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Isn't an important aspect of Buddhist philosophy the inescapable nature of suffering in life? That it shouldn't necessarily be avoided? So why is existing in th

Isn't an important aspect of Buddhist philosophy the inescapable nature of suffering in life? That it shouldn't necessarily be avoided? So why is existing in that state "without suffering" necessary? I do like that your idea has space for focusing on community building.

fnordpiglet 4y ago
There are two types of suffering in Buddhism, physical and suffering that arises from ignorance and attachment. The entire point of the Buddhist philosophy is the cessation of the second type of suffering. Enlightenment or nirvana is a state free of suffering and is the goal. It comes with an idea of escape from the cycle of birth and death, which is often construed to be mystical but is more an escape from the attachment of meaning to birth and death, along with entanglement in thought and emotion, pleasure, avoidance of pain, etc. This state doesn’t a lack of emotion, including negative ones or a lack of unpleasantness, but a lack of anxiety, depression, rumination, and the variety of other ways we torture ourselves with. But no, escape of suffering is exactly the point. The premise is the unenlightened life can’t escape suffering, but there is a path, which Buddha compiled and taught from the Indian mystics of his day into a highly structured practice with exhaustive documentation on the detailed nuances of the human experience with a direct description of how to become enlightened through the practice of meditation, specifically vipassana, and teachings of how suffering arises and what motivations to cultivate to achieve release. Edit: forgot to note the first type of physical suffering becomes merely unpleasant once you release your attachment to not feeling unpleasant and can accept it as part of the ever changing nature of reality and a fundamental acceptance of impermanence- that this too shall pass and the pleasant ends the same as the unpleasant and there are not naturally superior states
bin_bash 4y ago
"Suffering" isn't a great translation of the Sanskrit word "dukkha". It's too broad. The Buddha talks about a very specific type of suffering that I think of as: "the desire for things to be different than the way they are." The Buddha teaches how to avoid this craving for the world to be different than it actually is. Look up the parable of the arrow. It's a good way to think about the difference between general suffering and dukkha.
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fnordpiglet 4y ago

There are two types of suffering in Buddhism, physical and suffering that arises from ignorance and attachment. The entire point of the Buddhist philosophy is the cessation of the second type of suffering. Enlightenment or nirvana is a state free of suffering and is the goal. It comes with an idea of escape from the cycle of birth and death, which is often construed to be mystical but is more an escape from the attachment of meaning to birth and death, along with entanglement in thought and emotion, pleasure, avoidance of pain, etc. This state doesn’t a lack of emotion, including negative ones or a lack of unpleasantness, but a lack of anxiety, depression, rumination, and the variety of other ways we torture ourselves with. But no, escape of suffering is exactly the point. The premise is the unenlightened life can’t escape suffering, but there is a path, which Buddha compiled and taught from the Indian mystics of his day into a highly structured practice with exhaustive documentation on the detailed nuances of the human experience with a direct description of how to become enlightened through the practice of meditation, specifically vipassana, and teachings of how suffering arises and what motivations to cultivate to achieve release. Edit: forgot to note the first type of physical suffering becomes merely unpleasant once you release your attachment to not feeling unpleasant and can accept it as part of the ever changing nature of reality and a fundamental acceptance of impermanence- that this too shall pass and the pleasant ends the same as the unpleasant and there are not naturally superior states

bin_bash 4y ago

"Suffering" isn't a great translation of the Sanskrit word "dukkha". It's too broad. The Buddha talks about a very specific type of suffering that I think of as: "the desire for things to be different than the way they are." The Buddha teaches how to avoid this craving for the world to be different than it actually is. Look up the parable of the arrow. It's a good way to think about the difference between general suffering and dukkha.

deleted 4y ago
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