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Buddhists bet their horse in one particular lifetime on eventually escaping suffering by following Buddhist teaching/philosophy. Some suicidal people bet their

by Dewie3 11y ago

Buddhists bet their horse in one particular lifetime on eventually escaping suffering by following Buddhist teaching/philosophy. Some suicidal people bet their horse on escaping a more immediate suffering. Other than the immediacy of the suffering, their both existential "bets" from the perspective of the author, and so I don't see a great distinction between either strategy.

Mikeb85 11y ago
> Buddhists bet their horse in one particular lifetime on eventually escaping suffering by following Buddhist teaching/philosophy. Not actually true, otherwise all Buddhists would become monastics, which they don't. Buddhists believe that positive karma is accumulated over many lifetimes, and negative karma is extinguished after periods of suffering. In Buddhist thought, it's often enough to simply live a reasonably 'good' life, then you'll be reincarnated into a heavenly realm, or possibly another human body, etc... There are degrees of everything, and very few Buddhists (if any) believe they're going to achieve liberation after only a single lifetime. Even the Buddha was thought to have lived hundreds of lives, eventually culminating with his miraculous (by traditional accounts) life 2500 years ago...
- Dewie3 11y ago
  Is any of that supposed to contradict any of what I said? I don't see it. Though what you've written here doesn't contradict my current mental model of Buddhism, I might have been wrong in assessing Buddhist's motivation as universally being about eventually ending suffering. Maybe some are content with a good, pleasurable existence, and not necessarily Nirvana? Though the fact that not all Buddhists are monastic doesn't in itself imply that - even if being monastic leads to more quickly achieving Nirvana, maybe some Buddhists don't feel that they are in such a rush, at least in their particular lifetime? > There are degrees of everything, and very few Buddhists (if any) believe they're going to achieve liberation after only a single lifetime. That's why I wrote """eventually escaping suffering"""!! I said nothing about escaping suffering in the span of one lifetime. Only that they choose to devote their life to the goal of eventually achieving this "escape". Note that I contrasted this goal with people who commit suicide; people who commit suicide - because of depression and suicidal thoughts - do it to escape suffering in one particular lifetime. Hence, why I contrasted this with Buddhism as "a more immediate suffering". I thought my choice of words, to deliberately contrast these two kinds of sufferings, would be enough to get the point across to someone who understands Buddhism (probably better than me). But I guess you were in a lecturing mood. Good for you, buddy; we've all got to have hobbies. And web forums are as good a place as any to do that.
  - dang 11y ago
    > But I guess you were in a lecturing mood. Good for you, buddy Please follow the Hacker News guidelines and refrain from personal rudeness when posting here.

by Dewie3 11y ago

Mikeb85 11y ago

> Buddhists bet their horse in one particular lifetime on eventually escaping suffering by following Buddhist teaching/philosophy. Not actually true, otherwise all Buddhists would become monastics, which they don't. Buddhists believe that positive karma is accumulated over many lifetimes, and negative karma is extinguished after periods of suffering. In Buddhist thought, it's often enough to simply live a reasonably 'good' life, then you'll be reincarnated into a heavenly realm, or possibly another human body, etc... There are degrees of everything, and very few Buddhists (if any) believe they're going to achieve liberation after only a single lifetime. Even the Buddha was thought to have lived hundreds of lives, eventually culminating with his miraculous (by traditional accounts) life 2500 years ago...

Dewie3 11y ago
Is any of that supposed to contradict any of what I said? I don't see it. Though what you've written here doesn't contradict my current mental model of Buddhism, I might have been wrong in assessing Buddhist's motivation as universally being about eventually ending suffering. Maybe some are content with a good, pleasurable existence, and not necessarily Nirvana? Though the fact that not all Buddhists are monastic doesn't in itself imply that - even if being monastic leads to more quickly achieving Nirvana, maybe some Buddhists don't feel that they are in such a rush, at least in their particular lifetime? > There are degrees of everything, and very few Buddhists (if any) believe they're going to achieve liberation after only a single lifetime. That's why I wrote """eventually escaping suffering"""!! I said nothing about escaping suffering in the span of one lifetime. Only that they choose to devote their life to the goal of eventually achieving this "escape". Note that I contrasted this goal with people who commit suicide; people who commit suicide - because of depression and suicidal thoughts - do it to escape suffering in one particular lifetime. Hence, why I contrasted this with Buddhism as "a more immediate suffering". I thought my choice of words, to deliberately contrast these two kinds of sufferings, would be enough to get the point across to someone who understands Buddhism (probably better than me). But I guess you were in a lecturing mood. Good for you, buddy; we've all got to have hobbies. And web forums are as good a place as any to do that.
- dang 11y ago
  > But I guess you were in a lecturing mood. Good for you, buddy Please follow the Hacker News guidelines and refrain from personal rudeness when posting here.