Comment by b5 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by b5 | Hacker News Reader

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This is one of my favourite New Yorker articles. I wish they published more articles like this.

Suicidal thoughts are a really tough thing to deal with. I've struggled with them for my entire adult life -- more than 20 years now, and counting. They're also deeply personal, and it's hard to find a one-size-fits-all method of helping people through them.

In my case, I find them perversely soothing. Planning it out, and planning out the accompanying clean-up, is strangely calming for me; I suspect at least part of it is because it's applying a feeling of control and structure to otherwise chaotic, painful, or confusing situations. As I run through details in my head, the feelings that incited the thoughts begin to dimish.

I know, rationally, that it would be devastating for those left behind. I know, rationally, that no amount of preparation or planning will make it easier or less painful for them. I know, rationally, that suicide is not a solution for anything.

But it feels like all of the above. It feels like a release, like a perfect, lasting solution to pain and confusion and distress I've carried with me for so long.

I'm lucky that I've found some kind of equilibrium that's allowed me to work through them when they occur, relatively harmlessly. I know others who aren't so lucky, and who haven't found something that works for them. Some of thoem have died; others have survived, but aren't whole since.

It's something that's hard for us to talk about, and current society doesn't seem predisposed to talk about. Many of those suffering the most are faced by a media climate that's not helpful or supportive, and makes it hard for some of the most emotionally and psychologically vulnerable to seek help because of who they were born.

If you've ever had thoughts, please don't suffer in silence: try to find someone, anyone, to talk to. In the UK, we have the Samaritans[1] on 116123 (free to call). There's also Breathing Space Scotland[2] on 0800 83 85 87 (also free).

[1]: https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan...

[2]: https://breathingspace.scot/

Buddhism has an explanation for why these thoughts are soothing. It comes down to thinking provides a level of control and an appearance of a illusion you feel in control of. But alas this is illusion. The mind simply likes thinking. In fact Buddhists off camera will say your addicted to thinking. I believe this will be shown to be true. The default mode network may be the “addiction to thinking.”

I think the solution might be somewhat simple, something I've noticed recently while trying to deal with my own stress. I recalled that as a child I would often do something very strange. I would just lay on the floor staring at the carpet, just completely mesmerized by the most banal of things. I'm mean there's less happening than watching paint dry. Or I would sit out in the yard in the fresh air and stare and some patch of dirt and grass for some period of time. I spoke to my girlfriend and she said that she recalled doing something similar. she said she had a very distinct memory of a door knob and just starting at it. I think maybe most children do this instinctively and forget it when they grow up. And rather than worry about complex esoteric philosophies just practicing a simple child like act for some time a day can help (and yes I know this is similar to practices known as grounding, but maybe more time is necessary to be devoted to it for it to restore inner calm)

I haven't ever heard of the explanation you offer for why thoughts are helpful (having the appearance of control over an apparent illusion?).

Thinking is required in buddhist practise, it's just not thinking about anything you please.

Also, one usually deals with the coarser forms of suffering first, and no special esoteric philosophies and techniques are needed to address them, usually just clear thinking and problem solving is required.

"having the appearance of control over an apparent illusion?"

Just before Ninakawa passed away the Zen master Ikkyu visited him. “Shall I lead you on?” Ikkyu asked.

Ninakawa replied: “I came here alone and I go alone. What help could you be to me?”

Ikkyu answered: “If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. Let me show you the path on which there is no coming and going.”

I get what is being referred to, but if you are implying that buddhism teaches everything is an illusion, the Buddha himself specifically warned his followers away from nihilism and solipsism.

Your everyday conventional wisdom is not negated by buddhism.

For example, buddhist people use the word 'I' all the time ("Let me show you the path on which there is no coming and going."), despite trying to realise the doctrine of 'no self" in their practise.

The doctrines attempt to eliminate suffering, proceeding from the coarsest levels down to more and more subtle forms of suffering.

The delusion the monk is suffering from here, can only become uncovered after much work has been done clearing the way first.

This Zen parable is faulty wisdom (like so much of Mahayana and Vajrayana fanfiction). The title the Buddha used to refer to himself, Tathagata, can simultaneously be translated as, "Thus Comes One" and "Thus Goes One". It's not about a path where there is no coming and going, it's about both simultaneously.

> This Zen parable is faulty wisdom (like so much of Mahayana and Vajrayana fanfiction)

Please don't promote sectarian strife here.

Buddhism is a living tradition and always has been. Theravadins have no monopoly on "true" Buddhism - the Pali canon was transcribed hundreds of years after the death of Gautama Buddha and the authorship and authenticity of many parts of the canon remain disputed within the Theravada tradition.

Perhaps more to the point, a quotation from Nanda-manava-puccha (as translated by Thanissaro Bhikku):

"Whatever brahmans & contemplatives describe purity in terms of views & learning, describe purity in terms of precepts & practices, describe purity in terms of manifold ways: none of them, living there in that way, I tell you, have crossed over birth & aging."

What?

The Buddha is speaking very specifically in the quote you've mentioned of a class of religious priest, the brahman, and the contemplative engaging in jhanic meditations that do not lead to the ending of suffering.

You're right, the words of the Buddha weren't written down for hundreds of years after but across those earliest texts flung across space and time, we find an astonishing harmony.

Look, I'm seeing calls to end my supposed promotion of sectarian strife: I love Three Pillars of Zen, have obsessively studied the Mahayana epic the Surangama Sutra, and washed myself in the pure poetry of the Complete Reality school. But I cannot stress enough, and neither did the Buddha, in the importance of incisive, unequivocal language when it comes to identifying right view.

Vajrayana, the deeply mystical arm of Buddhism, stresses the importance of a guru relationship to the disciple, fraught with a history of sexual manipulation. Unquestioned power structures do this. We have thousands of years of history to support this.

Mahayana Buddhism gave birth to Zen, perhaps the cleanest strain to emerge but which sacrificed an essential tenet: that a monk should not grow their own food; should rely on the continuing generosity of the people to survive. It is further compromised by the trappings of rites and rituals, which the Buddha of the early texts rejected.

And what of Nichiren who famously declared that enlightenment was impossible in such a fallen world? The same enlightenment the pre-Mahayana Buddha stressed was for everyone?

"And what of Nichiren who famously declared that enlightenment was impossible in such a fallen world?"

Nothing, or better yet, no thing. They're just wrong.

great truths are paradox -- both true and not true, at once

You are talking about 'dialectical statements' statements that contain an apparent contradiction.

They are not true and false at the same time, they are only commonly understood to be a contradiction, and the point of the koan or statement is to push the practitioner to is to see through the apparent contradictions.

Koans and Zen stories are a training aid, but are not a substitute for common sense.

Usually the contradiction occurs because the opposing statements come from different levels of analysis (the conventional: "I am going to 7/11 to get a drink.) the ultimate (I am just an unfolding process dependent on conditions that changes from one second to another, so in a way there is no I that goes to 7/11 ...).

The thing is, even though 'ultimate' sounds more awesome, buddhists say "I" all the time. Just the same way that engineers use classical mechanics every day for certain classes of problems, because there's no need to bring in disappearing cats and quantum weirdness for that level of analysis.

To every level of suffering, there are appropriate tools, but for some reason in the west, we often prefer to discuss complex subtle metaphysical statements we don't really understand¹, than to just go clean up the mess in the kitchen, which is a more pressing issue.

The only reason I'm even engaging in this kind of talk is to discourage others from approaching buddhism that way.

1: Because they are meant to be experienced, not thought about. Full disclosure, I only know what I don't know, and I don't fully understand them either.

There is nothing contradictory here. The beauty of the title is to impress upon the listener the essential nature of the liberated mind and all of existence as non-dual. It isn't one or the other because the further down you go, what emerges vanishes instantaneously, simultaneously.

Zen and Vajrayana practices can be an effective tool but I see more faulty thinking in its practitioners than people who stick to Sravakayana (Theravada + surviving canon of the other Early Buddhist schools).

Everything is a delusion. There is a reason why the gate is gateless, and it's the same reason why "no thing" is a recurring theme.

Gautama was only one of the 33 buddhas, the last one so far. His entire life he was preparing to die and do so permanently in order to end the cycle of suffering.

Thinking is required but knowing your thinking is the first step. We slip into thinking without knowing and that is the problem. How many hours does the depressed person wallow? Enjoying the trauma they control in their mind as they "future" the coming doom they will face or the regret of the past. There is nothing esoteric. Less than 100 hours of meditation can get you to this insight.

Is it an illusion? Control of whether or not you are alive sounds very much like real control to me

I wish they published more articles like this.

Like how, exactly? About suicide? About foreign culture? From a monk?

You're taking that a little too literally. I wish they published more human-focussed, long-form writing on a range of topics that is readable and relevant even years after it's first published. It seems to have veered quite heavily into fast-cycle political stuff in the last couple of years.

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