Suffering Revisited

[Pam Seeback]

A definition of suffering uncovering its interdependent levels of appearance:

At the most elementary level suffering appears as physical pain and oppression, manifest most clearly in the events of birth, sickness, aging and death, as well as in hunger, thirst, privation, and bodily discomfort. At a higher level it comes to be seen as a psychological fact — as the sorrow and frustration springing from our separation from what is desired, our meeting with what is disliked, and the disappointment of our expectations. And at the third and highest level suffering becomes manifest in its essential form, as the inherent unsatisfactoriness of the samsaric round in which we turn without purpose on account of our ignorance and attachments. These three tiers are not mutually exclusive. In each case the lower level serves as basis for the higher, by which it is absorbed and comprehended. Thus, though the penetration of the highest stage, the essential suffering comprised in the "five clinging aggregates" (pañcupadanakkhandha), represents the climax of understanding, this realization comes as the fruit of a long period of preparation grounded upon the first flash of insight into the basic inadequacy of the human condition. Such an insight usually dawns through particular experiences typical of the first two stages of suffering — through sudden pain, loss or disappointment, or through chronic anxiety, confusion, and distress. But in order to become the stimulus to a higher course of development, our vision must be capable of rising from the particular to the universal. It is only when we see clearly for ourselves that we are "sunk in birth, aging, and death, in sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair, sunk in suffering, overcome by suffering" (MN 29), that we are really ready for the means to bring this unsatisfactory condition to an end. ~ Source: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... el277.html

Meets the criteria of logic, yes or no?

[Dennis Mahar]

Are you grasping after a desirable object Pam.

Meets the criteria of logic, yes or no?

[Kunga]

Yeah it's only logical that birth will eventually lead to old age, sickness, and death.
And it's logical that our attachments will lead to disappointments.
But there is also suffering knowing you must give it all up and live as if you were already dead !
Life is for living.
Be happy.
Make others happy.
Love
Be the best human being you can.
Compassionate activity is required prior to Enlightenment.
Bodhisattvas first, then Buddhas......

It's Logic

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

I don't believe that there are enough elements there to meet the criteria of logic, but it does seem to be true that people understand suffering more when they experience it. I do believe that all people experience suffering, but those who suffer objectively worse situations may be given to trivialize the pain of someone who has experienced an objectively less severe situation. Therefore I do not believe that "the lower level serves as basis for the higher, by which it is absorbed and comprehended."

I also would like to redirect you to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which posits that the lower needs must be met before a person will seek higher needs (or as Kevin Solway has said, you can't discuss philosophy with a man whose head is on fire, as he is too busy looking for a bucket of water to put it out).

Pain is a motivator to relieve suffering, but it is the relief of the pain that makes the seeking possible. The trick is to maintain the motivation once the pain is relieved enough that one can seek a way to improve the human condition.

[Dennis Mahar]

Be happy.
Make others happy.
Love
Be the best human being you can.
Compassionate activity is required prior to Enlightenment.

That looks like people pleasing,
pull that stunt and your heart will get broken.

Be love and the rest can work out their own response.
Nirvana and samsara aren't different worlds.
Ineffable silence.
absolute being, your human possibility, is inherently peaceful.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

A definition of suffering uncovering its interdependent levels of appearance:

At the most elementary level suffering appears as physical pain and oppression, manifest most clearly in the events of birth, sickness, aging and death, as well as in hunger, thirst, privation, and bodily discomfort. At a higher level it comes to be seen as a psychological fact — as the sorrow and frustration springing from our separation from what is desired, our meeting with what is disliked, and the disappointment of our expectations. And at the third and highest level suffering becomes manifest in its essential form, as the inherent unsatisfactoriness of the samsaric round in which we turn without purpose on account of our ignorance and attachments. These three tiers are not mutually exclusive. In each case the lower level serves as basis for the higher, by which it is absorbed and comprehended. Thus, though the penetration of the highest stage, the essential suffering comprised in the "five clinging aggregates" (pañcupadanakkhandha), represents the climax of understanding, this realization comes as the fruit of a long period of preparation grounded upon the first flash of insight into the basic inadequacy of the human condition. Such an insight usually dawns through particular experiences typical of the first two stages of suffering — through sudden pain, loss or disappointment, or through chronic anxiety, confusion, and distress. But in order to become the stimulus to a higher course of development, our vision must be capable of rising from the particular to the universal. It is only when we see clearly for ourselves that we are "sunk in birth, aging, and death, in sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair, sunk in suffering, overcome by suffering" (MN 29), that we are really ready for the means to bring this unsatisfactory condition to an end. ~ Source: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... el277.html

Meets the criteria of logic, yes or no?

It's puzzling why the text would start with "elementary" level at the bottom and then work to the "highest" level with is then essential. What's the difference between elementary and essential? Which one would then be the most fundamental or subtle? Or in other words which one is closer to the truth of the matter and which one more illusion prone and stuck in mirror images? Therefore I'd say that the higher level serves as basis for the lower and therefore ignorance at the higher levels would result in the clinging at the "lower" existence or its apprehension of suffering (which are the same).

In other words, we don't have to add new exciting understandings to our being but we have to learn to understand where the wrong ones are already functioning at our own apex.

[Leyla Shen]

I do believe that all people experience suffering, but those who suffer objectively worse situations may be given to trivialize the pain of someone who has experienced an objectively less severe situation. Therefore I do not believe that "the lower level serves as basis for the higher, by which it is absorbed and comprehended."

You don’t believe that a person suffering the inherent unsatisfactoriness of the samsaric round on account of his ignorance and attachments is doing so because they have absorbed and comprehended the first two of the three interdependent tiers of suffering?

Basis and cause are two different things.

Yes, I think it's logically consistent.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Are you grasping after a desirable object Pam.

Seems like it, the same with Laird.

Why is this subject being debated so much? Didn't the sages we discuss here (buddha and sometimes lao tzu) make it abundantly clear?

See some things as good, other things become bad. (Duality, simple, dependent origination).

The amount of supporting doctrine from the buddha on the subjects of preference/aversion, duality, distinction, attachment to names, etc there is no need to quote at all.

It's the difference between reading it and recognizing what it means that things lack inherent quality.

[Dennis Mahar]

Buddha taught these 2,
Bliss
Emptiness

His starting point was suffering in order to expose it as fraud.

[Pam Seeback]

Are you grasping after a desirable object Pam.

Meets the criteria of logic, yes or no?

I am not grasping after a desirable object, I am reasoning a desirable object, big difference. Grasping happens when one doubts that release from conditioned existence is possible. In asking for feedback from others on the forum with regards to what I consider excellent reasoning of suffering, it helps me develop my own reasoning of the subject.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it is not your goal [as it is mine] to exit from the ignorance that is birth into any [impermanent] realm, be it of pain or of pleasure, but rather, to be born into an [impermanent] realm that supports pleasurable conditions, one such as the realm you appear to be enchanted with now, that of 'wonder.' Do you understand the enchantment of wonder to be a condition of suffering, and if so, do you think it is your task to reason your exit from enchantment?

[Pam Seeback]

Buddha taught these 2,
Bliss
Emptiness

His starting point was suffering in order to expose it as fraud.

The Buddha taught bliss, but as a condition for existence. Where did the Buddha teach that suffering is a fraud?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Buddha taught these 2,
Bliss
Emptiness

His starting point was suffering in order to expose it as fraud.

The Buddha taught bliss, but as a condition for existence. Where did the Buddha teach that suffering is a fraud?

Buddha replies: "I have taught one thing and one thing only, suffering and the cessation of suffering".

And no, that's not two things since ignorance on suffering is how suffering arises. Nothing more to say.

[Pam Seeback]

Yeah it's only logical that birth will eventually lead to old age, sickness, and death.
And it's logical that our attachments will lead to disappointments.
But there is also suffering knowing you must give it all up and live as if you were already dead !
Life is for living.
Be happy.
Make others happy.
Love
Be the best human being you can.
Compassionate activity is required prior to Enlightenment.
Bodhisattvas first, then Buddhas......

It's Logic

Indeed, the condition for compassion is a logical prerequisite for enlightenment. No condition of compassion, no release from the condition of hatred (ill will, anger, etc., conditions of strong clinging which are often demonstrated on this board.)

[Pam Seeback]

Be happy.
Make others happy.
Love
Be the best human being you can.
Compassionate activity is required prior to Enlightenment.

That looks like people pleasing,
pull that stunt and your heart will get broken.

Be love and the rest can work out their own response.
Nirvana and samsara aren't different worlds.
Ineffable silence.
absolute being, your human possibility, is inherently peaceful.

Having compassion for the suffering of sentient beings, or conscious beings has nothing whatsoever to do with people pleasing.

It is illogical to say that nirvana and samsara are not different worlds. If they were the same world, they would have the same name. Samsara is all about wandering through existence being ignorant that one is wandering, whereas nirvana is wisdom of why one wanders and how to end the wandering. They are not the same worlds, however, they are dependent supporting conditions for release from conditioned existence.

[Pam Seeback]

A definition of suffering uncovering its interdependent levels of appearance:

At the most elementary level suffering appears as physical pain and oppression, manifest most clearly in the events of birth, sickness, aging and death, as well as in hunger, thirst, privation, and bodily discomfort. At a higher level it comes to be seen as a psychological fact — as the sorrow and frustration springing from our separation from what is desired, our meeting with what is disliked, and the disappointment of our expectations. And at the third and highest level suffering becomes manifest in its essential form, as the inherent unsatisfactoriness of the samsaric round in which we turn without purpose on account of our ignorance and attachments. These three tiers are not mutually exclusive. In each case the lower level serves as basis for the higher, by which it is absorbed and comprehended. Thus, though the penetration of the highest stage, the essential suffering comprised in the "five clinging aggregates" (pañcupadanakkhandha), represents the climax of understanding, this realization comes as the fruit of a long period of preparation grounded upon the first flash of insight into the basic inadequacy of the human condition. Such an insight usually dawns through particular experiences typical of the first two stages of suffering — through sudden pain, loss or disappointment, or through chronic anxiety, confusion, and distress. But in order to become the stimulus to a higher course of development, our vision must be capable of rising from the particular to the universal. It is only when we see clearly for ourselves that we are "sunk in birth, aging, and death, in sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair, sunk in suffering, overcome by suffering" (MN 29), that we are really ready for the means to bring this unsatisfactory condition to an end. ~ Source: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... el277.html

Meets the criteria of logic, yes or no?

It's puzzling why the text would start with "elementary" level at the bottom and then work to the "highest" level with is then essential. What's the difference between elementary and essential? Which one would then be the most fundamental or subtle? Or in other words which one is closer to the truth of the matter and which one more illusion prone and stuck in mirror images? Therefore I'd say that the higher level serves as basis for the lower and therefore ignorance at the higher levels would result in the clinging at the "lower" existence or its apprehension of suffering (which are the same).

In other words, we don't have to add new exciting understandings to our being but we have to learn to understand where the wrong ones are already functioning at our own apex.

Diebert, I agree that the highest level of suffering is the fundamental level of suffering, but obviously, the highest fundamental level does not make its appearance until the lowest 'surface' levels are first experienced. This is what I took from the article I quoted. The Buddha is a perfect example. As the story goes, he knew not of the highest level of suffering until he first witnessed sickness, aging and death, identified in the article as the elementary (or surface?) levels of suffering. It was this experience of the surface levels of suffering that propelled him to 'enter' the highest or most profound, fundamental level of suffering. Whether one understands the story of the Buddha's introduction to suffering to be literal or metaphorical, what is important is its reference to the logic of suffering's 'unfolding' of [caused] levels.

I also agree that ignorance at the higher levels results in the clinging at the "lower" levels. Coming 'down' from the impermanence of bliss results in the experience of the impermanence of disappointment, misery and woe. I have a young friend who suffers from bipolar disorder who is attracted to Buddhist thought and even though she understands intellectually that the goal is to transcend both bliss and woe, she remains clinging to the foundational ideal of bliss. A clinging to duality while she continues to believe she has found the answer to nonduality, a clinging to denial of truth that most traveling sufferers adopt at some point on the 'path', myself included.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

You don’t believe that a person suffering the inherent unsatisfactoriness of the samsaric round on account of his ignorance and attachments is doing so because they have absorbed and comprehended the first two of the three interdependent tiers of suffering?

Correct. According to the quote, the following are the tiers:

Tier 1: physical pain and oppression, manifest most clearly in the events of birth, sickness, aging and death, as well as in hunger, thirst, privation, and bodily discomfort.

Tier 2: the sorrow and frustration springing from our separation from what is desired, our meeting with what is disliked, and the disappointment of our expectations.

Tier 3: the inherent unsatisfactoriness of the samsaric round in which we turn without purpose on account of our ignorance and attachments

The author makes the latter point moot because all have experienced birth, and even all babies with the capacity for desire have experienced separation from what is desired, and all similarly developed people (what I'm excluding are those so mentally retarded that they can not function even so much as to have desire) also experience the suffering of samsara, but there is nothing directly pointing to the absorption and comprehension of the first two tiers being the basis of the third tier.

Basis and cause are two different things.

Yes, they are - but basis means that upon which something else stands. The author has not clearly drawn out how the third tier necessarily stands on the first two tiers - and calling them tiers only gives a false parallel to something on which one must necessarily stand.

[Dennis Mahar]

Jesus Pam,
suffering is a boon for you,
a Thing of Joy,
you get around all the places and tell all about suffering, how to fix it, that it will end.
You get to feel like Mother Theresa.
Wearing the halo.
Get up in the morning with a zip and a zest,
a wonderfulness,
The game plan is down pat.
Zipedee-doo-da Zipedee-de-ay, my oh my what a wonderful day.

What would you do without suffering?
It's your ticket to ride.
Blissfull.

Nirvana is a radical shift in perspective.

[Leyla Shen]

Elizabeth:

[...] but there is nothing directly pointing to the absorption and comprehension of the first two tiers being the basis of the third tier.

That’s not true. You just left it out when you quoted the author.

For example, you wrote:

Correct. According to the quote, the following are the tiers:

Tier 1: physical pain and oppression, manifest most clearly in the events of birth, sickness, aging and death, as well as in hunger, thirst, privation, and bodily discomfort.

Tier 2: the sorrow and frustration springing from our separation from what is desired, our meeting with what is disliked, and the disappointment of our expectations.

Tier 3: the inherent unsatisfactoriness of the samsaric round in which we turn without purpose on account of our ignorance and attachments

Yet, according to the quote:

At a higher level it comes to be seen as a psychological fact — as the sorrow and frustration springing from our separation from what is desired, our meeting with what is disliked, and the disappointment of our expectations.

“It” (suffering) is not an experience of physical pain and loss at this level, but emotional suffering, which seems to be exactly what you imply here with “objectively less severe”:

[...] but those who suffer objectively worse situations may be given to trivialize the pain of someone who has experienced an objectively less severe situation.

And yet straight after that statement, you say:

Therefore I do not believe that "the lower level serves as basis for the higher, by which it is absorbed and comprehended."

Those who suffer objectively worse situations aren’t “given” (implicitly, a psychological inclination) to trivialise the pain of someone who has experienced an objectively less severe situation, since you already stated that they are actually suffering an objectively worse situation--like having their head on fire while you're trying to accuse them of trivialising your need for sympathy because your dog just died.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

--like having their head on fire while you're trying to accuse them of trivializing your need for sympathy because your dog just died.

Causes like pain of a burning or sadness about a dog are both still firmly "tier 1", no matter if it's physically or psychologically. With "tier 2" is meant that the causes are found out to be actually deep lying preferences not to feel that pain or sadness but instead some opposite, causes which can be physically as well psychologically. The third tier is then more about insight how ones whole being is build around this dynamic, including any desired escape from that being. When seen that way the tiers appear as increasing finer grained analyses on suffering and being.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Diebert, I agree that the highest level of suffering is the fundamental level of suffering, but obviously, the highest fundamental level does not make its appearance until the lowest 'surface' levels are first experienced. This is what I took from the article I quoted. The Buddha is a perfect example. As the story goes, he knew not of the highest level of suffering until he first witnessed sickness, aging and death, identified in the article as the elementary (or surface?) levels of suffering. It was this experience of the surface levels of suffering that propelled him to 'enter' the highest or most profound, fundamental level of suffering. Whether one understands the story of the Buddha's introduction to suffering to be literal or metaphorical, what is important is its reference to the logic of suffering's 'unfolding' of [caused] levels.

Wisdom, no matter how intellectual its arrival might be, does tend to work its way through and as such has consequences for all aspects of life and experiencing. Not just as relief, on the contrary. It's like in Ecclesiastes (1:18) "Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain". This alone will keep bliss seekers as far as removed from wisdom as a talking donkey would move from a pointy stick. The whole thing is completely counterintuitive! One seeks support and liberation in a thought, ritual or embrace and all one gets is the invitation to increase the experience of loss and pain, to flesh it out! Whole new levels of terror can be explored and in that metaphorical desert one easily longs back to the basic suffering of slavery and toil of "Egypt", the very thing that made the move possible in the first place. At least one still existed firmly in that suffering!

You've been writing about how witnessing upon close his own sickness, aging and death could have been transforming the person "behind" Buddha in the end. It remains difficult to analyze the path of other people, like the trajectory of your bipolar friend. Even our body will prefer good states over bad ones like our mind tends to see wisdom in all peace, understanding and people thriving. Right understanding however is something else.

[Leyla Shen]

Causes like pain of a burning or sadness about a dog are both still firmly "tier 1", no matter if it's physically or psychologically. With "tier 2" is meant that the causes are found out to be actually deep lying preferences not to feel that pain or sadness but instead some opposite, causes which can be physically as well psychologically.

"Deep lying preferences not to feel [that] pain or sadness but instead the opposite" is the psychological.

The third tier is then more about insight how ones whole being is build around this dynamic, including any desired escape from that being. When seen that way the tiers appear as increasing finer grained analyses on suffering and being

.

Sure, in your own creative leap. However, I do not believe that is what meant in the OP. The third tier is about universality. So, not about individual, but human (species) suffering.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

"Deep lying preferences not to feel [that] pain or sadness but instead the opposite" is the psychological.

With preferences I meant here simple values, build-in or learned or "context sensitivity". You're turning here even fight and flight reactions into the psychological which is fine by me because Buddhism addresses sense and does not try to address the materiality of whatever is arising.

Sure, in your own creative leap. However, I do not believe that is what meant in the OP. The third tier is about universality. So, not about individual, but human (species) suffering.

Are you saying here that birth, pain and death are not universal to the human race? Not to mention our species could die off at some point too. The teachings only address one suffering. Any categories or tiers would only be there as different understandings of the issue of being, a layered and multi-faceted being becoming obvious when exploring the existence of suffering.

[Leyla Shen]

Diebert, you wrote:

"Deep lying preferences not to feel [that] pain or sadness but instead the opposite" is the psychological.

With preferences I meant here simple values, build-in or learned or "context sensitivity". You're turning here even fight and flight reactions into the psychological [...]

Yes, that is what is being said in the OP.

Birth, sickness, ageing and death comprise suffering in its most apparent form; objectively. But, as we know, the cycle of life (birth, sickness, ageing) and death are rarely, if ever, the sudden events they appear to be and the only possible way humans experience the actuality of this cycle personally is psychologically; or, subjectively. We can’t actually observe our own life and death as a biological process in the same way we observe life and death as an objective, external event/phenomena.

Are you saying here that birth, pain and death are not universal to the human race? Not to mention our species could die off at some point too. The teachings only address one suffering. Any categories or tiers would only be there as different understandings of the issue of being, a layered and multi-faceted being becoming obvious when exploring the existence of suffering.

This is the way I will express it: What is being said is that the highest level of suffering manifests as an unsatisfactoriness with existence as a result of the way suffering itself unfolds, if you will. At this level, in the human (and from here it is possible to understand the meaning of the realms other than human, too), it’s generalised and conceived of as the essence of all life, all species, without exclusion. Then he suggests that the penetration of this level (the essential suffering of the five aggregates and, hence, the “highest” level of suffering) comprises enlightenment.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

But, as we know, the cycle of life (birth, sickness, aging) and death are rarely, if ever, the sudden events they appear to be and the only possible way humans experience the actuality of this cycle personally is psychologically; or, subjectively. We can’t actually observe our own life and death as a biological process in the same way we observe life and death as an objective, external event/phenomena.

It's unclear why you'd want to distinguish here (if you are, really) between the actuality and the subjective experience since it seems to me that biological processing can never be objectively actual considering it's fabricated in the whole given context of impermanence, as "constructed actuality". And that's why all referencing to dukkha can only be about the experience, being the subjective in each and every "tier" one might bring to the table. This is why I wrote "no matter if it's physically or psychologically". What matters is that it can be understood and that causality itself cannot be suspended. Agreed about the sudden events although I'd say never (as with any finality: "you probably don't even hear it when it happens" -- Bobby Bacala). One instance clapping.

To recap, our experience can at best approach the "real" but suffering is in all cases firmly embedded as "unreal" and yet forms our very existence. Perhaps the more interesting question has always been, not what is meant with suffering (like nobody questions a=a) but what's meant with those references to cessation, liberation, enlightenment, that shit. Everyone can relate to the suffering part and add a layer of detail and experience to that. Perhaps that's what makes Buddhism at first so understandable and sensible sounding. And yet it can just as easily go nowhere and promote acceptance and passivity.

[Pam Seeback]

Diebert: Wisdom, no matter how intellectual its arrival might be, does tend to work its way through and as such has consequences for all aspects of life and experiencing. Not just as relief, on the contrary. It's like in Ecclesiastes (1:18) "Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain". This alone will keep bliss seekers as far as removed from wisdom as a talking donkey would move from a pointy stick. The whole thing is completely counterintuitive! One seeks support and liberation in a thought, ritual or embrace and all one gets is the invitation to increase the experience of loss and pain, to flesh it out! Whole new levels of terror can be explored and in that metaphorical desert one easily longs back to the basic suffering of slavery and toil of "Egypt", the very thing that made the move possible in the first place. At least one still existed firmly in that suffering!

This reminds me of the Nibbana Sutta where the Buddha addresses the afflictions of the monks who enter the four immaterial realms so as to become unbound from mental fermentations, but as their kamma dictates, they continue to experience bindings to their mental fermentations. The key word here is 'affliction.' Stubbing a toe = physical pain, not getting what one wants = ego pain, knowing that this is an illusion while at the same time striving to break free of the illusion that is this = affliction of psyche/conscience. And yes, sometimes one does indeed long for the simple days of ebb-and-flow, P & E pain.