Purely Rational Conversation

First off, it must be said that no one should add to this discussion unless they are willing to be completely rational, and by that I mean completely open minded, no thoughts based on any theories whatsoever, only that which we know for fact. If there are any irrational comments, they need be pointed out and made rational. However, no arguments are possible if all are rational. Keep that in mind.

If so few people live lifes fully liberated from desire and suffering, what is it that the majority isn't doing right? The majority, which we will label 'A's, all suffer, this is a fact. They are not fully content. They would not suffer if they were fully content. This is a fact. The few, which we will label 'B's, are free from suffering, therefore they are fully content. The two go hand in hand. Suffering cannot exist with contentment, and contentment cannot exist with suffering.

Time is not a factor in this discussion. If it were, humanity as a whole would all be 'B's by now, because the whole of society is based on the notion of time, of being and becoming. "A's constantly desire to become infinitely content. However desire implies suffering, as desire is unfulfilled because it would not exist otherwise. We, as 'A's, are stuck in this loop somehow. This is what we are trying to break free of by this discussion. 'B's have no suffering, they have no hatred, this is a fact. 'A's suffer, they all possess some kind of hatred. Hatred here is meant infinitely broad. If everything were classified as hate or love, every action would be out of hate or out of love. 'B's always act out of pure love, without any desire to do so. 'B's are content. Many, if not all 'A's attempt in some way to become a 'B', or in other terms, to be infinitely content. Yet, 'A's rarely become 'B's, they rarely give up all their hatred.

I ask of everyone then, what fault do we, the 'A's, possess that prevents us from being a 'B'? Be as rational as possible in your replies. Don't reply unless it will further this discussion.

 

To clarify, are the 'B's actual people or jsut theoretical concepts? How many people are free from all suffering?

 

You say that A's rarely become B's. Are you implying that everyone is born an A and only a few achive complete contentment?

I believe that in order for people to rise above suffering and become fully content and happy depends on a large number of factors. Environment, health, people close to them, and their personality. And since all of these things must be arranged in a way to facilitate full contentment, very few people achive it. (I agree with you there).
However, I believe that no one is a full fledged 'B'. Meaning that people are not free from suffering all the time. Everyone is an 'A' and it's only for short instances that people become content, happy, and free from suffering. All A's desire to be free from suffering, to be a 'B'. They do achieve this state many times during life, but it does not last. You are a 'B' because of love, sex, music, food, drugs, conversation, books etc.
I think it is possible to become content and free of suffering perpetually, but not now. Not at this point in human existence.

 

If it is impossible to be free of suffering perpetually, then 'B's could not exist at all, since awareness of the temporal nature of their contentment would give rise to a desire to remain content, hence switching them back to 'A's immediately. Only creatures with no memory would be capable of being 'B's. Goldfish could be 'B's... but not people.

 

I do believe that we have already hit a snag. How are we to know that it is even possible for the human mind to remain permanently content?

A man who does not know an activity cannot desire that activity. This is fact. What we are asking is, is it possible to know that activity and not desire it. In better terms, is it possible to permanently destroy desire. Now, if we go back in human history, we have always desired contentment. It is in our conditioning. We haven't always had all that we have now, all of our electronics and such, though, we are no more content today than we were a thousand years ago. Only few 'B's throughout history have made theirselves known, possibly because there were so few, but possibly because they did not desire to let it known. These 'B's I am referring to are people like the Buddha, or Jesus. They were free of all desire. Now you say that it could be a matter of circumstance that prevents people from reaching this state. I cannot accept this, as we are no different psychologically then we were in the days of Buddha or Jesus. We still desire the same thing, only in different ways. Even today, there are still 'B's that arise. They are not known as well as Buddha or Jesus, possibly because today we desire contentment more through science rather than religion. Jiddu Krishnamurti is one of these people. He says it is natural to him to be immune to desire. He sees his thoughts build up, though he does not allow desire to run its course. He has seen past all of that. He claims that desire is unnecessary. We should go into this, for it seems that the only thing that must occur to become a 'B' is to completely destroy all traces of desire. We should pinpoint the root of this desire, and unroot it.

According to the statement "Only creatures with no memory would be capable of being 'B's.", could it be that if we do not cling to our own memory that we could become 'B's too? Maybe we can discuss this subject to find out if the root of all our desires is in some way tied to our memory. Let's not rush to conclusions, go slow.

 

I think you have a point, here. Memory is a key factor. We remember that which brings us joy and desire to experience more of it. Conversely we remember that which brings us suffering and desire to avoid that. The experiences of our lives are (barring brain damage, or some other artificial form of memory erasure) indelible.

It's hard to go slow...

Experience and memory (which are not the same thing - experience is now, memory is then) are also required to banish desire. To banish desire, one must accept the temporal nature of joy (even cherish it for its temporal nature). To accept, one must understand. To understand, one must experience and remember, then make a transcendent leap of rationality (still rational, but beyond the ability of language to describe). This is the process of reacing enlightenment.... oops went too fast. Sorry.

What steps did I skip? Personally, I'm not crazy about my use of the word "must." I think that is key, but I'm unsure how to fix it.

 

I agree on acceptance. Desire cannot be of acceptance, for desire is quite contradictory to acceptance. I am not in pure acceptance of the truth, therefore I desire it to change. The truth of it is, I am irrational. I do not see that which is before me now, but that which could, or should, or won't, or can't be. We all have the same mind, yet we percieve the world in totally different ways. This is why we are irrational. This is our psychological time. We never understand the situation at hand, but the situation that will be, or the situation that was. These views are based on our desires which narrow our view. These desires are based on what? Our own unhappiness, our own desires? Desires seem to stem from other desires. What is the root?

 

a 'B' sees desire and sees the roots of its own desire

He can "rationaly" explain why and how he desire


You are a 'B' when you are conscious of what you are

a 'B' knows when he is thinking/feeling/experiencing



It could be different if you remember some said 'B' could be close from animals

The key is that because of consciousness, you have the power to change and improve your mind, anywhere anytime, (is it why humanity survived so long?)

 

So according to you anyone who is type B is free from suffering, and there fore they posses no desire? But doesent everyone desire - whether it be to have money or to get on Hipforums and check out what everyone is talkin about. For that reason I belive it is physicaly impossible by human nature to be free of desires and therefore free of suffering.

 

What you say is saying desire is the ground of your every action

This is true


But you can also know and understand why you do are acting so


a 'B' is alive and in a body, this implies action

 

I agree. If a person was completely free from desire then they would lay on the floor without an drive to eat, talk, move around, etc. Desire is the basis of human behavior: desire to live and reproduce. Jesus and Buddha were not free from desire. They both desired to spread their message and enlighten other people.

 

Two terms - Need & Desire

Are need and desire the same thing? If one simply lives in the moment, doing what needs be done in that moment, is that succumbing to desire?

 

No but life is full of enjoyment such as Ping Pong for example. Say I play Ping Pong everyday all year, then my mom sells the table. Would I not desire to play it. for that i would suffer. That relates to anything just replace the world "Ping Pong" for sports, sex, food, fishing, drugs, etc. Because of that there is a so called everlasting need or deisre. When one has relized that all objects and actions are not infinite and shall eventuall become nonexistent then and only then will the world become peaceful and suffering shall become nonexistant

 

You can know only your own desires, not anyone elses. I will not accept the notion that everyone desires.

I also will not accept that desire is the ground to every action.

All action as we know it is born out of our desire. What is the ground to desire then? We must decide what desire is, it seems we may be in a disagreement of communication. According to a dictionary, desire means to wish for or long for. This implies denial of the truth, the present, the now. All desire is unfulfilled, and we know that unfulfilled desire leads to suffering. This means that desire cannot exist if we are to live fully content lives. Now, does this mean that no action can be taken in order to be fully content? I think not. However, lets go into it.

The question is, is there any action that is not influenced by desire?

A thought has just come to mind. Perhaps the difference between our two definitions of desires is the actual memory we desire. If you meant the memory (By memory I mean any experience the mind remembers and clings on to; thoughts are included in this) itself, and not the actual longing to match experience with memory, then I might agree that it is the root of all action. The mind has the ability to look at circumstances and predict the future in a way. Basically, it can see what is going to happen when it understands why it happens. There is no desire at this point. There is only understanding of an action. The desire to match experience with memory is not necessarily what provokes the action. Think of insight. There are times when we do not think about actions, therefore we do not desire action. It is natural to us. This is insight. It has no relationship to desire. It cannot exist with desire. If there is insight, there is no desire. If there is desire, there is no insight. Do you follow? Can, then, we agree on the definition of desire as the clinging of memory to match with experience? I think this will clear things up a bit.

 

So basicly what your saying is the only way to be completly fufilled in life is to have no memory of anything..What about family and friends. would you sacrifice that for "complete enlightement". You my friend are searching in the wrong direction in my opinion. It is not giving up every memory happy or sad. It is cherishing those good memorys and using the bad to remember that life is not infinite, inanimate objects are not infinite, and you are not infinite so you must make the most of your time doing good, and helping others, instead of wasting away trying to forget them. Bad memorys and expreriences are there for a reason, not for punishment everytime you think about it, but as lessons to learn from and to grow with. Be sure to use them

 

I did not see the second page hehe. Need and desire. Are they the same thing. Well, I think the word need is decieving. Need is a requirement. The word need by itself can only mean everything that is. If something is not, yet it is needed, how can it truly be needed if it is not? We must clarify what the need is for. Is it for our own survival? All that is needed for our own survival is food, water, air, etc. However, if one is restricted any of these, will it cause suffering? Yes, only if one clings to life, only if one denies truth, the truth that there is no more food, there is no more water. This, I think, is where desire and need meet. We only need if we need to survive. We cannot survive, we don't live forever, therefore we don't need to survive. We can't survive! This is a complicated subject, so lets take it slow. If we were free of desire, would we fulfill our needs to stay alive? What would be our motivation to live? Is motivation even the right word? I shall contemplate this over the burning of a bud =]

 

This is a discussion, no desires for a conclusion are present. We are here to understand. This is not about sacrifice or anything. We have not even touched the word sacrifice. Please, stay with the discussion at hand

 

DUPLICATE POST SOMEHOW GOT THROUGH. DELETE ME.

 

So your saying that if you live in africa and the continents water supply drys up and you have no water that you should stay and just die of thrist. Thats irrational. the basis of the depletion of suffering is happiness. would you be happy dying of thirst? i wouldnt. you should not give up on life if somthign like this happens. When Buddha was fasting in the wilderness it tells that he came close to death, before he realized that not only is starving himself irrational its not getting him anywere. He then began to follow the middle path, or partaking in moderation. For example: while getting on hipforums is not bad if you sit there all day and yearn to get on and read it then you have become a slave to society and their rules. if you check up occasionally and post then its perfectly alright. another example is alchohol. While it is perfectly ok to have 1 drink a day (even good for you) if you begin to create a mental and physical dependency then you are relient on a unifinate object.



I might have read you post wrong so correct me if i did

 

I don't mean that you should give up on life. I am just stating that the very desire for survival is unnecessary because it will never be fulfilled. Death is unstoppable. If you are going to die, you are going to die. Desire will not change this. If you can survive then survive, but if it is hopeless it is hopeless. Do you understand what I'm trying to get at? If you are starving to death, but there is no food, you might as well accept that you are starving, and then you can either look for food or do whatever, but as long as you accept that you are starving, you won't be blinded by your fears of it. There is action, there is non-action, the desire is a process that assists in determining the action. Without the desire, there is just action, or non-action, whichever the case may be. Desire is non-acceptance.

I think that desire does not allow action, it only affects it. Acceptance, which would mean the ending of desire, would give clarity of mind and allow rational thought. Is there any disagreement in this?