Life is suffering / World and its sufferings

02-03-2005, 01:07 PM

D.: There are widespread disasters spreading havoc in the world. What
is the cause of this state of affairs ?

M.: To whom does all this appear ?

D.: That won't do. I see misery around.

M.: You were not aware of the world and its sufferings in your sleep ;
you are conscious of them in your wakeful state. Continue in that
state in which you were not afflicted by these. That is to say, when
you are not aware of the world, its sufferings do not affect you.
When you remain as the Self, as in sleep, the world and its
sufferings will not affect you. Therefore look within. See the Self !
There will be an end of the world and its miseries.

D.: But that is selfishness.

M.: The world is not external. Because you identify yourself wrongly
with the body you see the world outside, and its pain becomes
apparent to you. But they are not real. Seek the reality and get rid
of this unreal feeling.

D.: There are great men, public workers, who cannot solve the problem of the misery of the world.

M.: They are ego-centered and therefore their inability. If they
remained in the Self they would be differant.

D.: Why do not Mahatmas help ?

M.: How do you know that they do not help ? Public speeches, physical
activity and material help are all outweighed by the silence of
Mahatmas. They accomplish more than others.

D.: What is to be done by us for ameliorating the condition of the world?

M.: If you remain free from pain, there will be no pain anywhere. The
trouble now is due to your seeing the world externally and also
thinking that there is pain there. But both the world and the pain
are within you. If you look within there will be no pain.

D.: God is perfect. Why did He create the world imperfect ? The work
shares the nature of the author. But here it is not so.

M.: Who is it that raises the question ?

D.: I - the individual.

M.: Are you apart from God that you ask this question ?
So long as you consider yourself the body you see the world as
external. The imperfections appear to you. God is perfection. His
work also is perfection. But you see it as imperfection because of
your wrong identification.

D.: Why did the Self manifest as this miserable world ?

M.: In order that you might seek it. Your eyes cannot see themselves.
Place a mirror before them and they see themselves. Similarly with
the creation.
" See yourself first and then see the whole world as the Self ."

D.: So it amounts to this - that I should always look within.

M.: Yes.

D.: Should I not see the world at all ?

M.: You are not instructed to shut your eyes from the world. You are
only to " see youself first and then see the whole world as the Self
". If you consider yourself as the body the world appears to be
external. If you are the Self the world appears as Brahman.

Dora

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02-04-2005, 10:50 PM

All this talk about "sleep" seems like a "koan" to me, in that I can
never rationally understand it (please refer to the Maharshi
response below under the dotted line). So, if I can figure out a way
to stay in a coma for the rest of my life, would that do? (I'm sure
some of you would be happy about that ;>)) I notice in deep sleep,
that there IS no suffering, because there is no "awareness"! It
doesn't make sense to continue "that state" while awake, unless I'm
constantly on heroin or something like it. Am I supposed to
logically try to figure this out, until my brain explodes and I
can't think about it anymore? Are you supposed to be a zombie or
walk around in a trance, looking within rather than being aware of
the happenings of the outside world AND your internal responses to
them?? Is this realization practical for a worldly, active, and
engaged life?

I appreciate that you all can quote Ramana, but do YOU constantly
continue in that state, and realize it? If SO, WHAT then, allowed
you to realize? Any HINTS?

BH

------------------------------------------------------------------
> M.: You were not aware of the world and its sufferings in your
sleep ; you are conscious of them in your wakeful state. Continue in
that state in which you were not afflicted by these. That is to say,
when you are not aware of the world, its sufferings do not affect
you. When you remain as the Self, as in sleep, the world and its
sufferings will not affect you. Therefore look within. See the
Self ! There will be an end of the world and its miseries.

02-05-2005, 09:47 AM

--- In HarshaSatsangh (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com, "barneyhazelwood"
wrote:

All this talk about "sleep" seems like a "koan" to me, in that I can
never rationally understand it (please refer to the Maharshi
response below under the dotted line). So, if I can figure out a way
to stay in a coma for the rest of my life, would that do? (I'm sure
some of you would be happy about that ;>)) I notice in deep sleep,
that there IS no suffering, because there is no "awareness"! It
doesn't make sense to continue "that state" while awake, unless I'm
constantly on heroin or something like it. Am I supposed to
logically try to figure this out, until my brain explodes and I
can't think about it anymore? Are you supposed to be a zombie or
walk around in a trance, looking within rather than being aware of
the happenings of the outside world AND your internal responses to
them?? Is this realization practical for a worldly, active, and
engaged life?

I appreciate that you all can quote Ramana, but do YOU constantly
continue in that state, and realize it? If SO, WHAT then, allowed
you to realize? Any HINTS?

Namaste,

In the first place rationally understanding something that cannot be
measured or weighed is impossible.
Secondly there is no awareness in sleep for the inner mind hasn't
been purified so there is the one continous 'meditation' or 'sleep'
on the thought of nothing but ignorance.
Continuing the state whilst awake means in the sense of a purified
inner mind, ultimately. Above the thought of sleep so to speak.
You will always have difficulty trying to absorb this as long as you
relate it to the ultimate ignorance--------the mind
itself...ONS..Tony.
P.S. As in debates it is necessary to do one's homework. I would
suggest that if you read more on this particular subject, you will
have less difficulty relating. Of course understanding comes or
rises proportionately with the purification of the vijnanamayakosa
or awareness sheath or inner mind.

02-07-2005, 01:40 PM

Life is suffering???

I hope nobody thinks that such a suggestion came from the Buddha!

No realized enlightened being can ever have said that, not even - and
especially not - the Buddha!
The Buddha came with a few "bang on" statements, but that "life is
suffering" was not one of them. Many of his commentators may have put
it that way, just as much as they called his statements - according to
the parlance of those days - The Four Noble Truths.
Noble Truths?
Instead of the words 'exalted or noble truth' - 'ariya sacca' - the
Buddha may have just simply used the word 'sacca' which stands for
'expressing a clear observation', 'a saying containing an obvious
truth' and even a 'stating a fact'. 'Sacca' (pronounced as `satcha')
is comparable to Jesus saying "Verily, verily, I say unto you......"
We have a similar expression, when one agrees with something and says
"I say!!!" or "That's a fact!!"
There are modern scholars who suggest that it is not certain that the
Buddha actually used the word sacca when he listed his 4 most
important observations.
Anyway sacca points to a clear evidential thing... e.g. the evidence
of humans suffering 'dukkha' (usually translated as 'suffering').

The Buddha listed the following facts:
Fact 1. Suffering exists!
(When we trace the history of human suffering we can see
why and when it arose from conditional conditioning.)
Fact 2. Suffering has an origin!
(When we trace conditionality, we see how the installation of
fear and desire keeps the existence of suffering arising again
and again.)
Fact 3. Suffering can cease!
(What has at one point been started can also be stopped.
When we understand the dynamics of the origination
and the continuation of suffering, suffering will cease.)
Fact 4. There is a way to return to our original free state of being
human.
(We can reclaim our innate freedom. E.g. by following the
eight-fold path.)

The Buddha saw what he saw... but he saw nothing especially noble or
eclectic in his discoveries. In fact, he wanted his listeners to
become as quickly as possible aware of sacca number 3 and 4, instead
of dwelling overly long on number 1 and 2.

There is a problem with the usual translations of some Pali words -
the language in which the Buddha's teachings have come to us.
The Pali 'dukkha' is usually translated as 'suffering', and as
everyone has his or her own personal connotations around that word, it
would be good to find out what the original meaning of dukkha is. 'Du'
means 'difficult' and 'kha' means 'to endure', so dukkha simply points
to something that one has difficulty with enduring, e.g. life.
But that does not mean that 'life per se' IS hard to endure, it means
that people can have - or tend to have - difficulty with it. Humans
can have a hard time enduring life.
A specific type of human `indirect conditional conditioning' (as
distinct from `direct natural conditioning') is the reason for that.
Indirect conditional conditioning was invented about 11,000 years ago
when it started the transition from the hunter-gather society to the
agricultural one and had some great bona fide evolutionary reasons,
but it came with some adverse side-effects... unfortunately most of us
are now suffering from those `mala fide' side-effects.

It is important to see the difference in emphasis between the Buddha's
view on life and the common commentators' view. Life is not
suffering, but humans have been led to suffer life. Hardship is not
intrinsic to life, but it became ALMOST intrinsic to humans who for
some reason (the adverse side-effects of indirect conditional
conditioning) at some point lost their original freedom to accept life
as it came.
This is not the popular understanding of suffering in the more common
Buddhist context, even some modern Buddhists and some very erudite
contemporary Western commentators maintain that `at best' suffering is
a thread that runs through the fabric of the universe, or `at worst'
that suffering is the thread that the whole fabric of the universe is
spun of.
Well, they may think that... but ... sacca!... that is not what the
Buddha saw.

If he would have seen that, he would have quickly advised everyone to
call it quits, rather then urging his followers to work diligently on
claiming or reclaiming their freedom. (His last words.) The Buddha
actually did not put much emphasis on exiting this plane of being,
just as little as he addressed the idea of god or afterlife. It is not
for nothing that for a bodhisattva nirvana can wait. A bodhisattva is
actually not even interested in any discussion of nirvana, especially
when it is understood as some other-worldly nirvana...
"Nirvana is Samsara properly understood." (cerosoul)

Oh gosh, the commentators really botched it up...

So the Buddha saw suffering as coming from some inadvertent human
conditioning, brought about by a conditioned `problematique' to
accepts life AS IS, thus leading anyone affected to wish life to be
different from the way it is here and now. (Ah, so good for the
maneuverings of politics as well as consumerism.)

The Buddha traced suffering very quickly back to the illusive games
that humans play, and truly... sacca!.., illusion plays strongly in
the "If..., then..." conditionalities of the usual way human deal
with each other. You see, indirect conditional conditioning is not
very reliable when applied in human nature, it works better in the
world of nature where it is more a "When.., then..." rather than an
"If.., then...)

Acca! Accepting life as is, returns us to bliss, not accepting life
leads us astray - via desire and illusion - to suffering.

Wim

02-07-2005, 02:03 PM

--- In HarshaSatsangh (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com, "Wim Borsboom"
wrote:
>
> Life is suffering???

Namaste,

The Buddha discussed three kinds of dukkha.

Dukkha-dukkha is the obvious sufferings of physical pain, illness,
old age, death, the loss of a loved one.
Viparinama-dukkha is suffering caused by change: violated
expectations, the failure of happy moments to last.
Sankhara-dukkha is a subtle form of suffering inherent in the nature
of conditioned things, including the skandhas, the factors
constituting the human mind................ONS...Tony.from the
wikipedia even.