
I was implying that, correct.
. Welcome to the forum, hope to see you around.
@alex717,
Id like to think Suffering is merely a "living" aspect to remind us that both Good and Bad things Should pass through us without much conflict. When we hold onto these things for too long, it results into suffering.
@Joe,
What the Buddhist talk about, suffering, is, at least in human experience, psychological.
Aedes is right, when the Buddhist says "life is suffering" it is meant that humans always want, are never satisfied. But this suffering is not limited to the human experience; suffering is common to all sentient beings according to Buddhism.
@Didymos Thomas,
Didymos Thomas wrote:What the Buddhist talk about, suffering, is, at least in human experience, psychological.
Aedes is right, when the Buddhist says "life is suffering" it is meant that humans always want, are never satisfied. But this suffering is not limited to the human experience; suffering is common to all sentient beings according to Buddhism.
Could the satisfaction exist because we are not self-sustainable? Because we are in need, in the negative, to life, we cannot be psychologically satisfied. Like I said, this was an idea of MINE, I was simply stating the Buddhist idea for reference, I do know what they believe, this is what I think could be why.
@alex717,
alex717;39510 wrote:Could the satisfaction exist because we are not self-sustainable? Because we are in need, in the negative, to life, we cannot be psychologically satisfied.
Why must that be seen as a negative?
One thing I
dislike about Buddhism (though this is not universal) is asceticism. Interestingly or not, the ascetic ideal exists in Christianity as well. (Yes, it also exists in every other major religion, even Judaism to some degree, but seldom to the degree of
virtue that it's held in Buddhism and in Christianity).
The problem with asceticism is that it eschews anything having to do with our flesh. And because of this, it's grossly inauthentic -- it denies the inescapable reality that (at least) for our lives, we are 100% indivisible from our bodies -- and our bodies in Western religions are a creation of God.
So the only theological justification for seeing our needs negatively would be to interpret our bodies as nothing but a cruel test by God.
And I have to reject that argument. I think the physical world, including our bodies, are best interpreted as a creation and even a
gift from God. And to reject our needs and our wants would be to live in denial.
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