Buddhism says that life is suffering. ALL experiences.
Is this plausible?
Is there any experiences which are worthwhile (have positive worth), or feel pleasurable in their own right?
So what I mean is that, are there any experiences which are not suffering? Take the 'pleasure' of eating. Is eating actually pleasurable in it's own right? Or, does the 'pleasure' actually come from/is the pleasure nothing more than a reduction in the suffering that is hunger? Does eating an appeal feel pleasrable in itself, or does it only feel good because it's suffering to be hungry, and it's suffering to have a lack of 'agreeable' taste experience to distract you from the boredom and emptiness of existence? Or perhaps the pleasure of eating is a combination of both intrinsically pleasurable/valauble experiences, and a reduction or cessation of the suffering state that proceeded (and motivated you towards) eating an apple.
Put it like this, why am I eating an apple? Why am I making any action at all? It's is my opinion that the only thing that motivates volitional action, is suffering experience states. I eat because I'm hungry, drink because I'm thirsty, do things because I'm bored, etc.
>>897774
If life had intrinsic worth, if merely existing was pleasurable, then I believe I would have no reason whatsoever to make any action. I would just lay there, in pleasure, with nothing to motivate me. Because if I'm already in pleasure why I would I be motivated to do anything? You might say that well maybe I'm motivated because although merely existing is pleasurable, you could get even more pleasure from doing actions like eating an appple. But I don't thnk I buy this. Because to my mind at least, wanting even more, or wanting to increase your level of pleasure, is a suffering. You have that desire because you don't think your current level of pleasure is enough, so you want to change it. If life really was intrinsically pleasurable, I would never get the motivation to take any action at all, because I would perfectly content with the level of pleasure that I'm at. If I wanted and desired to increase my level of pleasure, then that is suffering. That is non-contentment, unfilfilled desire, 'lack of something', not being comfortable with merely existing, needing more. All of this is suffering.
>>897778
And so my existence is in CONSTANT action. I never stop I'm always doing something. I exist in (as?) the present, with my experience perpetually in motion. I'm never content. I'm always (to my mind at least) trying to get away from suffering states. it honestly feels like that's all I do, constantly. Suffering perpetually is attacking me, which motivates me to act to reduce it. Because I'm always in action, I'm always doing something, then that indicates to me that I am always suffering, because you need to be suffering for you to be taking action. I posit that you could not be motivated into taking action if you weren't suffering. If you were truly not-suffering, you would want for nothing, You would just lay there, not thinking or moving, absolutely perfectly content. But I'm not, I never, ever do that. So that proves to me that I'm ALWAYS suffering. All the fucking time. I am never in a state of pleasure. I might be thingking damn this steak tastes good, but why am I taking the action to eat it? What has motivated me? And the answer is suffering. It feels worse to not be eating the steak, and thus the pleasure of the eating comes not because it's intrinsically worthwhile to eat steak, but rather suffering states are intrinsically not-worthwhile, and therefore a reduction in suffering is mistaken for true pleasure
>>897781
I will illustrate suffering and pleasure like this: A magic genie appears and tells you he has the power to shave off and cease whatever part of your conscious experience that you would like. To my mind at least, any aspect of your conscious experience that you would tell the genie to 'shave off', is a suffering experience. And any aspect of your conscious experience which you would tell the genie NOT to shave off, because you want to continue experiencing it (forever), is a pleasurable experience. I mean if it's pleasurable, then why not forever? If something really does have intrinsic worth and value, then one should desire it to never cease, because it will always have more value, and be preferable than non-existence. And yet everyone says, "well I wouldn't want to live for eternity". That indicates to me that their experience isn't really positive value, because if it was, why would you ever want it to end? It makes no sense. people say they'd get bored or go crazy or be lonely, or all manner of things. Which basically means that the experience wasn't actually truly pleasruable to begin with. Take a speedball rush for example. Lets say you asked the genie to shave off all your conscious experience, including your mind and ability to be bored etc, and just left the pure feeling of 'speednall rush'. Why, if it really is intrinsically pleasurable, are we kind of apprehensive or wouldn't want to experience that indefinitely? If it truly, really does have intrinsic value, then we should never want it to stop. Because it has net positive value, and say non-existence is neutral and suffering is negative. Then net positive should always be preferable to non-existence. And yet, we humans I think on the whole would be pretty apprehensive about existing as 'speedball sensation' for eternity. That strikes me as indicating that in fact, the feeling doesn't really have positive value at all. It doesn't actually feel truly pleasurable.
>>897788
Personally I think that I'm right. Speedball sensation, and all other supposedly pleasurable experiences, aren't actually intrinsically worthwhile or pleasurable/positive value like we think they are. In fact, none of them are. They best they can EVER hope to achieve is to be neutral, which can easily be achieved by dying anyway.
But when I really truly ask myself, what I would like to continue experiencing, I can't really say it's anything. There's nothing, if I'm honest with myself. If I move my attention throughout my conscious experience, there is no part of it that I would say yes, geneie, I would like to continue experiencing that and never have it stop. There's nothing. And that's why I am constantly in action/motion. Because I'm in constant motivation to try and reduce my level of suffering. And when I find an experience that reduces my suffering a lot - perhaps even brings it close to zero (but never goes aove) then that experience is what we commonly refer to as "pleasure". Pleasure is nothing more than a reduction or negation in suffering.
Now would someone please prove me wrong because I feel like if this is true then existence is literally hell and I should kill myself. Why struggle so hard and endure so much, when the max I can ever achieve through all my struggle to avoid reduce and negate the suffering I experience, is a temporary state of neutral 0 value. A state of the absence of suffering. Which you've all probably notices, is impossible to maintain, due to the requirements of our biology. Boredom soon strikes, which bring the neutral value into the negative, which is then followed by hunger/thirst/body aches and pains/malaise/anxiety.
>>897774
You're projecting an enlightenment utilitarianism onto "suffering."
Also all life isn't samsara, only life where the attachment to desire exists.
>>897820
>You're projecting an enlightenment utilitarianism onto "suffering."
What does that mean?
>Also all life isn't samsara, only life where the attachment to desire exists.
Actually I'm pretty sure starvation is agony and getting hit by a truck and having your both your legs mangled is fucking torture regardless of your delusions of enlightenment.
By the way, there is no rebirth cycle. If the buddha had understood this, he could of just killed himself to cease suffering.
Buddhism is a consequentalist "just-world" philosophy of the elite, people who are successful have both the belief their success is justified and the ability to spread this idea. The mandate of heaven and other things are easily the equivalent of "DEUS VULT" or "SNACKBAR" elsewhere.
>>897778
>>897781
>>897788
>>897800
>>897803
These are interesting ideas. I have some questions though.
>pleasure is just a lessening of suffering
I suppose this is true, but wouldn't it be just as accurate to say that suffering is simply the absence of pleasure? Or that pleasure is a thing as concrete as suffering, opposites, but neither merely a negation?
>genie example
It's true that many people wouldn't want to live forever (though I'm sure some would, which suggests that your view on the universality of suffering is incorrect). However, very few people would ask for instant death, which, if what you say is true, is the only way to escape suffering. This suggests 2 possibilities:
1. Suffering comes for us all, but only after a certain amount of time; it can be effectively saved off for decades, if not longer.
2. We're all suffering, but it's not that big a deal, at least in the short-term; something in life is worth it.
>>897774
Schopenhauer had an essentially Buddhist view on this, at least to my understanding.
To him, life only had purpose when we willed something, when we had a goal to reach for. But the paradox of life arises when you see that satisfaction always comes at the cost of losing that purpose. Or in other words, the point in living was pursuit something you didn't have. The moment you have it, you no longer have a point in living, so you either fold into the pointlessness of your life and die or create a new goal. You're always chasing something you never have, you can't have it in fact. You can never sustain a life in satisfaction. The purpose of life is chase things indefinitely and be unsatisfied or displeased all the while.
>>897882
Sisyphus smiled.
>>897774
The first step to solve your problem is acceptance.
>>897832
You are still positing an individuated subject and projecting onto "samsara" some pissant biological view of an identity of body, subject and consciousness.
The cycle of rebirth is the continuous rebirth of consciousness in instantiation.
Why don't you take your orientalism to the threads dedicated to turkish transvestites and your first year prating to /x/?
>>897774
>Buddhism says that life is suffering. ALL experiences.
false
it says that whatever you are concious of, it will fade and is not controllable, therefore always be a disappointment, so it is not worth it to cling to your pleasures and displeasures.
=> STAY STILL TOWARDS WHAT FADES
after awakening, you still experience pain from your body, never from your mind, but you do not take it personally.
>>897774
There are moments of joy, but they are transitory.
>>897854
>I suppose this is true, but wouldn't it be just as accurate to say that suffering is simply the absence of pleasure?
No. Lets define pleasure as an experience which net positive value (greater than zero). And therefore on your account suffering would just be the absence of net positive value (greater than zero value), which is zero, no value.
But no value doesn't pain people. The dead, who are in a state of no value do not suffer. We know from our experience of living that suffering *hurts*. Suffering has negative value. It's not just an absence of pleasure, because the dead have that. No suffering is positively bad, it's an experience that you actively DO NOT WANT, you would prefer it ceased, because it has a value, of less than 0, it goes in the negtives (-1,-2,-3 etc). The absense of pleasure is 0. And 0 isn't suffering, that's the state of the dead and they are at 'peace' (the experience nothing).
So no, suffering isn't the absense of pleasure. It's more than that. It's a negatively bad sensation of LESS THAN ZERO (negative) value. If you were to die while suffering you would go from experiencing negative value (eg, -1,-2, or -3 etc) into a state of absence/neutral, which is 0. Neither bad nor good.
>Or that pleasure is a thing as concrete as suffering, opposites, but neither merely a negation?
This is what I'm arguing against. I'm saying that we don't experience anything in our lives of actual positive value. I argued for this saying if we experienced this, it would be a state of no action or motivation, we would be perfectly content with our positive value. But that never happens. We are always in action/motion, which proves we are constantly suffering. The only tme we stop action is within deep sleep, which is neutral value - the same as death.
>However, very few people would ask for instant death, which, if what you say is true, is the only way to escape suffering.
Perhaps they wouldn't. But it would be rational to.
>>897965
>The cycle of rebirth is the continuous rebirth of consciousness in instantiation.
No if you look at the context in which buddha spoke of samsara, he literally meant rebirth as in reincarnation back into reality to live another lifetime, the thing you're reincarnated into depending on your karmic deeds
you're just glossing over this fact because you realize it's plainly absurd, and from there it's not a small step to questioning whether enlightenment even exists. Or what the point of escaping the cycle is, if you can just die and no exist regardless.
Buddha proposed his instructions as a way to escape rebirth, because he viewed the world very pessimistically. He couldn't just kill himself because he truly believed he'd just be reborn and suffer again. So he proposed to destroy the 3 fires which bring about consciousness.
if buddha lived today, he would have just killed himself. boom suffering is ended, the dead don't feel a thing.
>>898074
buddhism literally says all is dukkha. i.e. everything is fleeting, impermanent, empty, unsatisfactory, suffering.
the buddha even accepted in one of the canons an arahat sucide, because he was enligtened and had no need to continue living.
it's a western misunderstanding of buddhism to think it's just about living a happy life free from clinging. Rather buddhism is abut escaping the trap of samsara through following the instructions the buddha lay our, to extinguish what was bringing about conscious experience in the first place.
the ultimate goal of buddhism is to not exist at all, basically.
>>897882
>>898183
>in which buddha spoke of samsara
Appealing to the text doesn't work with buddhism.
Have you eaten dinner? Go and wash your bowl.
>you're just glossing over this fact because you realize it's plainly absurd, and from there it's not a small step to questioning whether enlightenment even exists.
Do you know what ontological demonstration or phenomenology are? Obviously not. Start with some Heidegger before you read Sutras.
Also, show me your self.
>>898183
>buddhism literally says all is dukkha. i.e. everything is fleeting, impermanent, empty, unsatisfactory, suffering.
every act, speech, through stemming form ignorance is dukkha; once you remove ignorance, there remains only bodily dukkha which is bearable and there is no reason to commit suicide because of it, just like there is no reason not to commit suicide because of it.
>>898452
>>897774
"Dukkha" is not always the same as the English word "suffering." Another one-word translation is "unsatisfactoriness." The Buddha allows that there is pleasant, painful, and neutral sensation - in fact, this is crucial to his argument - if all sensation was pleasant, there would be no need to seek an end of it, and if all sensation were painful, we would not remain under the spell of sensuality. >>897839
>Buddhism is a consequentialist "just-world" philosophy of the elite
Wow, don't know where to start with this one. Stop talking out of your ass please.
>>898183
>goal is to not exist at all
I think you've misapprehended a fundamental part of the Buddha's project. The Nikāyas emphasize strongly that to be nirvanized/nibbanized is not existence, non-existence, both, or neither. Rather, the Tathāgata after death is beyond the reach of ontological theses about his condition. All signs, formulations, and language are dependently originated, and the Tathāgata has escaped causality. He has therefore gone outside the limit of the expressible or cognizable.
>>897774
>>897803
What's with the dead niggers, this is a blue board.
Take your edge to /b/.
>If life had intrinsic worth, if merely existing was pleasurable, then I believe I would have no reason whatsoever to make any action. I would just lay there, in pleasure, with nothing to motivate me. Because if I'm already in pleasure why I would I be motivated to do anything?
That's pretty much what I do.
t. NEET
P.S. Buddhists BTFO Jesus wins again
>>897774
Dukka is a loaded term. It can mean suffering, displeasure, uneasy, etc. But the word usage of suffering is fine as long as you extent of suffering to include mundane suffering as well. When you eat, you feel satisfied but then once you're out of it, you feel the displeasure or if you've overeaten then there's displeasure or if you're full but can't eat any more, there's displeasure, etc.
In effect the "life is suffering" is not limited to physical acts but rather the mental states from now to then.
Buddhism really is a mental conditioning that explores the depths of human condition called "tanha" also referred to as desire. But as above, the scope of the word "desire" needs to be more open than that. The word "thirst" or "hunger" is also used as alternative for "desire" since those words give a more vivid picture of what is happening. When you hunger/thirst for something, there is always the pull to get to that. Similarly desire works that way in our mind. The pull to do something controls your very behavior and actions, this leads to uncontrolled actions and outcomes. If that urge/desire is left unchecked, we are forever chasing those unending desires that move from one point to another never ever being satisfied or if satisfied, never being at peace.
>>898683
just-world fallacy = the origin of suffering is craving
buddhism = the origin of suffering is craving
If it looks like shit and smells like shit, why is it "talking out of my ass" to call it shit?
Maybe there is a 0.01% chance it is some kind of trick, chocolate mousse sprayed with poop smell, but I'm still not going to eat it.
>>897774
>Is there any experiences which are worthwhile (have positive worth), or feel pleasurable in their own right?
Absolutely.
The journey towards a goal. That's the only thing that is worthwhile.
Read Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. He's a smart motherfucker, and while it is Ancient philosophy, he delivers a very good point at the end of the book, which is that while we all want answers to everything that is a problem in life, or we want knowledge, maybe the quest for the solution to the problem, or the quest for the knowledge is what is worth the while, even though you might end up in a completely different place from where you originally thought you were going.
There is a reason why Aristotle thinks one of the greatest things to do in life is literally "Energeia", or "Being-at-work", because if you are *doing* something, i.e working *at something*, you will lose your soul and your will to live.
>>899518
because if you are *not* doing something*
Excuse my pleb-tier English writing.
>>897774
>Buddhism says that life is suffering. ALL experiences.
No it doesn't. Not reading teh rest.
See I'm of the opinion that Buddhists never really thought life, this material existence, is inherently unpleasurable. After all, the Buddhas were supposed to achieve Nirvana while alive right? See, Plato had this way of explaining things in The Republic, he said that if you see to simply decrease displeasure with pleasure you're blindly seeking the opposite of this need that you're feeling. Hunger - food. Horny - sex. Very basic motivations. But he then goes on to say that to contemplate the higher things in life such as science philosophy and spiritual existence is 'The Good' that we as humans have searched for our entire lives with religion. God is real and he is the embodiment of this Platonic good
>>899690
Define alive. Buddhist worldview, is just that, a worldview. Complete with basic axioms of what is alive, dead, dying, existence, suffering, good/virtuous, etc.
You will need to understand what being "alive" is in buddhism in regards to a buddha or regular people. Buddha is one who is awakened. Awakened from the illusion of existence, suffering, etc. The path to this is examination of how we understand our selves, then restructuring it, and then finally get rid of it at the final phase. This is meditation, practice, and enlightenment in short.
Buddhist threads always bring out the pseuds
>>897774
Paired opposites define your longings and those longings imprison you.
-The Zensunni Whip
>>898153
Based on your model, do you think it is possible to experience a "0" while you are alive?
Don't we experience levels between pleasure and suffering?
>>898251
>Appealing [to Buddha's teaching] doesn't work with Buddhism.
Nigger what.
>>898458
The only genetic trait that matters, and is passed on, is orgasmic pleasure. All means go to this end, everything else is window dressing. Fucking apes.
so buddhism is ancient antinatalism
>>897774
>>897778
>>897781
>>897788
>>897800
>>897803
The problem with your worldview is that your own preconceptions dominate it—as it inevitably does with everyone's. Yes, pleasure is an impossible goal. They have studies showing that happiness is more or less genetic, and that you can manipulate it below your threshold or above for a short while, but you will inevitably end up back at your baseline.
So, I think the fundamental question is what is the point of happiness, from an evolutionary perspective? Happiness, to me, is just a mechanism to drive you to fulfill biological imperatives and personal goals. Meaning doesn't derive from this so simply as you contend. Pleasure is simply a means to an end. Who would build cities if they felt no satisfaction from it? Who would achieve great skill in their field without the pleasure of status and the sense of mastery? Your worldview is essentially hedonism, and it has its culmination in conspicuous consumption and possibly drug use.
So, to answer your question directly: why do we suffer, is asking why do we live at all? Your question is a metaphysical question. I reject pleasure and pain being the point of existence. Pleasure and pain are biological signals that guide us, our relationships and accomplishments are what make our lives, in my opinion.
bunmp
>>897774
I read some of your thread, OP.
You know nothing of buddhism.
You fling around well defined words of which you have no idea what they mean. It's ridiculous.
