Buddhism - Four Noble Truths - Suffering

Hi Thunkd,
The example you use of the two men, the one who'll suffer will get over it and no permanent damage done but if the cause is different such as greed which could lead to permanent suffering, for instance war which leads to innocents dying yes? Well then because the cause leads to others suffering and the suffering is not just personel than that is wrong, personel suffering often leads to growth,ie, strength learning,etc but when it's not just personel and leads to others coming to harm then the person should withdraw from that cause in the first place.

First off, I would view greed as just another form of desire.

And I wouldn't necessarily see innocents dying as suffering. I think it's important to distinguish between suffering and adversity or bad events/pain. It is impossible to avoid having bad things happen and experiencing pain. Those events have causes which are outside of ourselves and there is never any guarantee that you can prevent them. How we react to those events and whether we choose to suffer is a subjective response. For example, many people suffer keenly at the idea of dying of cancer, while many people claim that being diagnosed with cancer has put their lives in perspective and has had a positive impact on their life. Having gotten cancer you can't prevent the pain and stress and possible mortality of the disease, but you can change your attitude and response to those factors.

My perspective on this issue is to look at an individual's personal suffering, as in the context of whether buddhism is a way for us to personally avoid suffering. Whether actions cause others suffering, and whether those are right or wrong is another issue.

I would disagree that suffering leads to growth, but rather adversity leads to growth. Anytime we encounter obstacles or problems, we are forced to overcome them or change in response to them, which leads to growth.

Innocents do suffer due to greed, for instance, an arms trafficker will sell arms to people who are obviously giong to kill and maime innocents, so they do suffer, the people who make money in selling these arms knowing full well where they are going and for what purpose do it for money=greed=desire for wealth, so i disagree with you.

I think some suffering you do learn from

i dont see how someones desire causes the cancer patient to suffer.

You dont think losing a loved one in a war is going to cause you suffering?????????????/ That if you dont focus on it everything will just be alright. like you got a choice, ha i dont thinks so. Taht as long as you focus on something elae the pain and suffering will go away? Try telling that to people who are getting blown way caught up in civil war in Africa, but hey its alright lets give them something else to do and they'll be ok they wont suffer. I strongly disagree with you and on that point im not answering any more of your posts.
And i distingush between what is difficult and what actually hurts, pain and suffering so i still think that you learn from suffering and i still disagree with you.
And again your last paragraph is void because using cancer as an example does not apply because like i said cancer is not caused by a result of someones eles desire. (which is what we're talking about) (again).
If you're not going to read my posts properely im out of this thread. I think i will agree to diagree with you.

Losing a loved one for whatever reason is a horrible thing. But you can choose to accept your loss, remember the good things about your loved one, and move on with your life. If you continue to rail against what has happened, obsess on how you wanted things to be and be upset that things haven't turned out how you wanted, you will suffer. Some people are able to recover from the death of a loved one, and some never do, that difference is suffering.

I'm not saying that cancer is caused by desire. Cancer is going to happen regardless. You're going to get sick, have pain and die. But you can deal with it and accept what has to happen, or you can continue to rage agaisnt how horrible this is, how it's not what you wanted, how it's not what you desire.... and if you do, you will suffer.

As long as you view suffering as something that comes from outside of us, as something that we cannot avoid you are going to disagree with me. But that is a very bleak viewpoint, because we cannot control whether bad things happen. But we do have a choice whether to suffer.

Let me ask you a question. If the same bad thing happens to two people, and one is able to get over it and let go of their bad feelings about the experience, and the other cannot, but continues to feel horrible about it.... what do you call the difference between their situations. To me, the one has stopped suffering while the other continues to. That's how I define suffering... what would you call that?

Obviously, same bad experience. One is able to feel better, the other cannot. One suffers, one does not. It's not the bad experience... whether that is losing a job, death of a loved one, cancer, etc.... it's the persons reaction to that bad experience.

The problem that I see with the four noble truths is its failure to harness individual goals and appetites.

It seems so focused on the avoidance of suffering that it is afraid to leave itself open to the risk of suffering.

Buddhism recognizes that suffering is a universal experience of life. And Buddhism, working under the notion that suffering is something to be eschewed, attempts to find ways to end suffering.

How so?

I think you've missed the point. The basic recognition is that to live is to suffer: so Buddhism isn't "afraid to leave itself open to the risk of suffering", instead, Buddhism recognizes that suffering is a universal experience of life. And Buddhism, working under the notion that suffering is something to be eschewed, attempts to find ways to end suffering.

I just think that it inspires asceticism, and asceticism undoubtedly fails to harness natural appetites.

Even the story of the Buddha himself negates asceticism -- he tried and rejected it. Buddhism in practice is a stunningly diverse religion, and believe me that the asceticism in Japanese Buddhism is very much contradicted by the absence of asceticism in Tibetan Buddhism.

Some extremes of Buddhist metaphysics (e.g. everything, including the self or other selves, is illusory, i.e. the doctrine of nothingness), make one wonder how a meaningful moral philosophy can come of it.

My biggest quarrel with Buddhism is the agnostic mysticism in its metaphysics. The reincarnation & nirvana bit doesn't strike me as truthful. Mahayana Buddhism also believes in some force deities or some non-sense like that.

This is so variable that it's hard to generalize. In general the Mahayana Buddhist traditions believe in the bhodisattva, which are more like angels than like deities, but fundamentally are higher beings who have foregone entry into nirvana in order to help others achieve it. They serve as ideals that lie at the core of Buddhist moral philosophy.

The reincarnation / nirvana aspect can easily be understood as allegorical.