Resultantly, I'm never quite sure how to interface with people. My personal system is such a messy cobweb of associations, it could only work for me.
I'm not planning to be any sort of guru, so at most I will only pass along technique and individual ideas when I want to.
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Anyway, for Buddhism specifically:
I agree that suffering is a fundamental part of experience. Totally. Unequivocally.
I don't agree that it's always a useful lens through which to *interpret* experience.
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There are a lot of tremendously useful Buddhist techniques. Many parts of Buddhism are essentially improvements on (at the time) antiquated Hindu sutras.
But that doesn't mean the metaphysics are very useful to people.
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If we reference Finno-Ugric myth, we do find suffering as an ever-present concept.
What else would you expect? These peopled lived in extremely harsh environs. Maybe 2% of us today would survive in the North of antiquity. It's a harsh place to live even today.
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The entire cosmology, all the myths, all the stories, default to this harsh reality.
When you die, you don't go to heaven. Your bones are ground to dust in the river of death. You may end up tormented there, as a shade, forever. There is no happy ending.
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So what do you do? You don't overcome or surpass suffering. You simply get on with the day.
You persevere, but not out of some mystical attainment - simply because that's the only option in the face of such a hopeless state of affairs.
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And so suffering is a fact of life, yes. It's ugly, yes.
But it's not worth obsessing over. You just do you, and do it as well as you can.
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Okay - inserting some basic self-awareness - that's pretty close to how I live my own life, actually.
It's also extremely perverse to inflict on others. My life has arguably been made much worse for it.
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Continuing my tipsiness-fuelled confession, I'm the sort of guy who can't let it go when I see someone else suffer. I get obsessive about that shit.
That's a demonstrably terrible way to live life. I've not only harmed myself doing that, but often also the people I tried to help
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Not just in Buddhism, but everywhere in life, the people who do the most harm to others are often the self-professed healers - those who believe they can "fix" others.
Distancing myself from that identity is a work in progress. It's difficult, but probably worthwhile.
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I find the whole idea hilarious. How many people have they actually enlightened? And did that actually help others?
I wouldn't be so cynical about it if they didn't keep demonstrating how fatuous and narcissistic it can get.
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Believing oneself qualified to help or improve others is obscenely arrogant, and rarely an idea worth defending.
Most of us can't even help ourselves, in the most basic of ways. Why go after others? Often the answer is as simple as "this is how I avoid fixing my own problems."
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The difference between healers and gurus is that gurus know who they are working on.
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See, I tend to agree. I'm also a bit concerned that that's not necessarily a Good Thing.
There are a lot of bad gurus out there. I don't know if they outweigh the good, but the harm is still great.
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Yes and no. My reality has improved dramatically in the last five years since I started meditation.
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