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Does anyone else ever get the desire to throw off the shackles of this Western society, renounce their possessions and go live in a monastery somewhere?
by rikthevik 16y ago
Does anyone else ever get the desire to throw off the shackles of this Western society, renounce their possessions and go live in a monastery somewhere?
- pavel_lishin 16y agoYes, especially after reading Anathem. Then I realize that my refrigerator is full of delicious things, and that my friends mostly live in Western society.
- mcantor 16y agoDesire is the cause of all suffering, but there's also bacon.
- jw84 16y agoAttachment is the root of all suffering. The subtlety is that one may want but clinging onto that desire and not letting go creates pain.
- adammichaelc 16y agoJoy can't exist without suffering.
- rokhayakebe 16y agoBut you do not have to experience a feeling to fully enjoy its opposite.
- dasil003 16y agoDefine "fully"
- rokhayakebe 16y agoI can't.
- Jach 16y agoSource? I keep seeing this thrown around, and I really don't see how it follows. Do you really think people can't just be happy, that they need suffering in their lives, or knowledge of someone suffering? Perhaps we're operating under different definitions of 'suffering', but I'd be really interested to hear a good case study on this.
- lincolnq 16y agoDo you think it would be possible to replicate the relevant aspects of the math from Anathem? How much money would it take? I bet there would be a decent number of people in the world who would want to commit for a year or two. And I'd like to imagine that there would be some useful research that would come out of it...
- dinde 16y agoAll the time!
- chaosmachine 16y agoThat was my plan if my startup failed. Fortunately(?), it didn't.
- pstuart 16y agoJust for a year.
- rokhayakebe 16y agoI say drive for an hour or two, find some place with streaming water and some trees or just a huge green field, and take a day there.
- cylinder714 16y agoA feature of meditation is that it is portable--you can do it virtually anywhere, anytime. Awareness and equanimity are the only ingredients required.