How do we stop torturing ourselves?

This in response to Greenberg's definition of enlightenment as a state without suffering.

How do we reach that state?

 

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Death, I immagine would end all suffering but thats only assuming there is no afterlife......

Suffering is essential if you desire happiness and joy......

If it was never dark how would you know what light was?

Its a twisted set of rules i know.....

 

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Suicide. Very effective.

 

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There's nothing you can do. "You" are the problem all along. Enlightenment is so close that in looking for it, we overlook it.

 

Until the morning.

 

No, it's a stupid analogy. How does our capacity for contentment relate to our light-detection capabilities?

 

If enlightenment is simply just a state void of suffering then you will find no enlightenment in the company of your fellow man.

Man is accustomed to inflicting suffering on others......

too many variables within a lifetime to assure a life without suffering.

my conclusion is suffering is essential and cannot be avoided.

 

Analogy wasn't ment to be taken literaly. It has nothing to do with phisical light and darkness however the prinicpal is still there.

How would you know what happiness or contentment is if you never experienced the opposite. The whole philosophy of taoism revolves around this understanding.

At least in my personal life experience I find this true.

 

My point is that I don't believe that it's essential to experience suffering in order to experience happiness, joy or contentment. I base this on common sense.

 

Enlightenment is supremely joyful but after a while, that fades, because there is no suffering to compare it against. It feels good compared to the ordinary state of worry and anxiety most of us live in. Desire for happiness is one of the major causes of suffering.

 

But how may the rest of us join you, please?

 

Drown your thoughts in stillness. End all intentionality.

 

It "fades"? If there is fading, then there is change, then it is still conditioned, and if it is conditioned, it is not nirvana, it is not enlightenment.

Or - you have some other definition of enlightenment.

 

usually dance within oneself...sort of like hypnotic self induced trance

this stops torturing and allows to free mind and spirit.

 

Like an infant before it has learned to smile. We forget that we were the nucleus of suffering, and become truly free.

 

I see everyone's drugs are kicking in now. Jolly good.

 

You guys are talking about trance-like states, zoning out and such.
Those are not states without suffering, they are states of postponed awareness of suffering or denial of suffering.

 

and mundane everydayness is what...normal?

We see revelation and answer to the issue and you see just us and a mirror illusion of yourself struggling in us?

And drugs...what is not a drug? food is...lust is...need is.

Are you that afraid to change yourself for the better and realize that it is possible that you wish not to let go of that which you feel is normal but perhaps is not fully satisfying to you...and perhaps a torture for you?

What exactly is it that you fear?

 

denial of suffering is an illusion of happiness or a end to torturing of self.

So what if life is an illusion? So what if pain is real?... it is all the same to me.

Kill a bird with a stone or shoot it with a bullet...the meat tastes the same.

 

You.