All life is misery.
All misery comes from longing.
To long for happiness causes misery.
To long for misery causes misery.
To long for not longing causes misery.
I wrote a much longer post, but it seems I can't properly phrase anything without it sounding like someone blended together a lot of (bad) introductory pamphlets on ancient philosophies.
May you find the things you need, not so much the things you seek. :)
Like all religions the tenets of Buddhism don't hold up very well under inspection. (Unlike most religions, the founder of Buddhism anticipated my reaction and was OK with it, so he gets that much credit, at least.)
At the moment, I am, in fact, not suffering, so it can't be true that all of life is suffering. I am sure I will suffer later, but that's a question of thermodynamics, not karma. It only means that suffering is inevitable, not ubiquitous.
As a result, the question of how to minimize suffering in the here and now is of greater interest to me than how to escape from some kind of abstract cosmic cycle of attachment.
Comments
All life is misery. All misery comes from longing. To long for happiness causes misery. To long for misery causes misery. To long for not longing causes misery.
I wrote a much longer post, but it seems I can't properly phrase anything without it sounding like someone blended together a lot of (bad) introductory pamphlets on ancient philosophies.
May you find the things you need, not so much the things you seek. :)
Like all religions the tenets of Buddhism don't hold up very well under inspection. (Unlike most religions, the founder of Buddhism anticipated my reaction and was OK with it, so he gets that much credit, at least.)
At the moment, I am, in fact, not suffering, so it can't be true that all of life is suffering. I am sure I will suffer later, but that's a question of thermodynamics, not karma. It only means that suffering is inevitable, not ubiquitous.
As a result, the question of how to minimize suffering in the here and now is of greater interest to me than how to escape from some kind of abstract cosmic cycle of attachment.