Dukkha is more than suffering.

[Commander Dutch]

...At that moment, Siddhartha touched the Earth with his right hand, very deeply, with all his mindfulness, and said, "The Earth will testify for me." Suddenly, the Earth trembled and appeared as a goddess, offering him flowers, leaves, fruits, and perfumes.
After that, Earth looked directly at Mara, and Mara just disappeared.

Lying is wrong. Sock puppets are lies, intention to deceive. Liars are not Buddhists, they're just liars.


https://www.learnreligions.com/the-fourth-buddhist-precept-450102
What It Means to Be Truthful

In Buddhism, being truthful goes beyond simply not telling lies. It means speaking truthfully and honestly, yes. But it also means using speech to benefit others, and not to use it to benefit only ourselves.

Speech rooted in the Three Poisons -- hate, greed, and ignorance -- is false speech. If your speech is designed to get something you want, or to hurt someone you don't like, or to make you seem more important to others, it is false speech even if what you say is factual. For example, repeating ugly gossip about someone you don't like is false speech, even if the gossip is true.

Soto Zen teacher Reb Anderson points out in his book Being Upright: Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts (Rodmell Press, 2001) that "All speech based on self-concern is false or harmful speech." He's saying that speech based on self-concern is speech designed to promote ourselves or protect ourselves or to get what we want. Truthful speech, on the other hand, arises naturally when we speak from selflessness and concern for others.

Truth and Intention
Untruthful speech includes "half-truths" or "partial truths." A half or partial truth is a statement that is factually true but which leaves out information in a way that conveys a lie. If you ever read the political "fact check" columns in many major newspapers, you find a lot of statements called out as "half-truths."

For example, if a politician says "My opponent's policies will raise taxes," but he leaves out the part about "on capital gains over a million dollars," that's a half-truth. In this case, what the politician said is intended to make his audience think they if they vote for the opponent, their taxes will go up.

Telling the truth requires mindfulness of what is true. It also requires that we examine our motivations when we speak, to be sure there isn't some trace of self-clinging behind our words. For example, people active in social or political causes sometimes become addicted to self-righteousness. Their speech in favor of their cause becomes tainted by their need to feel morally superior to others.

In Theravada Buddhism, there are four elements to a violation of the Fourth Precept:

• A situation or state of affairs that is untrue; something to lie about
• An intention to deceive
• The expression of falsehood, either with words, gestures, or "body language."
• Conveying a false impression

If one says an untrue thing while sincerely believing it is true, that would not necessarily be a violation of the Precept. However, take care of what libel lawyers call "reckless disregard for the truth." Recklessly spreading false information without making at least some effort to "check it out" first is not practicing the Fourth Precept, even if you believe the information is true.

It's good to develop a habit of mind to be skeptical of the information you want to believe. When we hear something that confirms our biases, there's a human tendency to accept it blindly, even eagerly, without checking to be sure it's true. Be careful.

 

[ParachuteAdams]

He Voted!

Qualifications to Vote by Absentee Ballot Deadlines

Absent from your county or, if a resident of New York City absent from the five boroughs, on Election Day.
Unable to appear at the polls due to temporary or permanent illness or disability (temporary illness includes being unable to appear due to risk of contracting or spreading a communicable disease like COVID-19).
Unable to appear because you are the primary care giver of one or more individuals who are ill or physically disabled.
A resident or patient of a Veterans Health Administration Hospital.
Detained in jail awaiting Grand Jury action or confined in prison after conviction for an offense other than a felony.

Who’s the problem? I’m the problem.

Don’t worry little Cee. I’ll be there soon. I’m here for you.

 

[Cypress]

Life is suffering. The truth of suffering.

You've heard these statements of the Buddha about the nature of this life. Over the past one hundred years, much of the Buddha's teachings have made their way into Western thought and culture. Knowing that all of the Buddha's teachings revolve around the four noble truths, we should be sure to come to a correct understanding about what he meant when he laid out his foundational teachings.

In his first sermon, the Buddha taught:

Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of dukkha: birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, illness is dukkha, death is dukkha; union with what is displeasing is dukkha; separation from what is pleasing is dukkha; not to get what one wants is dukkha; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are dukkha.

It is easy to see how the early translators of the dharma may have chosen suffering or pain as a substitute for the Sanskrit term dukkha. It makes sense, birth is painful, aging is suffering, not getting what you want is painful. Those translations offer insight into what the Buddha was trying to convey.

But words are limited in their meaning.

The Buddha first states that birth, aging, illness and death are all dukkha. Every stage of human life is dukkha. The human condition is subject to pain and suffering, discomfort and unease.

The Buddha then says that uniting with what is displeasing is dukkha. It is unsatisfying, frustrating, miserable.

Next we find that separation from what is pleasing is dukkha. It is grief, sadness, distress.

The Buddha goes on to say that not getting what one wants is dukkha. It is despair, disappointing, upsetting.

Finally, the Buddha states that the five aggregates, or all conditioned phenomena, are dukkha. There is a basic unsatisfactoriness that pervades all forms of the human condition, which is subject to change, impermanent and without any lasting substance. That which changes, is impermanent and without lasting substance is incapable of satisfying us.

Later in his first discourse, the Buddha taught that dukkha was to be fully understood. What are we to understand? Is it enough to understand that life is suffering?

We need to understand the human condition in its entirety. The central tenet of the Buddha's teachings is that we need to understand our own pain and suffering, but also the myriad ways in which we fall into states of loss and sadness, dissatisfaction and despair. We need to fully understand how all things change, how the very nature of this life and this world is that it is impermanent and without any lasting substance.

Dukkha includes understanding suffering, but it is much more than suffering. It is understanding the human condition, and all that it entails.

Finally, we should take a look at what is meant by 'understand'. Is it to be known, acknowledged or perceived?

It is not enough to know the words or even the meaning. To fully understand dukkha we have to be aware of dukkha, acknowledge it, feel it and sit with it. We need to see it and listen to it. We need to fight the urge to wallow in it, push it away or pretend it isn't there. Then we might understand the truth of dukkha.
http://siddhearta.blogspot.com/2018/07/dukkha-is-more-than-suffering.html

Translations from ancient texts into vernacular English always distorts the meaning of the original language, which is why I am always suspicious of the bible thumper who quotes a vernacular English translation from the New Testament, a canon of writing which was composed in archaic Greek.

I always thought the word "suffering" was a terrible English translation for what Buddhism was implying.

After listening to many Buddhist scholars,I ultimately decided that Dukkha was referring to the desires, inclinations, fears, and bonds which enslave us to a life of materialism and which prevents us from sensing a higher truth.

 

[dukkha]

Translations from ancient texts into vernacular English always distorts the meaning of the original language, which is why I am always suspicious of the bible thumper who quotes a vernacular English translation from the New Testament, a canon of writing which was composed in archaic Greek.

I always thought the word "suffering" was a terrible English translation for what Buddhism was implying.

After listening to many Buddhist scholars,I ultimately decided that Dukkha was referring to the desires, inclinations, fears, and bonds which enslave us to a life of materialism and which prevents us from sensing a higher truth.

yes. I am posting another short description of the dukkha we face as humans. next post.

But remember the OP as well : "Dukkha is more then suffering" it is the human condition.
The OP puts it in perspective - we need not fear or try to avoid our daily dukkha. we couldn't if we tried.
But we can learn to manage it by understanding and immersing ourselves in this reality

the Buddha taught that dukkha was to be fully understood.
What are we to understand? Is it enough to understand that life is suffering?
We need to understand the human condition in its entirety
http://siddhearta.blogspot.com/2018/07/dukkha-is-more-than-suffering.html
The central tenet of the Buddha's teachings is that we need to understand our own pain and suffering,
but also the myriad ways in which we fall into states of loss and sadness, dissatisfaction and despair.
We need to fully understand how all things change, how the very nature of this life and this world is that it is impermanent and without any lasting substance.

Dukkha includes understanding suffering, but it is much more than suffering.
It is understanding the human condition, and all that it entails.

Finally, we should take a look at what is meant by 'understand'.
Is it to be known, acknowledged or perceived?
It is not enough to know the words or even the meaning.

To fully understand dukkha we have to be aware of dukkha, acknowledge it, feel it and sit with it.
We need to see it and listen to it. We need to fight the urge to wallow in it, push it away or pretend it isn't there. Then we might understand the truth of dukkha.

 

[dukkha]

Lord Buddha gives a short yet very clear description of dukkha in his first discourse
The Dhammachakkapavatthana Suththa (the wheel turning discourse).

He lists the following types of dukkhas in it.

1.Jathi - Birth

2.Jara - Aging

3.Vyadhi - Sickness

4.Marana - Death

5.Appiyehi Sampayoga - Union with the undesired

6.Piyehi Vippayoga - loss of desired

7. Yampichhcan na labhathi - not receiving the desired

8. Panhca upadanaskandha - taking all panchaskandha (rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara, vignana) as I or Mine.
R.S Dhammapali
Theravada Buddhist Nun

 

[dukkha]

I'm Shakyamuni Buddhist, and I see the meaning of life is fulfilment for yourself and those around you, particularly those around you. Do what you love and others will love you for it. Come to know yourself and be at peace with that. For all the scars and wounds in life that you receive, you should prevail and show others that they too, like you, can accept this as the natural order.
a wonderful holistic philosophy
If life were easy, there would be no reason to live.

thats a wonderful holistic philosophy that leads to a full life..sound good

 

[dukkha]

In about 440 BCE more or less in present-day Bodhgaya, Bihar, India the Bodhisattva (not the Buddha yet)
sat cross-legged under a sacred fig tree (ficus religiosa) on the bank of the Niranjana River, near a goat herders’ rest stop, after six years of fruitless and self-destructive effort. He vowed not to move from that spot till he attained enlightenment. Remembering an experience he had had as a child, also while sitting under a tree.., while watching his father officiate at an agricultural ploughing festival, the Bodhisattva contemplated the inflow and outflow of the breath, a meditation called “the Tathagata’s dwelling.”
That very night, according to the story, or very soon after, Gautama realized three supreme truths:
the knowledge of the eternal cycle of death and rebirth (samsara); the truth of the
law of karma, or cosmic causality; and the realization of the total interdependence of things (pratityasamutpada), determined by ignorance (avidya) and desirous attachment (trishna-upadana), culminating in the realization of nirvana and the exhaustion of the imperfections (asavas) which bind one to phenomenal existence, at which point - about 5am - he attained in a moment supreme and perfect enlightenment.

His ego was annihilated, his consciousness expanded to include all experience, he entered an ecstatic state of blissful consciousness, and for one week he became coterminous with reality itself. After returning to human consciousness, he continued to practise and teach as the Buddha, the Awakened One, attaining final nirvana when he died at the age of eighty.

 

[anatta]

Buddhas philosophy is that nothing lasts more than one trillianth of asecond.
It has been proven,not just justified, by modern particle physics over and over again.

When you go to the deepest foundation of the world everything just becomes a blur between particles and energy. which means that particles are energy at times and vice versa. this change takes place in a speed incalculable. even all energies are extremely dynamic. there.
Buddhas logic proved and justified to the letter!
R.S Dhammapali
Theravada Buddhist Nun

 

[Cypress]

Buddhas philosophy is that nothing lasts more than one trillianth of asecond.
It has been proven,not just justified, by modern particle physics over and over again.

When you go to the deepest foundation of the world everything just becomes a blur between particles and energy. which means that particles are energy at times and vice versa. this change takes place in a speed incalculable. even all energies are extremely dynamic. there.
Buddhas logic proved and justified to the letter!
R.S Dhammapali
Theravada Buddhist Nun

Not really accurate to say that about the subatomic world. Protons have a half life around 10 exponent 30 years, which is essentially eternal. Up and down quarks are extremely stable and long-lived.

On the flipside, it is true that quark flavors like strange quarks, top quarks, charmed quarks can only be created in high energy particle colliders, and they exist for mere nanoseconds.

I would say if you want to invoke the Buddhist concept of impermanence, you need to scale up to the level of molecular and biological processes, because they are in constant flux. Every cell in your body is less than seven years old. Which makes an interesting philosophical question: are you the same person now that you were seven years ago?
.

 

[dukkha]

Profile photo for Jay Jennifer Matthews
Jay Jennifer Matthews
Silence Enthusiast8mo
If the self is just an illusion, who has achieved enlightenment if there is no self?

Ramana Maharshi’s father died when he was 12.

He heard people crying and talking about his father having passed.

The death was recent and the corpse well-preserved, so he thought his father was sleeping.

He pointed to the corpse and said:

My father is sleeping over there.

His relatives explained that his father is gone and only his body is there.

Most of us would just accept this self-contradictory statement.

But Sri Ramana had a logical mind.

He thought:

All this time, I thought my father was that body.

When a loved one dies, we believe they’re an astral body that left the material plane.

But Sri Ramana realized:

What ‘leaves’ the body was never there to begin with.

When you break a bowl, the space ‘inside’ isn’t liberated.

It’s seen to be identical with the surrounding space.

At age 16, he completely abandoned the ‘I am the body’ idea.

He didn’t say he was liberated because he was never trapped.

No one attains enlightenment - infinite Spirit simply is.

 

[dukkha]

Not really accurate to say that about the subatomic world. Protons have a half life around 10 exponent 30 years, which is essentially eternal. Up and down quarks are extremely stable and long-lived.

On the flipside, it is true that quark flavors like strange quarks, top quarks, charmed quarks can only be created in high energy particle colliders, and they exist for mere nanoseconds.

I would say if you want to invoke the Buddhist concept of impermanence, you need to scale up to the level of molecular and biological processes, because they are in constant flux. Every cell in your body is less than seven years old.
Which makes an interesting philosophical question: are you the same person now that you were seven years ago?

that quote was talking about the transitory nature of everything in the universe -
someone was't up on quantum physics
..lol

Interesting question. look at what I just posted. you are not your body -
or more accurately your body is not yourself

At age 16, he completely abandoned the ‘I am the body’ idea.
He didn’t say he was liberated because he was never trapped.
No one attains enlightenment - infinite Spirit simply is.

 

[Cypress]

that quote was talking about the transitory nature of everything in the universe -
someone was't up on quantum physics
..lol

Interesting question. look at what I just posted. you are not your body -
or more accurately your body is not yourself

At age 16, he completely abandoned the ‘I am the body’ idea.
He didn’t say he was liberated because he was never trapped.
No one attains enlightenment - infinite Spirit simply is.

The whole is more than the sum of the parts.

Or as Heraclitus said, you can never set foot in the same river twice.

 

[dukkha]

The whole is more than the sum of the parts.

Or as Heraclitus said, you can never set foot in the same river twice.

"everything is impermanent" -Buddhist maxim

 

[dukkha]

Why is there no reincarnation?

Who told you that? A preacher in the church? Then go and ask them why the Council of Nicea took reincarnation out of the canonic Bible and Gospels. Because early Christians did believe in reincarnation, and so do Jews, they believe in ‘gilgul” - the rebirth of the soul, just Google it. And since Jesus was Jewish, he also believed in it. Christian church decided that it is easier to rule the masses with Heaven and Hell beliefs, plus they were selling ”indulgences” - the tickets to Heaven, so there was the commercial interest for the Church in getting rid of reincarnation in the canon. Who wants to pay for a ticket to Heaven if everybody reincarnates? No money to be made with this belief…

 

[Blackwater Lunchbreak]

^ it's not that much to read. life us dukkha -the human condition. It's the basis of the 4 Nobel Truths.

In the fourth truth the Buddha taught that the way to get rid of the desire that causes suffering is to free yourself from being attached to it.
The Eightfold Path is a set of guidelines for Buddhists to live by that should lead to the end of suffering.

totalitarians hate non materialism. they can't control people who give no fucks.

they want us to want to keep up with the joneses, even if the joneses epitomize archetypal stupidity.

 

[dukkha]

totalitarians hate non materialism. they can't control people who give no fucks.
they want us to want to keep up with the joneses, even if the joneses epitomize archetypal stupidity.

 

[Cypress]

I finished The Dhammapada in about two hours, it's really not that long of a read.

I was surprised at the number of references to dieties, spirits, Hell, various and sundry superstitions are in it. A lot of message board Buddhists have worked overtime trying to convince me Buddhism is just a form of philosopy and meditation, that it's almost atheist in approach.

Mara is the Buddhist diety which reminds me of Satan. Mara is a tempter who tries to lead the wise off the path of Liberation.

Buddhism isn't as concerned about good versus evil in the way the Abrahamic religions are. It's not that they don't recognize evil, it's just that it is part of the impermanence of the world, a reality to accept, something to transcend