Find the cause of suffering
 

The basis of Gotama's teachings is to acknowledge ones own suffering, find the cause, and thus end suffering.

Most of us suffer and find cause in external things that hurt us. This means suffering is linked to sensation. The question is, does sensation cause suffering, or is it the way we relate to sensation that is cause?

In the meditation, mindfulness, we are aware of ourselves, body, mind, emotion, just as they are as they happen to arise. The obstacle to this is 'distraction'. We can drift off into autopilot and become unconscious of what is actually happening, and instead, live in an imaginary world created in reaction to the actual real lived experience.

In sitting practice we soon see we are aware of our sensation and thought, and then we drift away into imaginary pasts, futures and fantasies. It's not bad or incorrect to do this. The meditation practice just enables a conscious recognition of it. Now you know, 'so this is what I do'.

From that preliminary, the the same process of being aware, noticing and discovering continues, revealing the truth about ourselves. Through this process of 'sati' we soon come to learn about how we relate to sensation - including physical, emotional and psychological - and come to realise how we cause our own suffering by relating to sensation in a somewhat delusional way.

Once this cause is identified, each new arising of suffering is recognised as 'something I do', rather than 'something that happens to me'... and we are thereby led to understand the way to bring suffering to an end.

Desire (and aversion) is the cause of suffering. To eliminate suffering, we must first eliminate desire.

The desire to eliminate desire?

Another very wise post by you Gem. I just hope I'm not the only one who recognizes the wisdom you share. We all have our own capacity for discernment, although it may be that you and I simply think in a similar way. But I do feel that you bring a uniquely insightful teaching to the table.

As far as the cause of suffering goes, perhaps the whole process of 'becoming' - of ever seeking a future goal or state, and denying the divine reality that exists NOW.

I guess it's somewhat of a paradox. We grow in time, yet reality is beyond time. Or maybe we grow in the awareness and understanding of ourselves and of divine truth in time, so in time we come to know the timeless.

From my experiences I find it's attachment to desire that causes suffering not desire alone. If you try to eliminate desire then you are desiring not to desire... Attachments are transient so we will always suffer loss which causes suffering, The only constant thing in our lives is change, we desire to control our lives and make them permanently fixed and when we realize it's impossible to go against the natural force of the universe then it causes suffering.
Desire all you want, but without the attachment :smile:

Easier said than done though, sometimes....

I think it's attachment to desire Shaunc, not desire. You cannot survive without desires, but you can rise above the attachment to the desires.

i figure it would be attachment to an unrealized desire that would cause the pain.
i sense suffering to be a painful stimuli that doesn't get resolution...
prolonged pain is what i believe suffering to be. it's like having an
untreated wound... the aching just continues.

But isn't desire attachment? If you desire something, isn't there some level of attachment to it or to the results? Doesn't desire arise from attachment?

I'm very attached to my desires knowing suffering can happen as a result. Perhaps a cause for suffering is the fear of it.

Desires are like wishes but attachment to the desires are when your wishes don't come true and cause you suffering/unsatisfaction.

We all have desires it's a normal part of life, desire motivates people, but there are positive/negative desires also. Unrealistic desires cause misery/suffering and more. I think and have found that if my desires/wishes don't become fulfilled then it's best to accept this and move on without attachment. Clinging to the ' why not ' causes more suffering.

I think in Buddhism suffering is wanting or expecting things to be different than they are. It seems to be similar to some Christianity teachings, to let go and surrender to God's will, accept things as they are or in Buddhism, let go of self or thoughts about what now should be. Accept it in silence and emptiness. Just be present in each moment without desire or effort or conflict.

Inner and outer peace is the goal of many religions.

Buddha was quite clear that even realized attachements are a cause for suffering. Except for the desire to reach nirvana. Once that is realized you're good.

Reason being that every phenomenon is transient, so once attained or realized it's leaving or vanishing is allready a certainty.

With Love
Eelco

That all makes sense to me. I think nirvana is emptiness so I was thinking. yes if one realizes or embodies emptiness, there is no self there as far as thought. Consciousness and awareness is there though. But no ego type stuff. So that realization leaves no residue. It does not create desire or anything really. It just is. So no suffering can come from that if present. I suppose it may pass and so perhaps thought or ego can come in and seek it creating conflict or suffering but then nirvana, if one knows where it hides, creates no conflict in it's pursuit since the known method of residing there is letting go of seeking.

I agree with you sky123
 

i know clinging to desire which was not fulfilled is painful.but some times clinging is not in controll.some times no desire but illusion also worry people

' Consciousness and awareness is there though. But no ego type stuff.'

I think of this as ' Awareness without consciousness ' a state of pure awareness, been there many times but unfortunately it doesn't last :smile:

Yes it's difficult to let go sometimes but it is possible and we can but try :smile:

Thanks for sharing this. It really resonates with me.

I was reading some quotes by Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck yesterday and she said the same thing - suffering comes from not accepting what is and demanding it be different. I had heard that before but I didn't realize how much it applies to ME. So I take your post as a confirmation message.

Maybe the only way to overcome desire and attachment is by replacing them with LOVE.

Desires seem to constantly arise, but if we could deliberately take a perspective of choosing love (including self-love), in each moment, it could be a great healing.

In other words, in the present moment, when desire arises, we could choose to love, in whatever form love may take, instead of seeking pleasure or fulfilling attachment.

Isn't selfless desires love?

Tanha-Desires/Cravings.
 

Some plays on words based on your post comes to my mind...

Are you sure you were there when pure awareness was present?

If it is present, are you?

Maybe you have never been there, but the absence of "you" manifests the experience of it.

How do we know we are not always there?

How do we know it doesn't last?

If we are awareness, then we are there always if we are awake. But then why do we not experience it always? Why are we aware of other realities. Why does awareness focus on thought, beliefs, ideas and not the emptiness and peace and mystery of now? Why is reality contracting instead of expanding? I would guess it's because awareness is preoccupied with the things in the ball that make up the self. When awareness takes it's attention off of these things they cease to be a part of experience and so experience changes. One finds themselves there. But then we are always there just choosing to make here about self and not about what it is. We make it about the self and not about what it is without self.

IMO it's the relationship to the desire that causes suffering.

I once forced myself to not desire or want certain things, but since progressing on my journey I realised that it is perfectly fine to want or desire things, as long as I remain detached from them, not clinging to them and having an expectation as this is what caused suffering for me.

Remaining healthy with your wants, but have acceptance and detachment in all things allowing life to be as it is, not as I expect.

Yes that's how I feel, attachments, cravings are the problem, not the desires.

Why, where, when and how..... Who knows, it's a mystery to me.
The only thing I do know through experience is you can be aware before consciousness comes. Awareness is a feeling without thoughts but once consciouness arises I begin to think and loose the pure awareness my thoughts bring me back out of the feelings. It's very hard to explain but I is a feeling of oneness.

Recently I have found myself in a path to understand more deeply my mind with the hope that understanding it will bring it to a more still peaceful state. My belief is that still mind is pivotal in knowing God, Self, Light, etc.
So I'm watching, keeping a journal and creating for myself a Sadhana or practice to help me move forward.
I am noticing so much about my mind each day and one of the things that is helpful is to note that it is the relationship to the restless conditioned state of my kind that can be seen for what it is. Identifying with my condition. The mind has become my God rather than the tool that reflects my God.
Lately I've noticed from this practice that what I viewed as a me who loves life so much that he can't wait to get up in the morning, may really be the effect of a mind so restless and in need of peace that can't wait to feed it's wants. I find that it's almost immediately after feeding those wants that a condition of wanting more is created.
So for me as a start in overcoming this, I agree that the wants or desires are not the issue, the restless nature of the mind is. The mind itself is also not the issue, in fact within it lies the answer.
It's not about clinging to the wants and desires for me, it's about clinging to those wants and desires as them being mine.
I'm not sure how a mind so still and at peace relates to the good things in life that I enjoy so much but I do notice the fear in finding out so my approach going forward is not to deny or try to detach from these cravings or desires because that is just the mind playing games with the mind, my approach is to trust the process of understanding that comes from strengthening that relationship with Self or God. It is by grace that the condition my mind is in will change to its perfect condition of stillness and peace as it reflects life, God, Light and me as I truly am.
It is by this effort or Sadhana that this grace can find its way in.

Thanks for listening

I am beginning to see that it's not even that, something I do. It's the condition the mind is in, restless, lazy, unstill.
I say it is not something I do because it is that same mind that sees itself as restless that sees itself as the I that is in something I do. That mind does not know who I is. I am beginning tibsee this I as the feeling or power of God or Self relating to itself and a clear still mind is the vehicle in which it does this.
It's God relating to itself thru it's creation which is its power and this can only be reflected thru a clear mind.
I'm not really disagreeing with what you said, I'm expanding on it as it is unfolding for me.

That's a great answer!


I understand what you are saying. I think I will have some difficulty communicating with you because of how you use or define the word consciousness. For me, for a long time, I've used that word to refer to my true self, what I am, what is aware. In fact, I see awareness as an aspect of conscious energy. Like how the human body can see, or can hear, I would say a consciousness can be aware, or can identify with the human mind.

I think basically you use the word awareness where I use the word consciousness. Also you use the word consciousness to describe an "awareness" that is identified with the human mind. So yea lol, some difficulties in communicating but I get the meanings behind the words we have been conditioned to use to refer to things in different ways.

It would be hard for me to refer to the real self as only awareness because of the complexities of my belief system. I like to think about how things work so I need more parts in my model. Part of my conditioning is from college classes I took in religion and philosophy where I think historically, philosophers referred to the true self as "consciousness" or as the "soul" in some cases and not awareness. Part of the philosophical idea being a "consciousness" can be aware or not aware. An aware consciousness can choose to not identify with the false self and an unaware consciousness passively accepts the false self as the self. But yea all of this is only important if one wants to write about such things or be a philosopher.

Exactly.

''Mine'' is ego in the sense of attaching yourself to something and ''owning'' it. Things come, things go. It is getting to a place of genuine comfort and acceptance of this, which I don't think is easy, if we're all truly honest to ourselves.

Of course we own things, it is life, and we say the words ''That is mine'' often, but if we can come from a place of knowing things are impermanent in the physical world, that either they leave us, or we leave it first, at some point whatever it is, is going to end, be it a car or a house, for example.

Seeing them for what they are is essential, IMO. As I said, it's not easy as we're so conditioned to act in the opposite way, but if we can strive for detachment from these things we are on our way to freedom.

Thank you for your thoughts.

'That's a great answer!'.....

To answer I need to think :smile: I try not to think unless I have to, I don't trust my thoughts so I prefer feelings.
Consciousness is the ' I am '
Awareness is 'Am ' that's how I feel at the moment but my feelings have plenty of flexibility :D

Rather than finding the cause of suffering wouldn't our time and energy be better spent on finding the cessation of suffering.

To end suffering you need to find the cause :smile:

Cause and effect....

Ignorance (of True Self)

I guess it depends on your current situation. If you're not suffering then it would be a waste of time and energy worrying about it. If you are already suffering and you feel something can be done about it, then do it. If not then accept it. You don't have to like it but you can accept it. Resisting suffering just makes it stronger. More easier to accept that suffering is a part of life and that it will happen regardless of how detached one pretends to be.

Thankyou for sharing.

I relate this to the point of when I realized that to end all suffering in myself I had to take full responsibility for all things reacting, moving in myself, creating ideas about, with regards to all external occurrence's. This was a turning point for myself to learn that I could go that deep in myself from moment to moment of my life and grow through the lived the experience rather than just through a sitting practice as such, I make use of the sitting practice as my "presence wherever I am" practice in the life experience itself... In some ways you might call this a conscious living the meditation practice. Now I see things more directly as they are including myself, and my movements are often much less in relation to external matters now. Staying present feels less draining, less taxing and effortless now.

IN reading through your words, it shows me what I believe, that the potential to end suffering is only as real as deep and real you can get with yourself. Being totally self reflective with all occurrence's going on within the mind/body system, to become the bridge to pure consciousness or spiritual transcendence. My own mystical experiences allowed me to see this early on in my process, to show me the way to moving from mind to feeling mode to release the fullness of my own involvement through a faster manifestation process that was coming in the future as one.

Also through this process, I was able to notice the differences between detachment and resting more open and aware in the fullness of knowing/clear feeling and seeing. I remember going that deep into each strain of my own personal issues connected to my own suffering, that I could pull the root completely away eventually, allowing a clean canvas to be created ready for planting. There are many ways to heal and end suffering, but certainly I relate to the end of suffering when you can find all end points in your own mind/body awareness that no longer reacts to itself..

For me, one cause of self caused suffering is my relationship with some negative thoughts. Total and absolute detachment from them is needed to end the suffering. The kind of detachment where they are a million miles away, so far, I could not discern what they were saying even if I wanted to. It's not a resisting or avoiding kind of detachment, that would mean the negative thoughts are still there somehow or still have some power. It's more like letting in an intense light that wholly dissolves them into nothingness. Then one is in a totally free expansive open joyful state.

I thought craving and desire were just the same thing.

There are healthy desires and unhealthy desires, healthy are aspirations but cravings become obsessive and cause suffering when there not fullfilled. We can't exist without desires they motivate us but we just move on when they don't turn out the way we want or expect them to, cravings cause us to hold on and cling,

I try to replace a negative thought with a possitive thought or I don't follow the negative ones down the motorway but leave it on the lay-by :smile:
Different methods work for different people but as long as they work that's what's important.

I get confused with Buddhist meanings. I read somewhere once, that Dukkha doesn't translate as suffering but rather dissatisfaction. So meanings can be confusing.. Likewise with the cause of Dukkha not desire, but craving .. So who brought desire and and suffering into all this?

I think the second post said cause is aversion and desire.

To me it seems like things have been said before and we like to take them as answers and repeat them. I have heard all these same answers very many times.

The word Dukkha is one of those words that doesn't have a particular English translation because in Pali it means a wide range of things depending on the context it is used in. It's all important as a word only because of the religious significance the Buddhist religion gives it. When people say it means 'disatisfaction' they only repeat something they heard (probably read it on accesstoinsight or something like that). It's a fair enough way of understanding the word in relation to how our sense-experience is never really satisfying.

I wasn't looking for answers when I wrote the OP. It's supposed to be an exploration, but we were given the answer in post # 2, and I thought we could all go home. But wait! Someone says it isn't the answer - something else is the answer - but I wonder if anyone is actually watching the mind as it grasps for 'the right answer'.

That would seem arbitrary


So a person feels unfufilled with their current living experience.


I'm not so sure about that.


We probably just move on to a different object of desire.