Suffering = Knowledge?

[Galen Wilkerson]

Hi :)

This is an interesting topic!

It's interesting that so many these days partly seek out "suffering" in
the form of so-called "extreme" sports.  I think one _part_ of the appeal
of this is to have a life change, so the participants are now more
interesting and can have stories and thereby attention.  I'm as guilty of
this as anyone.

Imagine in medieval times, when hardly anyone traveled, and most (99.9%)
people were stuck on their farms, etc.  how famous you would be if you
returned from a pilgrimage.  That is like being an astronaut!  Imagine
meeting John Glenn!  Look, he even was able to parlay that into becoming a
senator!

I think it is useful and interesting to travel, and that somehow as human
beings we find such stories deeply and fundamentally interesting, since we
evolved to who we are from some kind of direct connection to the natural
environment, and any stories of travel by foot to other places
automatically are interesting, and that this is as fundamental to us as
having a part of the brain that is made to process language. (pretty
weird, when you think about it, that we would have a ball of nerves that's
purpose is to take sound waves and convert them to "meaning")  That is,
interest in travel is fundamentally part of us as beings.

Also, related back to suffering - suffering just happens.  It could be
having a heart attack because of lack of exercise while sitting and typing
on this list, or it could be blisters.  The "blisters" tend to be more
interesting, because they are "other" for most people, because they are
part of the travel, which is interesting for the above reasons -
connection to the outer environment, and because it is "news" in a perhaps
older sense of the word.

I agree with people about self-flagellation etc.  Your body IS going to
fall apart, why help that process?  Of course, I'm speaking from my
context.  For some, this kind masochism is a way to prove bodily strength
or strength of "faith".  It's just yet another way for one person to
be "better" than another, and obvious to us now because we've moved on to
other forms of this dominance battle that we don't see because we're in it.

Galen






On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 19:56:43 +0000, Sally Haden <hadense1948aHOTMAIL.COM>
wrote:

>Dear Maura
>Thanks very much for this brilliant summary!
>Sally
>
>
>>From: Maura Santangelo <maurasantangeloaSTNY.RR.COM>
>>Reply-To: Road to Santiago Pilgrimage <GOCAMINOaPETE.URI.EDU>
>>To: GOCAMINOaPETE.URI.EDU
>>Subject: Re: Suffering = Knowledge?
>>Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 10:52:31 -0500
>>
>>Dear all,
>>
>>I see that a few comments on suffering and expectations are still
>>trickling in.  I am impressed by the thoughtful replies which the
>>thread has generated.  Not surprising I suppose.  After all there is a
>>religion totally based on the reality of suffering.  Buddha developed a
>>whole philosophy around the notion of suffering, it is the first of the
>>4 noble truths, the truth of suffering.  Of the inevitability of
>>suffering simply because we are born and are impermanent and we never
>>get what we want, or we lose what we have, or we get what we do not
>>want.  But the other 3 noble truths also add that there is an end to
>>suffering, that suffering is self inflicted by desire and hatred and
>>indifference, and that there is a path to non suffering.  We suffer
>>because of our expectations, Pieter is quite right about that.
>>
>>IN this thread we are talking about two different kinds of suffering:
>>the inevitable that comes out of living and not accepting what life
>>puts in our way and the gratuitous suffering, the purposely inflicted
>>suffering based on the idea that by punishing ourselves we become
>>'better' human beings.  Self inflicted suffering is not ennobling, it
>>may actually be dehumanizing.  How you can develop compassion toward
>>fellow humans if you have no compassion toward yourself?  It is
>>interesting to me how many Western buddhists have difficulty with this
>>notion.  The Dalai Lama is reported to be quite surprised by the idea
>>of low self esteem Westerners seem to have, but indeed many of us did
>>grow up with this idea that we can only make ourselves good by
>>punishing ourselves in some way.  It is this kind of suffering that
>>Mary Oliver's poem spoke to so eloquently.
>>
>>Maura
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Tired of 56k? Get a FREE BT Broadband connection
>http://www.msn.co.uk/specials/btbroadband