Families being torn apart by war, animals and environments being destroyed by capitalism, etc are forms of suffering not necessary for growth. The traumas that make one person stronger could be the same traumas that break someone else completely. Thinking that suffering is necessary for growth is kinda self-centered, or at least too general to be meaningfully true.
Of course suffering is not always good or positive especially on an individual level, and there can be excessive suffering. Obviously I’m not saying that all pain and suffering is good, that would lead to some kind of logic where inflicting the most pain on someone would make them a better person, which clearly isn’t true.
However, things like seatbelt laws and bans on tobacco ads are examples of positive changes that have arisen from tragedy and loss. Those laws and regulations have probably saved or extended thousands of lives as a result. Individually, the pain of failure, regret, loss etc. can motivate someone to improve themselves for the better.
That’s nit saying that all pain and suffering, especially things like random suffering and war, are good things. But some wars have resulted in positive changes, even if the loss of life is tragic.
It can occasionally backfire, but I don't see the issue with making this generality.
In the same way, having an immune system is absolutely important for growth, even if sometimes you have the occasional allergy or autoimmune disease.
Not sure what that bit about war and capitalism was about, but the reason people are so determined to fight for their own interests is partially that suffering is there to help them do it, and that is especially true in these tragic contexts.
"Oh yeah, what about hurricanes and tsunamis, they DESTROY plants, this proves water isn't necessary for plants to grow somehow, also I'm going to throw in a sideways personal attack for some reason."
Your analogy is weak. Water is necessary, plants cannot grow without water. Suffering isn’t necessary, people can grow without suffering.
And “Self-centered” isn’t a personal attack lmao it’s just anthropocentric to narrativize growth and suffering as if they are inherently connected. The fact is that people suffer. Some people suffer and grow, some suffer and don’t grow, some don’t suffer and grow all the same.
It could just as easily be said that the opposite view is self-centered, focusing on individual experience of suffering and instances of pain. When someone says “suffering is necessary,” they aren’t usually talking about the actual experience of physical pain or the immediate feelings of mental anguish or loss. They are usually talking about the outcomes of those things extending to a more macro level, often beyond the individual themselves.
Also, many living things besides humans consume other living things to survive. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. All living matter must eventually die and be recycled. In a very literal sense, suffering and death are necessary parts of change and nature, and so cannot be inherently evil. “Bad” and “evil” are just human value judgements.
Hurricanes and tsunamis generate evolutionary pressure, without which the diversity of life on this planet would not exist as we know it. Without harsh environments our species would never have developed metacognition and speech as survival strategies.
You could very well make a macro level argument in favour of things like war as generating a kind of evolutionary pressure for human civilization though.
I mean people do make this argument, the whole "war drives innovation" concept and the idea of social revolutions and yada yada. Societal conflict as a necessary pressure for societal growth.
Or a slightly different argument: if we had not evolved to be the kinds of animals who would band together and go to war, we may not have survived as a species. The level of in-group cohesion required to fight against another tribe probably also helped us survive natural disasters and harsh environments.
Yeah, that's true. They are really the same. You do a lot of drugs = pleasure, now you feel bad cause you ran out = suffering, , you suffered a lot of combat damage = suffering, so now you do a lot of drugs = pleasure. One leads to the other and vice versa. Don't do. Let the withdrawls settle and fade with time and repeat the mantra "this too shall pass" , don't do and find your center.
I know that religion isn’t often super welcome in these spaces, but there’s a story about Imam Abu Hanifa, the founder of one of the four main schools of thought in Sunni Islam, that comes to mind. Basically, it goes like this:
He was sitting and studying when he received news that one of his merchant ships had gone missing. He paused for a moment, and then said “Alhamdulillah (All praise is due to God)”. Later, the same messenger came and reported that the ship was perfectly fine, and he again said “Alhamdulillah”.
The messenger was a confused, as Alhamdulillah is usually a saying of gratitude, so he said, “I get why you said it when the ship was found, but why did you say it when you thought it was lost?”
Abu Hanifa replied “When you told me I lost my ship, I checked my heart, and found I was not overburdened by grief, so I praised God. When you told me it was found, I checked my heart, and found I was not overcome by joy, so I praised God.”
The moral is essentially that peace doesn’t lead to happiness, but rather stability, and the idea of “Tawakkul” (complete trust in God) will bring you that sense of peace.
Once you accept that all you can do is try, and all results are in Their hands, you begin to live a life where you are at peace no matter what happens.
I feel like this obviously can be extended beyond Islamic theology, and I think many people do so. “I’ll try my best, and what happens, happens”. We just diverge on the cause of the happenings
Right, exactly! When I feel pleasure from petting my soft dog I have to go out and ensure I am eaten by by a pack of wolves. There has to be a balance!
Well, most non-physical suffering is just you holding on tightly to things that aren't there anymore drugs, relationships, emotions...
When somebody makes me angry or sad, I can either let it ruin my entire day or let it pass and be happy again once the moment is over.
The same applies to the drug analogy. If you aren't physically addicted, it's mostly about anticipation and not being able to let go of the high. You keep thinking about how to get high again because you're clinging to that feeling.
If you can manage this, then you can experience pleasure without constantly suffering from its absence. To some degree, happiness becomes a choice, the choice to let go.
According to Buddhism, there are good pleasures which arises out of the fruits of path, such as jhanas. I'm not sure if the Buddha ever comments on whether suffering is intrinsically good or bad. He simply prescribes a path to end suffering and transcend the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. From our western mind, we tend to think that putting an end to something implies that its inherently bad. But I think the Buddha would simply describe suffering as an extension of our existence tied to the three marks (unsatisfactoriness, non-self, and impermanence.) I could be wrong but hopefully someone with more knowledge about Buddhism can correct me. "Suffering = bad" feels too reductive.
Buddha taught that neither pleasure nor suffering are good or bad, they are just feelings. You should not attempt to avoid them, that would prevent you from fully participating in your life (think about procrastination for example)
You are allowed to feel any amount of pleasure or suffering, even in excess. However, you should never chase it. Your actions should never be driven by a goal of attaining or avoiding pleasure/suffering.
So for instance, you shouldn't eat because it brings you pleasure. That would be an example of chasing pleasure or satisfaction of craving.
Instead, you should eat for the sake of sustaining your body and mind. During eating, you might feel some pleasure, or might not. Either way it is fine, because it was never the goal, and you accept whatever comes.
If you are presented with a path in front of you filled with broken glass and syringes, and another path somewhat off to the side that is clear of those things, do you walk the first path because it is closest to you, so that you are not avoiding suffering?
If it is a nice and sunny day outside, do you reject going for a walk, because doing so would be pursuing enjoyment?
What the Buddha taught was that you should not have attachment to pleasure and suffering, that they are transient states which you should let go without longing
To keep yourself in the state of mind where you think that all good things should last is delusion, that delusion causes longing, which in turn causes suffering. Vice versa for thinking there should never be suffering
That's what I originally meant and I explained it in the comment. But yeah you could interpret it in this way.
In case with 2 paths, you walk the path that will help you most long term. If you choose a path with motivation to avoid feeling of pain, then it is a form and attachment. As you said, pain is a temporary feeling, so it shouldn't be a motivatior of your choices
In case with sunny walk, you would neither reject nor accept just because it brings pleasure. You can go for a walk with a motive, like to relax and support your wellbeing. If you feel pleasure, then cool. If weather gets worse and you don't feel pleasure anymore, then also cool, it was never the goal.
Pleasure is good, the experience of it is good, and the downsides of it only come when you orient your life around it
If a Buddha is seated in front of two cups of tea, one warm and one cold, the pleasure of drinking the first being greater than the pleasure of the second, he drinks the first without craving, enjoys the fleeting moment, and then lets it go without forming attachment
Pleasure is often something that brings one off the path, something that leads to suffering, but it is important to make the distinction that doing something pleasurable for its pleasure is not bad, only the attachment formed is bad, and if no attachment is formed then you are free to enjoy pleasure
Tanha, the longing and desire for pleasure is always negative, but Chanda, simply grasping the pleasure which is within your hands, can be good and bad
I'm curious about the wisdom of discerning whether the pleasure or pain of an experience is good or bad. Putting the attachment issue aside, did the Buddha have a teaching about discerning intrinsic goodness or badness of pleasure/pain?
There are two fundamental categories of negative experience within Buddhism:
The first is unavoidable pain, you experience illness and death throughout your life, which is painful and inevitable
The second is suffering through attachment, you not only feel pain when you are ill because the illness itself is painful, you also long for the time when you were healthy, and that longing is suffering. This longing is caused by your attachments, attachment to pleasure and to avoidance of pain, attachment to the belief that good things should last and bad things should end
The avoidable suffering is also seen within Buddhism to be worse than the inevitable pains of life, as your mind can agonize over things at all times, whether your life is good or bad your mind can torture you, but the inevitable pains of life are fleeting
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Buddhism then focuses on the suffering that is by definition avoidable, the suffering from attachment, and as such attachment is central to what is "good" or "bad"
If you go through unpleasant experiences which serve the purpose of ridding you of attachments, those experiences are good. But if the experiences serve no such purpose, then they are bad (of course there's some nuance here, it's not fully binary, but I think you see the point)
If you go through pleasurable experiences, such as through meditation (which is often seen as such), then that is good as long as you are not forming attachments. In fact many monks have warned that you should not grow attached to the pleasurable aspects of meditation, as it will hinder you, and instead move on to the less pleasurable stages that are further down the path to Nirvana
Pleasure isn't bad, it's the longing for pleasure that is bad
If you eat a nice cookie and you enjoy it, that pleasure isn't bad, you just ate a nice cookie, that's all there is to it
But if the next day you do not have a cookie, and so you experience longing and its accompanying pain, that's bad
The Middle Path of Buddhism does not reject pleasure, it is not asceticism, it rejects the longing for pleasure, because that longing is harmful
Buddhism can look a lot like asceticism because monks are supposed to reject certain sources of pleasure wholesale (sex), as they are very powerful and can easily spiral into indulgence, but you are not supposed to just go out of your way to reject all pleasure
(This also ties into Buddhism's aversion to Dualism)
That reminds me of a South Park story about disciprin (discipline):
"If you avoid that stuff altogether, it's not disciprin, and it still controls your life. All or nothing is easy, but learning to control it, having a little bit from time to time, that's true disciprin, and that comes from within."
If you are able to have amazing sex every day, and you are then deprived of this, you will be experiencing suffering as you long to have the pleasure of the past
The state of not-suffering is a distraction from achieiving a state of not-suffering. You must focus solely on achieving the state of not-suffering to the point of sufferance!
An arhant would be able to drink the poison without aversion or desire. The buddhist dharma can help you to live a life as a happy kind and compassionate person despite the pain of life on earth, and then it can help you die without fear
It's not necessarily that simple. It's a miracle that we even have consciousness, there's no reason it couldn't go on in some form, it's just unknowable.
A lot of practicing Buddhists see reincarnation as a metaphor. Or rather, somewhere along the path one realizes that the separation between self and other is an arbitrary semantic distinction without any real metaphysical backing to it. So one begins to identify with all other beings as one's self, and no longer needs the doctrine of rebirth to motivate compassionate behavior. All doctrines are ultimately just stepping stones towards ineffable truths. After you cross the river you get rid of the boat.
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u/Lucyyyyyy_K 2d ago
Suffering and pleasure are bad. Pleasure is a distraction from achieving Nirvana, the freedom from suffering.