Isn’t that the basic Buddhist / stoic idea? Avoiding suffering entirely isn’t possible, and obsessing about evading it is itself a heavy burden, instead choose to accept and be at peace with the suffering that is beyond your control.
I’ve heard it put as “all life is suffering”. It can be a bit dark, depending on one’s headspace, but liberating if simply accepted.
as a buddhist i think this refers to the inherent struggle that is life itself. every organism is born hungry and needs to fight that constant hunger or die. life IS suffering, because only the living need to fight for every minute to just exist., All of our existential suffering falls from that.
What buddha taught is that it’s our gift to be able to be present in the moment and observe the sensations that arise from all this suffering without suffering directly.
every organism is born hungry and needs to fight that constant hunger or die
huh, and i thought hunger was caused by greed which is itself tied to the modern society
That’s a modern narative to misattribute or harness a way earlier pain.
There’s famine and pain all throughout recorded history, all around the globe.
i always read it a bit different
all life is suffering means literally that. suffering is just another term for the process of being alive. suffering is the experience of all our emotions and everything that we can do in the world. this is suffering, contrasting it to the coldness and stoicism of death.
I can’t see it as anything other than a logical fact. If you are alive, you will ineveitably face loss, disease, countless other things outside of your control. The phrasing I read was “to live is to suffer” which is the same in the end.
Like St. Vincent said: We’re all born screaming
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As someone who is cautious on stairs, and has fallen on stairs, i can tell you that every second of worrying is worth avoiding the fall.
I don’t believe that “be[ing] at peace with suffering” is core to Buddhism. The ending of suffering is.
Evading work takes a lot of work.
Always have something in your hand, a slightly irritated but thoughtful expression on your face, and call in a bomb threat if you get stuck napping under your desk while your boss is in your office waiting for you
I mean, I think you may be overselling the word “suffering.” I wouldn’t put “working so I don’t starve” in the same category as “starving to death.”
If “suffering” just means “anything I don’t 100% love,” then it’s effectively meaningless, no?
I meant it more in the context of mental health
It’s all about getting sucked into dreams. Once you’re sucked into a dream, win or lose, you’re still in the dream.
This is where Vipassana comes in.
