1-- Life is suffering.
2-- The cause of suffering is desire.
3-- Ridding yourself of desire or attachments will aleviate (though not eliminate) suffering.
4-- The way to acheive this is the 8-fold path. The 8-fold path involves living with humility, compassion, simplicity, wisdom, love. And it involves meditating.
So what are you waiting for???
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15 comments:
I'm not waiting I'm stuck in narrow mindedness (8 worldy concerns).
like/dislike
praise/blame
fame/disgrace
gain/loss
LOL!
That's right!
why is it called the 8-fold path?
Life is suffering is a lifestyle, not a noble truth/morally good reality.
Suffering is undergoing, experiencing, permitting, to feel and endure stress or pain.
Desiring is hoping or wishing for something.
So...the motive behind experience is hope.
Ridding myself of hoping and wishing?
I believe in truths (faith).
I guess I'm waiting for some noble truths. These 4Noble Truths are chaste.
Check out the virtues above!
What definition of suffering are you talking about here?
"they're straight from buddha himself" ?!
Wow, Lorne, tell Buddha I say hi! (Which should go great seeing as he speaks english now).
Ok, enough of the religious/philosophical battles. I agree with James AND Lorne. James is merely interpreting Lorne's "suffering" differently:
" Suffering is undergoing, experiencing, permitting, to feel and endure stress or pain."-so no one is "wrong" or "arguing"
The Religion of Me:
It makes sense,but who knows what Buddha really said/meant anyway? He does seem to smile alot for a chronic sufferer. I think that religion and faith is a personal trip to the discovery of your connection with all things (and yes, andrew all non-things:4th dimention {no}style). It is a highly individual journey, no one can really lead you there. It seems major world religions are a good way to discover the path, but it depends a great deal on your interpretation and consequent perception, as all things do. So I think James doesn't want to feel like he is suffering all the time (and that would truely be a miserable existence) so changes the meaning of the words to fit his own needs. Also, of all the Buddhists I've met (admittedly no where near the "billion or so") none have been moping around percieving thier existence as pure suffering. Also, Buddism, as you know isn't the only religion in the world, but that's the fun part. Seeing how you can incorporate all the religious faiths into your OWN can be quite a challenge, but I find it very stimulating. Allah for example, the only God. Who is to say he isn't the only god, but multifaceted, and the same as Buddha, or the Christian God? I find all the successfull religions to have some key points in common. They all preach tolerance and love and empathy and all those nice virtues we all inherently adore in ourselves and others. So the Buddhists aren't wrong, they are merely one language describing the same thing as all Gods languages. I hope I can become closer to this truth by trying to understand, and most importantly feel. I too would interpret the "suffering" differently (even though it undeniably does exist, as we are conscious of our mortality and shortcomings). I choose to live my life percieving the everyday toil, and struggles sensually. I get high off the melencholy and pain, knowing that it is the relativity I use to judge my most intense joy and the succesess of my rapturous experience. In this blessing I feel no need to disclaim anyone elses perception (although I have prefered ways of viewing, my own individualization), rather I am challenged to understand how or why they do it that way. I hope this doesn't come across as some preachy rant, (I don't mean it that way) but it's up to you to decide what it means.
Tolerating the Ambiguity:
I guess no one religion can adequetly sum it all up, and that's why we get a few to choose from. If you think of religious wars it is the most obvious place where the ideas fail. Knowing what that some things are unknowable is hard to do, but maybe a key to peace. Being righteous when we know so little about the great nothing is counter productive. As far as desire is concerned, I think its just a matter of desiring the right things. Desire not to desire, I don't know about you but that sounds like a catch 22. I think it should be "be mindful of what you desire"...Ok, I'm definately ranting now -hehe
IsBe
Thank You
Rage
And Lorne, you keep saying "these are not my ideas"...
What are your ideas?
These blogs are great for debate, eh?
Unless of course people feel attacked, and that's not my goal.(especially when it causes them to stop blogging, how horrible!)
David's right in knowing my love for the flex and stretch of a word.
And Lorne...
After a quick google search....
the noble truths of buddhism:
1. Life means suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. The path to the cessation of suffering.
I guess these truths ARE open for interpretation. David, your words were wonderful in this respect.
Now the word 'chaste', I would have to say that the four noble truths presented by Lorne were modest, and simple, too much so for my liking. Life is not suffering. Life is life.
Life can mean suffering in birth, againg, death.
"Suffering" in buddhist terms is no where near to our undersatunding or defintion of what suffering means in everyday life.
To Buddhists, even when you perceive an experience to be happy, you are indeed suffering because our limited consciosness conceptualizes reality with continuity and permanence whereas it is a fundamental truth of earthly existence that everything must always change and will always be in a state of flux.
Our delusions that cause us to think in the contrary (be it subconsious nonetheless), is cause for our constant dissapointment and suffering, and to make a jump, is the reason why we become stuck in the eternal cycle of birth and rebirth. But thats just what the Buddha says, i still havent figured it out yet.
Well that explains all the smiling. I think I heard a Buddhist saying one time like "There can be no heaven on earth until every blade of grass is god". Realizing our interconnectedness and the ultimate potential for the "cessation of suffering" may be just that. I know a few of you have heard me pushing these movies, but if any you want a real philosophical-milk-shake-medley, check out "waking Life" and "I heart huckabees" (preferably back to back). These flicks put it into perspective quite nicely (and more clearly than I do).
PS. Anita, what is that picture you have for your profile. I find it intriguing (especially the eyebrow =).
Monkeys play and love life!
About the picture, I was curious because lately I've gotten a few comments from people saying that I look like a "Babylonian woman". I wasn't sure exactly what that meant or what a Babylonian looked like so I did a Google Image search and found this picture that oddly ressembles me. I'm not sure if thats one big gold unibrow across her eyebrows or some kind of rope. Anyway, I wonder about the drink in her hand, did Babylonians drink alcohol?
Ahh, you can see it better on your blog.
From the net:
Beer was the major beverage among the Babylonians, and as early as 2,700 B.C. they worshiped a wine goddess and other wine deities. Babylonians regularly used both beer and wine as offerings to their gods. Around 1,750 B.C., the famous Code of Hammurabi devoted attention to alcohol. However, there were no penalties for drunkenness; in fact, it was not even mentioned. The concern was fair commerce in alcohol. Nevertheless, although it was not a crime, it would appear that the Babylonians were critical of drunkenness.
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