Bouddha Gautama said once, everyone on this earth experiences pain(dukha).
And there are 4liberating paths for those who are interested in liberation from such life...
I maintain that life consists of pain,, but is not laden exclusively with it.
Re: life is pain
agrote wrote:Life = pain. Agreed?
life is pain and pleasure. if you thought life was just pain you probably would have killed yourself already and would not have been able to make that post stating that life is pain. thus nullifying your argument.
If life equals pain, then death equals pleasure.
Nothing is equal to another thing. I mean, nobody is born to suffer pain if we considered life such as it is.
I could say life is equal to pain, or envy, or joy, or resigantion and so on. There isn´t a previous quality in life which tells us a meaning to be alive.
So, everybody can considered life as pain but it is only a consideration and not a quality in itself.
Shiyacic. I believe there are 8 buddhist paths to liberation from suffering. BTW, dukkha (suffering, anguish, discontent) is not the same, precisely, as physical pain.
Phisical pain is merely the reflection of the other illnesses:emotional,mental...
As for the paths it is, I assure you ,not the number of the paths which is ultimately important,but to choose one of them cos each one lead to evolution and liberty from human seeknesses and "problems"...
The core of buddhism is to suffer your pains, as I see it. There may be many ways to liberation, but for the individual there is only one. It is the alteration of one's perspective that is key, it is the limit of our influence, as I believe I have mentioned earlier.
Buddhism is about freeing oneself from pains, not by escaping into meditation, but by embracing them. You will see life as a trial where you are weakest, thus the trial will strengthen you where you are weakest, where it is most needed for you to get on with it. This is karma.
Our miseries are for us to overcome, and in error we so often battle the outer manifestations rather that their origins; people who are afraid of dogs want them off the streets rather than to deal with their fear. Too bad for them, because their denial, their fear of dogs, is one thing that will keep them securely locked in place, since their actions are efforts to escape the problem so they won't have to deal with it. This way of life taken to extremes leads us to bomb our enemies from fear of what they might do to us, all the while fear is the true enemy, making us do terrible things.
Buddhism sounds lofty when you start reading about it, but it is actually about everyday things. It is about how one should live to reach nirvana, not by chanting omm or rotting away in the woods, but by accepting the challenges that life throws at you.
I have more or less decided that at some point in my life I will leave my home and go to asia, to a temple, maybe to stay there for the rest of my life. But doing so now, leaving lots of loose ends and debts, would only be an escape from the things that I have to deal with, and no matter how dedicated I'd be to meditation and self sactifice, it would do little good. I must finish what I started here first, or I will never be done with it, and I'll never get closer to liberation.
I agree with you Cyracuz,
Life is a Kurukshetra(in the Indian mytholgy-Bhagavad Gita)battlefield!
By living a spiritual life(I dont mean religeous) accomplishing good deeds,avoiding amoral way of living we can certanly reach God Himself.
With a pure heart and an intelligence devoid of pride,there is no need to live in a monastery or other sanctuary,because God abides everywhere!
Simplicity gets rid of pains and sorrows of all kinds! :wink:
My understanding is that Buddhism says that life is suffering, suffering is caused by desires and cravings that must be eradicated (by following the eight-fold path) before Nirvana can be achieved.
Perhaps if Siddhartha Gautama had been born in today's world of instant gratification where suffering is no longer necessary thanks to drugs and psychiatrists, he would not have developed the same philosophy.
We are today just hidinng ourselves of what truely life is:aging,worries,anxiety,illusions...
Drugs are adding supplementary pains and postpone awakening of the human soul and its sense of discernement of what is suitable and what not.
I would call it hypocrisy our period of earthly existance!
Terry wrote:
Quote:Perhaps if Siddhartha Gautama had been born in today's world of instant gratification where suffering is no longer necessary thanks to drugs and psychiatrists, he would not have developed the same philosophy.
Maybe, but my guess is he would have seen through maya no matter how intricately woven. Besides, I really don't think life holds more comforts and instant gratifications for anyone today than it did for a nobly born prince in buddhas time. He shed his wealth then, why not now when it is even more evident that it is not needed?
By the way, another "buddhist truth" is that whatever you set out in search of you will find. If you expect life to be full of pain, then that is what you'll get.
Yes,the attitude,self-cofidence,self-respect are nr. 1!
Self confidence is confidence in the world, because having faith in yourself means having faith in the world that spawned such a creature as you, you are a product of it. Self confidence is the only confidence, self respect the only respect....
...or something like that.
Something very much like that.
Yes.
The Creator,the creation,the creature must become one.
Like Father,Son, and Holy-Spirit...
Re: life is pain
agrote wrote:Life = pain. Agreed?
Life is what you allow it to be. If you choose to call something pain, then pain it shall be.
You remind me of a certain Bhuddist bellhop who moans all the time about how life is suffering and how we are here on Earth just to suffer. Criminy man get a grip! Life to me is a joy in as much as it is a continued learning experience which does not in finality equal itself to pain. Does this mean there will not be painful moments? Of course not. People we care about leave their Earthly existence, leaving us to feel sorrow, relationships end, we have health concerns, people fail us, prices can be beyond our financial means causing us to go without certain things we want. The list of things which can offer me momentary pain, similar to those which can offer me split-second pleasure is probably endless, it's all a matter of what I want to do with it...do I wish to stand in one spot bleeding and crying while the bullets pierce me or am I willing to take a few steps and try something new and exciting.
So in finality, no I do not agree with the assessment of life=pain.
Great attitude, Sturgis. I hope you never lose it.
"Life is pain"Hey, thats a henry rollins tattoo. ***LIVING IS KILLING ME****
