So, I am utterly confused about this whole Buddhist thing. It seems to me that the main goal is to stop existing, essentially die but really truly die, so that person stops suffering. At least that was my understanding of what Nirvana is trying to be. Is that correct or wrong?
Also, I notice a strong obsession with suffering. Yeah, I do suffer here and there, but I don’t make a big deal out of it. I am not even sure I would want all the pain and suffering gone permanently from my life. It feels to me that some discomfort is actively needed in life at least to serve as a backdrop to pleasure. Am I crazy for thinking so?
You’ve got the death thing right. The homunculus in your brain dies, but the brain keeps on functioning. This feels so much like death that it is sometimes called the Great Death. (You may enjoy this conversation thread.)
When you dissolve discomfort you also dissolve pleasure (for some definition of pleasure). You’re not crazy about that. What’s left are experiences devoid of judgment, like biting into an apple for the first time, or getting suddenly splashed with water when you’re not expecting it but don’t mind either.
As for the obsession with suffering, I think that’s actually an obsession. Instead, it’s a more accurate model of the world. Consider temperature and heat. Before physics, it made sense to think of heat and cold as opposites. You could have more cold and less heat. But now we know that heat is a thing, but cold isn’t really a thing. Cold is just the absense of heat. That’s why the Kelvin temperature scale has an absolute cold but no absolute hot. Buddhists talk about experience in terms of suffering for the same reason physics write equations using heat (Q) instead of cold (−Q).
When you dissolve discomfort you also dissolve pleasure (for some definition of pleasure). You’re not crazy about that. What’s left are experiences devoid of judgment, like biting into an apple for the first time, or getting suddenly splashed with water when you’re not expecting it but don’t mind either.
Would your pre-interest-in-buddhism-self have felt cool about this?
Did you previously have something like an order-of-magnitude more suffering than pleasure such that this was worth it to you? Otherwise, I have a hard time imagining why someone would want this; what was your reason? Or was it only something you found out once you got there?
Would your pre-interest-in-buddhism-self have felt cool about this?
Absolutely.
Did you previously have something like an order-of-magnitude more suffering than pleasure such that this was worth it to you? Otherwise, I have a hard time imagining why someone would want this; what was your reason? Or was it only something you found out once you got there?
I’ve always been a happy person, but in a tense way. Now I can be at peace while being sad too. That said, people tend to get into this stuff when they’ve hit rock bottom—and I’m no exception.
In case that answer doesn’t suffice, I’m going to answer your question with metaphor.
I used to have a messy home. On rare occasions I would organize it. Even after organizing it, my home was still unpleasant to look at.
Then I got into extreme minimalism and threw away most of my belongings. Now the messiest my minimalist room can get is has less clutter than the cleanest my belonging-filled room could get.
Pleasure is like the feeling I got after organizing a cluttered room. It’s much better to have a room that cannot get extremely messy in the first place.
So, I am utterly confused about this whole Buddhist thing. It seems to me that the main goal is to stop existing, essentially die but really truly die, so that person stops suffering. At least that was my understanding of what Nirvana is trying to be. Is that correct or wrong?
Also, I notice a strong obsession with suffering. Yeah, I do suffer here and there, but I don’t make a big deal out of it. I am not even sure I would want all the pain and suffering gone permanently from my life. It feels to me that some discomfort is actively needed in life at least to serve as a backdrop to pleasure. Am I crazy for thinking so?
You’ve got the death thing right. The homunculus in your brain dies, but the brain keeps on functioning. This feels so much like death that it is sometimes called the Great Death. (You may enjoy this conversation thread.)
When you dissolve discomfort you also dissolve pleasure (for some definition of pleasure). You’re not crazy about that. What’s left are experiences devoid of judgment, like biting into an apple for the first time, or getting suddenly splashed with water when you’re not expecting it but don’t mind either.
As for the obsession with suffering, I think that’s actually an obsession. Instead, it’s a more accurate model of the world. Consider temperature and heat. Before physics, it made sense to think of heat and cold as opposites. You could have more cold and less heat. But now we know that heat is a thing, but cold isn’t really a thing. Cold is just the absense of heat. That’s why the Kelvin temperature scale has an absolute cold but no absolute hot. Buddhists talk about experience in terms of suffering for the same reason physics write equations using heat (Q) instead of cold (−Q).
Would your pre-interest-in-buddhism-self have felt cool about this?
Did you previously have something like an order-of-magnitude more suffering than pleasure such that this was worth it to you? Otherwise, I have a hard time imagining why someone would want this; what was your reason? Or was it only something you found out once you got there?
Absolutely.
I’ve always been a happy person, but in a tense way. Now I can be at peace while being sad too. That said, people tend to get into this stuff when they’ve hit rock bottom—and I’m no exception.
In case that answer doesn’t suffice, I’m going to answer your question with metaphor.
I used to have a messy home. On rare occasions I would organize it. Even after organizing it, my home was still unpleasant to look at.
Then I got into extreme minimalism and threw away most of my belongings. Now the messiest my minimalist room can get is has less clutter than the cleanest my belonging-filled room could get.
Pleasure is like the feeling I got after organizing a cluttered room. It’s much better to have a room that cannot get extremely messy in the first place.