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tylikSometimes I almost wish I were actually more tempermental, so that when people declare that Buddhism teaches that suffering is optional, and thus that people can just choose not to suffer, I can bitch slap them and then ask how they're doing on choosing not to suffer. There are a lot of reasons this irritates me. The biggest is that it's just so mean. Look, if someone is hurting, telling them that the only reasons they're hurting is that they're doing it wrong is really judgemental and annoying.
Stepping back... It's hard for me to not see it as pretty naive, particularly in that comfortable middle class life sort of way. I might be missing a few points, here, though. I've noticed recently that my assumption tends to be that people are compassionate, unless there's something getting in the way of that compassion... and I gather from a few conversations that this is probably a gloss at best. I tend to expect that if people have the time and energy, they'll care what's going on with other people. I tend to expect that the more experience you have with pain, the more sympathy you will have for others in pain. And that if you have a clue, you'll try to meet people, especially people who are in pain, where they are.*
And perhaps it especially pisses me off because there are so many readings of buddhism (I mostly hear them from western non-buddhists, but suspect the capacity to be assholes is pretty universal) that are victim blaming and awful. Hm. I guess I'll cut over to a conversation via twitter, eliding the name of the guy who set me off. (It's entirely possible he was trying to be helpful... though ugh, it's hard for me to see how thinking this could help would be other than seriously clueless. Also, it's all on twitter.) So this is just all me ranting.
> I am a Buddhist, and, like woah, this has to be one of the most corrosive misreadings of Buddhism ever.
> Being a Buddhist isn't about turning yourself into an invincible superman who judges others for feeling pain.
> We *can* learn to interact more skillfully with the world, and make it a better, *more compassionate* place.
> And it's not like Buddhism has a corner on that market, anyway.
> To be fair, it's a pretty common corrosive reading of Buddhism.
So... let's start with basics. Suffering is real. I like to think that anyone with much experience of life has figured this out, but then I keep running into this crap, so apparently not. Your feelings are real. Pretending you don't feel what you feel it pretty fucked up (though curating your actions is also important) They are also not the same as whatever evoked those feelings, and yeah, there is a difference between pain and suffering. But for crying out loud, we all suffer, and being able to see this in other people and understand it is important. Maybe even pretty fundemental to being a sentient being.
Painful things happen. They're often totally not fair. (My conception of fairness is that it's something we can give to each other. A gift. Not the only one, or even the best, sometimes. But surely not some innate quality of the universe. Conceptions of karma as some kind of just world hypothesis disgust me.) They happen for reasons, sure, but that doesn't mean the reasons are great important ones. Often they're pretty random. Sometimes they just suck.
Suffering is a natural reaction to pain. No, really. Maybe it's not ideal, but none of us are ideal. (I realize some of the more faith focused schools of Buddhism would disagree - not to mention various other religious traditions - but random texts claim all kinds of random things, and I don't see any reason to commit myself to random things that I can't actually know. Also, I find the humanity of an enlightened person far more interesting than their unique perfection. Though ubiquitous perfection does interest me.)
And yeah, you can learn to suffer less. But, in at least all of the cases I know of, you don't just choose it, you learn it, and practice it, for years. It's work. Some fun, sometimes just hard.
So, a later part of the conversation, still me, ranting:
> Do you see the problem, at least? I mean, partly I'm cranky because this is so common, and such an inversion of what I practice.
Also, I can just be awfully cranky. Did I mention how much I enjoy being 40? I bet I'll enjoy 60 even more, and be exponentially crankier.
> Learning to suffer is like (but harder than) learning a martial art. Not an idle analogy, I'm a martial artist and teacher.
> If someone takes a bad fall, it's pretty obnoxious to say "Oh, you could have totally choosen to fall well!"
This is obvious, right? Fist off, most people fall badly. Learning to fall well takes time, attention and practice. We don't tend to expect that people will magically be able to fall well. Most of us have taken a few bad falls, and if we see someone fall it's pretty easy to sympathize with them.** And I don't hear a lot of people saying "woah, you could totally choose to be a ninja, and then you'd never be bothered by walls because you could totally just run over them." But perhaps I just avoid those internet discussions.
> And, y'know, after years of practice, I can be hit by a car, on my bike, and roll across lanes of traffic without a bruise.
Or at least, I have. Not exactly something I trust will work, or my idea of a leisure time activity or a good time. But I'm so glad it has, on occasion. (Though more frequently this was hitting an ice patch before I got the carbide studded tires.)
> And yet none of that means that I'll pull it off every time, or that I won't fall too far and die.
Dealing with suffering is hard work, and takes a lot of practice, and even then we make incremental progress. If progress is even the right word. Some people find this worthwhile, others don't, and dude, who is any of us to judge? Time and energy are terribly finite. I mean, I think everyone would benefit from studying a martial art, too, but I hardly expect it to make it up that high on everyone's priority list.
It is notable, to me, anyway, that the people I respect the most that have devoted themselves to this practice seem to be singularly disinclined to make flip statements about how optional suffering is.
* Yes, this is pretty much how I try to live my life. Yes, this doesn't make me all nicey-nice.
** But perhaps I overplay the naturalness of this reaction.
*** Er, well.
Stepping back... It's hard for me to not see it as pretty naive, particularly in that comfortable middle class life sort of way. I might be missing a few points, here, though. I've noticed recently that my assumption tends to be that people are compassionate, unless there's something getting in the way of that compassion... and I gather from a few conversations that this is probably a gloss at best. I tend to expect that if people have the time and energy, they'll care what's going on with other people. I tend to expect that the more experience you have with pain, the more sympathy you will have for others in pain. And that if you have a clue, you'll try to meet people, especially people who are in pain, where they are.*
And perhaps it especially pisses me off because there are so many readings of buddhism (I mostly hear them from western non-buddhists, but suspect the capacity to be assholes is pretty universal) that are victim blaming and awful. Hm. I guess I'll cut over to a conversation via twitter, eliding the name of the guy who set me off. (It's entirely possible he was trying to be helpful... though ugh, it's hard for me to see how thinking this could help would be other than seriously clueless. Also, it's all on twitter.) So this is just all me ranting.
> I am a Buddhist, and, like woah, this has to be one of the most corrosive misreadings of Buddhism ever.
> Being a Buddhist isn't about turning yourself into an invincible superman who judges others for feeling pain.
> We *can* learn to interact more skillfully with the world, and make it a better, *more compassionate* place.
> And it's not like Buddhism has a corner on that market, anyway.
> To be fair, it's a pretty common corrosive reading of Buddhism.
So... let's start with basics. Suffering is real. I like to think that anyone with much experience of life has figured this out, but then I keep running into this crap, so apparently not. Your feelings are real. Pretending you don't feel what you feel it pretty fucked up (though curating your actions is also important) They are also not the same as whatever evoked those feelings, and yeah, there is a difference between pain and suffering. But for crying out loud, we all suffer, and being able to see this in other people and understand it is important. Maybe even pretty fundemental to being a sentient being.
Painful things happen. They're often totally not fair. (My conception of fairness is that it's something we can give to each other. A gift. Not the only one, or even the best, sometimes. But surely not some innate quality of the universe. Conceptions of karma as some kind of just world hypothesis disgust me.) They happen for reasons, sure, but that doesn't mean the reasons are great important ones. Often they're pretty random. Sometimes they just suck.
Suffering is a natural reaction to pain. No, really. Maybe it's not ideal, but none of us are ideal. (I realize some of the more faith focused schools of Buddhism would disagree - not to mention various other religious traditions - but random texts claim all kinds of random things, and I don't see any reason to commit myself to random things that I can't actually know. Also, I find the humanity of an enlightened person far more interesting than their unique perfection. Though ubiquitous perfection does interest me.)
And yeah, you can learn to suffer less. But, in at least all of the cases I know of, you don't just choose it, you learn it, and practice it, for years. It's work. Some fun, sometimes just hard.
So, a later part of the conversation, still me, ranting:
> Do you see the problem, at least? I mean, partly I'm cranky because this is so common, and such an inversion of what I practice.
Also, I can just be awfully cranky. Did I mention how much I enjoy being 40? I bet I'll enjoy 60 even more, and be exponentially crankier.
> Learning to suffer is like (but harder than) learning a martial art. Not an idle analogy, I'm a martial artist and teacher.
> If someone takes a bad fall, it's pretty obnoxious to say "Oh, you could have totally choosen to fall well!"
This is obvious, right? Fist off, most people fall badly. Learning to fall well takes time, attention and practice. We don't tend to expect that people will magically be able to fall well. Most of us have taken a few bad falls, and if we see someone fall it's pretty easy to sympathize with them.** And I don't hear a lot of people saying "woah, you could totally choose to be a ninja, and then you'd never be bothered by walls because you could totally just run over them." But perhaps I just avoid those internet discussions.
> And, y'know, after years of practice, I can be hit by a car, on my bike, and roll across lanes of traffic without a bruise.
Or at least, I have. Not exactly something I trust will work, or my idea of a leisure time activity or a good time. But I'm so glad it has, on occasion. (Though more frequently this was hitting an ice patch before I got the carbide studded tires.)
> And yet none of that means that I'll pull it off every time, or that I won't fall too far and die.
Dealing with suffering is hard work, and takes a lot of practice, and even then we make incremental progress. If progress is even the right word. Some people find this worthwhile, others don't, and dude, who is any of us to judge? Time and energy are terribly finite. I mean, I think everyone would benefit from studying a martial art, too, but I hardly expect it to make it up that high on everyone's priority list.
It is notable, to me, anyway, that the people I respect the most that have devoted themselves to this practice seem to be singularly disinclined to make flip statements about how optional suffering is.
* Yes, this is pretty much how I try to live my life. Yes, this doesn't make me all nicey-nice.
** But perhaps I overplay the naturalness of this reaction.
*** Er, well.
