The Buddhist idea of suffering is somewhat different from the current idea of suffering.
For an occidental person suffering probably means physical pain or mental discomfort (as in my dad died, or my neck hurts).
For the Buddhist, suffering is a more broad concept. Thinking your life will be better if you make more money is suffering. Generally speaking the notion that your life or the world ought to be different from what it is (even if what it is feels obviously wrong), is suffering.
So the first stage of the thing is the realization (the insight) that, actually, (in a way that makes little sense right now but is completely obvious then) everything is just fine.
I’m not enlightened (and probably have no idea what it actually feels like in deeper stages), but have temporarily experienced this first insight myself. It’s bollocks, hard to understand when it’s gone but something sticks with you.
It brings the idea that what you really need to be happy is not a change outside in the world, but a change of perspective in you.
In other words, I now know that nothing needs to change so that I can be completely satisfied with my life. It’s already perfect the way it is (hint: from a normal perspective is it NOT).
All I have to do to be perfectly happy is to attain this perspective again, so I stopped thinking that my life will be better when X happen.
It releases a lot of anxiety and make life a much better experience.
All I have to do is regain that perspective, but unfortunately I have no idea how it happened in first place (inside a bus on Buenos Aires) and how to reproduce it (going back to BA didn’t worked out lol).
The Buddhist idea of suffering is somewhat different from the current idea of suffering.
For an occidental person suffering probably means physical pain or mental discomfort (as in my dad died, or my neck hurts).
For the Buddhist, suffering is a more broad concept. Thinking your life will be better if you make more money is suffering. Generally speaking the notion that your life or the world ought to be different from what it is (even if what it is feels obviously wrong), is suffering.
So the first stage of the thing is the realization (the insight) that, actually, (in a way that makes little sense right now but is completely obvious then) everything is just fine.
I’m not enlightened (and probably have no idea what it actually feels like in deeper stages), but have temporarily experienced this first insight myself. It’s bollocks, hard to understand when it’s gone but something sticks with you.
It brings the idea that what you really need to be happy is not a change outside in the world, but a change of perspective in you.
In other words, I now know that nothing needs to change so that I can be completely satisfied with my life. It’s already perfect the way it is (hint: from a normal perspective is it NOT).
All I have to do to be perfectly happy is to attain this perspective again, so I stopped thinking that my life will be better when X happen.
It releases a lot of anxiety and make life a much better experience.
All I have to do is regain that perspective, but unfortunately I have no idea how it happened in first place (inside a bus on Buenos Aires) and how to reproduce it (going back to BA didn’t worked out lol).