Comment by toshk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toshk | Hacker News Reader

It ends with a zen quote. The point of zen, and other form of buddhism is often misunderstood.

A simple way of describing one of the core teaching of buddhism is one of the main reason we suffer is: We are constantly neurotically pulling for what we want, and pushing away what we don't want.

It means as a juggles we are constantly trying to juggle our live into a state from where we think will be fullfilled. For example once I create this successful company, not feel hungry, then I will experience meaning satisfaction. Or when Im loved, or when I have a beer etc...

It's a never ending neurotic cycle. And the West is especially good at it by being extremely success focused.

Buddhism gives you tools to break this habit, and allows for meaning to be experienced in every moment (without this forced concept of YOU HAVE TO BE MINDFULL).

This doesn't mean you don't have all these personal things that should and can be improved, but the neurotic unhapiness leaves the experience of it.

It's often interesting to see intitially buddhist techniques, like meditations, being only used in a success/goal oriented mindset: will make you more productive, succesfull etc. where only a small benefit of the initial exercise remains.

I don't know, the biggest flaw I've always seen in the quasi-buddhist approach is that some types of suffering - such as intense physical pain, or grief - simply aren't possible to be ignored or meditated or 'enlightened' out of. As long as you're feeling that pain, you're going to be uncomfortable. There is no way out of it.

The way I see it, life vacillates between peaks, plateaus and valleys. I assure you I and most other people can very much feel 'fulfilled' by reaching an oasis of a good meal, a relationship breakthrough, a milestone accomplishment or finding the right medication for an ailment, and be fully present & immersed in that moment-by-moment experience of fulfillment, meaning and satisfaction, while it lasts. But for reasons that I think boil down to biology and possibly even physics, you cannot continue experience that depth of meaning or fulfillment when having extreme back pain while driving in heavy traffic to an unpleasant job that must be done when your dog just died. It's a pipe dream.

> some types of suffering - such as intense physical pain, or grief - simply aren't possible to be ignored or meditated or 'enlightened' out of. As long as you're feeling that pain, you're going to be uncomfortable.

On the contrary, one of the points of Buddhism is exactly that pain and suffering are not the same thing (and this agrees very much with modern neurology and psychology).

The general question is: do you adjust to your environment or do you try to reshape your environment? There is no right or wrong. Some things, you can’t change, some you can. And it can be difficult to know when to adjust and when to reshape. At least it is for me.

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