--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "metoostill" <metoostill@> wrote: > > > > > --- On Sat, 1/2/10, TurquoiseB <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote: > > > > > > For all I know I may be the only person on this forum who > > > thinks this is REEEALLY REEEALLY STOOOPID. But then > > > I believe that that First Noble Truth indicates that Buddha > > > was somewhat of a Wuss. "Life is suffering" as the basis of > > > all of his teachings? Give me a fuckin' break. > > > > I think the quote is not "Life is Suffering" but "Suffering > > is inevitable"... > > A good distinction, but one still based on "the > view from outside," not the view from within. The > world might perceive one's life as suffering, but > that is no reason that the person experiencing > that life must perceive it that way.
Erm. That was kind of Buddha's point, wasn't it, that one need not experience life as suffering? His whole teaching was how to *avoid* experiencing life as suffering. > None of the experiences you list below involve > suffering unless one *chooses* to experience them > as suffering. "Chooses" isn't quite the right term here; it trivializes the process and makes people wrong for having the experience of suffering. > I still say that Buddha was just tailoring his > message to his demographic, and as stated before > I do not fault him for that. If you're talking to > people whose perception of their lives is that it > has always been suffering, you talk suffering and > the cessation of it. Interpreting "suffering" as material deprivation is too narrow. Even those who lead comfortable lives may experience suffering, an inexplicable inability to be happy and satisfied with what they have, or the suffering of losing loved ones, or of being ill, or simply afraid of dying. His "demographic" wasn't only the "less-than-fortunate" in a material sense. Personally, I would like to > have heard a discourse from Buddha talking to > someone who did *not* perceive his life as suffer- > ing. That would have been interesting. Would he > have preached the Same Old Same Old, or would he > have found a "carrot" to appeal to the non- > sufferer, as he used the "cessation of suffering" > carrot to appeal to the sufferer? Most likely he wouldn't have bothered to talk to them. Those who do not experience that life is suffering have either achieved nirvana, or they are in a state of denial. He had nothing to offer the former because they had already reached the goal of his Eightfold Path, either through his teaching or on their own. He had no carrots beyond that of the end of suffering, nirvana. And he had nothing to offer the latter until their lives became so miserable, for whatever reason-- material deprivation or emotional pain--that they could no longer deny their suffering. The carrot has appeal only if one recognizes that one is hungry.
