Purely Rational Conversation

Yet another use for a Beckett quote: "We give birth astride the grave, the light gleams an instant and is gone."

On another note, where existence is concerned, there's no such thing as non-action, not doing somethng is still doing something: waiting. Acceptance can give clarity and rational thought, true. I maintain though, that all acceptance is not surrender. One can act without desire, principles of zen are designed to teach how to act without expectation this, I think would be very much like acting without the impetus of desire.(there is an unexplored relationship: how are desire and expectation related?).

 

I see what you are saying. Perhaps action does not require a desire, perhaps a better term would be that it requires a purpose. Can we say that the ground to all action is purpose? I think this is rational.
Expectation is irrational, since everything is constantly changing and nothing is permanent. Anything is possible! Right? I think that desire and expectation are very related. Wherever desire is, there is expectation. I do not think desire can exist without expectation. However, expectation can exist without desire. You can expect a storm, yet not care about it. There is no desire or fear of it. Yet, if you feared storms and expected one, there would be suffering. If you want something that you expect and it does not happen, you suffer. Is it possible to desire something without expectation? If there was no expectations, how could you desire anything? Perhaps expectation is what separates desire from purpose. The purpose of an action is not desired if there is no expectations. This is a slight alteration of the definition of desire, but to suit the discussion, but there must be some term to describe the difference between purpose and clinging to expectation. Is this making sense?

I think we have gotten somewhere. It would seem that all suffering is a combination of expectation and desire. However, this may be moving too fast. I would like to hear what you think on this subject.

 

Show me Meagain. Then it will be fact rather than theory.

 

I understand what your saying now isness, that by rationaly understanding your position such as the acknowlegment of a storm and that although it might end this life one will not suffer because life is not in all actuallity a reality. More as if you view the world from a pair of glasses, prepared for the unpreparable. While others "a"s as you call them see without them blind reality and are easily succumbed by fear and suffering.

If i miss understood this anywher tell me

 

Purpose. That's a great word. Thanks. I think we're getting somewhere too. I think sometimes people put the cart before the horse, so to speak, and this can cause suffering. That is, they create a need/desire for purpose, never realizing that they have a purpose simply to do what is needed. This is where spirituality enters the picture for me (that transcendent form of reasoning, I wrote about earlier) since at this time in my life, is seems like that need is percieved intuitively.

I'd write more, but the entrace of the word 'intuitively' is an important one - a good place to stop - and I think I'd like to hear the thoughts of others on how intuition affects this picture.

 

I do not mean that life is not a reality. Preparing for death or fearing death is irrational because death is inevitable.

I see something in what you are saying. As long as we are not prepared, we feel insecure. I see truth in this. We do not accept what we don't understand because we are irrational. It is rational to accept that we are irrational. Is this an incorrect statement? I don't know if that is exactly what you were getting at, but it was a good point.

Lets not bring in the word spirituality just yet. However intuition/insight is a topic we can discuss. I have noticed just recently within my own mind that thought requires time. That is, it takes just as long to think something as it does to say something. However, all thoughts are known immediately and then are translated into words, which takes time. I would like to hear your take on this. When you think, you can end your thought because you already understand it. Its like you interpret it in order to communicate it. This may not be the case, but thought is definitely interpreted. It is almost like outward perception in that you must interpret what you are seeing in order for your mind to understand it. However, do you really need this interpretation to understand the true nature of things? I think not. Unless thought is required to communicate, I refuse to believe thought is necessary whatsoever. So I think this 'thing' that is beyond interpretation of thought, is indeed insight, or intuition.

Now I will bring in a radical thought, not meant to stray away from our discussion. Do we think in order to communicate our own insight to ourselves? Is it part of our conditioning? We are so used to language that we must use it to understand our situation. Is there a level of understanding beyond language? If it is, wouldn't thought in the form of language be unnecessary? Maybe this is moving too fast, but we will see where it goes.

 

Do you mean a priori knowledge? Or pre-linguistic knowledge? As children, before we learn language (which is our primary tool for foming thoughts, once we learn it) we are still thinking - we are like sponges and every experience we have is added to our "vocabulary" so to speak. But it's so disjointed that all we have is emotion, and senses - we think in smells, colors, textures. We attach values to these things, which in turn creates desires. In general, we desire input. The experience of the world. Come to think of it, I'm not sure we can ever escape this desire - to my own mind it is the reason for existence, but again I'm getting ahead of myself.


I think too fast.

 

I do believe this pre-linguistic knowledge is insight, but maybe we are not talking about the same thing. What I am talking about is our ability to think. We don't think about thinking, we just think. This is difficult to communicate. When we speak, we don't think about it, we speak. When we think, we don't think about it, we just think. Insight is the ability to understand the situation enough to communicate it comes before the actual interpretation. When we see a situation, we understand enough about it to think about it. Thought then becomes important and we listen to our thoughts rather than our insight. Am I getting out of line with these statements, or are they rational? I do think that we are conditioned to rely on thought to tell us what to do. We should go into this.

 

You mean transcendent thought, I think. Thought about concepts for which we do not have words. I've written something about that before, hmm...

This post ammounts to a sort of essay/manifesto which I wrote for another thread. I think it may address what you are talking about. Let me know if it does and I'll try to import the concepts into this discussion in a form conducive to it.
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6921&postcount=17

 

I'll stop you right there. The "enlightened" aren't free from suffering. They are not fully content (to be fully content is to be dead). The difference is that, as far as I've been told, being enlightened is to not be attached to the suffering. It's not YOUR suffering, it's THE suffering. Life is suffering; we eat other living things, experience loss through death and other circumstances, etc. But the egoic mind attaches to all this pain. The enlightened sees this egoic suffering like a hot coal. Rather than hold it tight in the hand, they have realized that it's much easier to just let it go. They still experience all the bad that is a part of life, but aren't tied to it.

 

This is dangerously close to saying "well, we're going to die someday anyways, might as well be now." I know you aren't saying that, but it's close. I think the problem is this idea that desire is bad. It isn't in my opinion. We do desire to live, it's biological. We desire food, water, air, love and acceptance. These are all biological (a social species needs a group in which to live, evolution has wired us to desire to be in some social situation). It's not even wrong to desire riches or possessions. It's the ATTACHMENT to desire that is bad, because all things and events are transitory. When you are attached to an idea, and it doesn't come through, you'll feel loss and pain. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have ideas, does it?

I'll use my favorite metaphor again: if you're standing there gripping a hot coal in your hand, it makes much more sense to LET IT GO. We are all gripping our desires. This causes pain. If we can let it go, release the attachment, we can live better lives. But the desires don't just go away, unless you're dead. But if you can let them go, they won't burn you as much...I guess eventually you'll be letting them go so fast they won't burn at all (true enlightenment?). But we wouldnt DO anything without desire. I have to desire to go on a walk to go on a walk. This isn't wrong or bad. But if I'm at work thinking "damn, I want to go on a walk, it's so nice out" this will cause pain. It's not going to happen right NOW, so holding onto this desire is causing me angst, and is also making me miss the beauty of the present moment. Let go the desire by realizing I can walk later, but can't right now, and the coal has been released.

 

Now we're just getting into semantics, which won't get us far. Besides, "purpose" implies there is a SHOULD in there: you should go on a walk, you should get a job. I don't like the implications of that, and besides, I believe we create our own purpose and meaning in life (there's no ultimate meaning, that is), so it would be going in circles.

I think thought is clearly important to humankind, we evolved this complex brain because it helped us survive. A slow, small toothed clawless being surviving by it's wits, that how humans evolved. Thoughts and thinking are good, I hate it when people go on about how the mind is bad and needs to be cleared. It just needs to be removed from control; the mind is a tool, and a tool shouldn't dominate the user. This may be a higher level of thought, or a lower level, but whatever it is, it seems that it still has to do with releasing our attachment to our thoughts (as well as everything else).

(sorry about all the posts, I'm catching up after a month of a dead computer)

 

Yeah, I have very little time on the computer as of right now, but I shall continue with this discussion very soon. Sorry.

 

Ok.

Meagain. Show me you know all of this for fact, then I will believe you.

TrippinBTM. You say life is suffering, its the attachment to suffering that causes pain. I can see what you are saying. However, the suffering is the pain. I refuse to believe that it is necessary at all. Rather than it being let go, perhaps it can be totally destroyed.

Words are confusing. One person interprets one way, another person interprets another way. Words are meaningless. I do not mean to use the word purpose in the way that something SHOULD be. It is how it is. Desire is unnecessary. I will go into it.

Can we agree that all movement in the universe is a product of causality? We are compelled to take action because of a cause. In the case of desire, we take action because we desire to take action. However, what I am speaking of is beyond this. There must be a cause for desire, there must be a cause for action, however desire does not have to be the cause for action. Inward movement is action, and outward movement is action. I see no difference between the two. The desire takes place before the fulfillment of the desire, before any productive action takes place. I am talking about the elimination of the desire, so that action is immediate. Is this not possible? If it is not, then desire is necessary, which contradicts what I have said. This means action must be desired. Desire is action, it is still the reaction of a cause. I am saying that desire is not necessary, that outward action, or inward, whatever the case is, can AND does occur spontaneously. We are hungry, we eat, we don't have to think "I want to eat", that thought will get us nowhere. If this is still desire, then it is not the desire I speak of. We are built to survive, however to desire survival is not going to increase our chance of survival. In a crisis, desire is not required. Action is immediate. I do not know if I am conveying my idea exactly how I want to. All I am saying is desire is irrational because it is not necessary and it causes suffering. The desire you speak of may be the very cause of the action itself, rather than the longing for action. The longing is of time, that is not how it is, that is not a necessary thought. Action is immediate. Thought is still action, however longing is unnecessary. Do you understand what I am saying?

From now on, we should no longer use the term 'A's and 'B's because it is not getting us anywhere. Let us just be open all possibilities.

 

I disagree. To be alive is to be in duality. You can't have good without bad, you can't have positive without negetive, beauty without ugliness To quote the Tao Te Ching:

If the people think they know goodness
All they really know is what evil is like!

The suffering, however, is not the pain. The pain is just the action, maybe a cut on the finger. Pain is normal and healthy. The suffering is the hatred, the non acceptance, of the present situation, which is pain. We reject what is rather than accept it. In rejecting the Now we become negetively attached, which is to say, attached to any other situation than the one we actually have in reality. I say it still comes down to attatchment, even when it is negetive attachment. We need to move beyond this.

We cannot control what happens to us. We will get cut and bruised, hurt in love and friendship, death will visit our loved ones and eventually us. To not have pain would be to have none of that, and thus not to live. But need we suffer so greatly? These things we don't control, but we control our REACTION. We don't have to suffer through the pain. We can experience it, learn from it, and move beyond it.

So you are saying that in a given situation, no matter how complex it seems or is made by our thinking, our response is already determined? I don't so much disagree to that. We get a gut feeling and despite all our mental wrangling, ultimately there is no other path we would take. Still, that means thought is useless. I disagree, it clearly serves a function, or it wouldn't have evolved. Sure some things are evolutionary by products, but thinking is integral to being human, it's how we survive...by our wits. Unthinking action has it's place, when the course is clear (pushing a person out of the path of a bus), but sometimes options must be weighed. Thought comes in.

Desire is what drives our lives. We desire love, so we go to bars or social functions looking for a mate. We desire food, so we get up and go to the kitchen. We desire knowledge, so we go to the library. Desire helps us choose our course, we set a goal. It's when we cling to the desire and don't act on it. Like, we've set a goal, even a noble one: I want to be enlightened. Then we read books and meditate and do this and do that, all the while thinking about how great it will all be when we are enlightened. Living in the desire, which is the future where it will be fulfilled. But we all know the future never comes. Same as the past, maybe we desire some great love that has come and gone, we live in the past and can't even begin to act to find new love, Now. To cling (or attach) to desire is to live out of the Now, because desire means wanting something we don't have now. Only by being here now can we begin to act rationally in the way you describe. But desire isn't the problem, again, it's when we let our desire remove us from what IS. We should desire a goal, set it in our minds, but then come back the the present moment, which is the only place we can act.

This is getting long and I'm pretty sure I've gone off on a tangent or two, so I'll stop there.

 

I would like to correct my previous statement by saying that suffering leads to pain, rather than is pain. We attach to our pain when we do not need to. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is not. We need not dwell in the past or the future because something is not how we want it to be. The only truth is now. The very thoughts of the future and past exist in the now. This cannot be changed no matter how much we want it to.

I do not see a connection between physical pain and suffering though. Physical pain is inevitable, suffering would be the clinging to the pain, "I want the pain to stop!". You are in pain. Now take action. Why is our initial reaction always the desire to end the pain? We are in pain, now end it. It is not a matter of "I want to end it". That thought will lead nowhere. End it.

I do not like using the word desire. It is confusing. Lets say that we are hungry. We don't have to want to eat to know that we are hungry and know that eating alleviates hunger. We just need to eat for the hunger to go away. That is all. There is no more that is necessary. We don't need to want the food. If the food is there, we eat it. If it is not, we find it. If we cannot find it, we die. That is the truth. There is no need to desire anything in this process. Desire will only cloud the mind. This is what I mean by desire. Perhaps our definitions differ. I think we are conveying the same thing.

 

Agreed, that was one of my points.

First, all words are confusing. Desire is a useful word though and is one of the closest words our language has for what we're talking about; I'll continue to use it. Hunger is like desire on a different level. A biological level. It's not thought based it's body based. Desire for, say, money is mind based (of course the mind is body based, nothing seperate, blah blah).

Now, you say you don't see the connection between pain and suffering. Well, we both agree on what these things are: pain the action and suffering our reaction to it. You say, the desire to end the pain is what causes our suffering (by rejecting the present). Then you say the desire is unimportant, just end it. But that doesn't make any sense. You are driven to end it because you don't want it, you desire something else. You're right, no sense in sitting there bitching and moaning about it, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't desire to change it. Say we are unhappy in our current job. It makes no sense to stay there and be unhappy, wallowing in a bad situation. We naturally will desire to improve our situation, this is right and good. Here is where I think you're missing something: your desire to get out of a bad job to a better one is what makes you act; in my opinion it's a necessary step. The trick is to set the goal (to desire a different situation) while not rejecting the present (and thereby not attaching to this imagined and hoped-for future). Because it is only in the present THAT WE CAN ACT.

In summary: For the most part we agree, but for one thing. You say, "If your in pain, end it." I say that makes no sense because we would have to judge the pain to be unwanted in order to act to end it. The desire is naturally going to be part of it.

The Buddha seems to have known this: to let go of desire is not to eradicate or destroy it. It is to let it serve it's purpose without clinging to it.(http://www.buddhanet.net/4noble.htm check out the area for the 2nd noble truth). I know this isn't a Buddhist discussion but this seems to be where the idea of desire = bad comes from.

I just had a thought: if we didn't desire to change the situation, to end the pain, we would have no impetus to do it. We'd by default just accept the current situation and remain there.

 

It's beginning to look as if this discussion has been reduced to a solipsism. Desire and Suffering are states of mind. We create them, and we allow them to exist. We can at any time eradicate them. Pain doesn't necessarily lead to suffering, there are many who derive a certain pleasure from pain. In fact, one could say that many people often inflict it upon themselves or willingly place themselves into a position to have pain inflicted upon them (even when it comes with it's sister component, suffering), on a regular basis.

Life itself is simply a mysterious gift, and death an inevitable end. The desire to aviod dealing with our own mortailty is a cause of suffering which we often create for ourselves. Hence, simply living one's life free of expectation (and by extension, making the best use of the only truely free thing in the universe) and experiencing what it has to offer, be it pleasure or pain, responding to whatever input this universe provides in whatever fashion your current 'need' dictates, should. by force of this solipsism be enough to banish suffering. However, being free of expectation also means that you must not expect everyone to be free of suffering. This is something you may accomplish only for yourself. Should the current need of the moment include taking actions to relieve others of their obviously needless suffering, so much the better. To cause suffering in others will not meet your needs because in causing them to suffer, you cause suffering to yourself. You and your brother are one.

The key then lies in understanding the interconnectedness of all things and freeing yourself from the chain of expectation.

Solipsism