Find the cause of suffering

[Rain95]

Don't you need a ego type self and it's thoughts to have desire?

If I'm just being, without giving any attention or energy to thought, seems like it's impossible to have a desire. Whatever is, is experienced without any analyzing or analyzer so thoughts like I want something or don't have something never become a part of reality or experience.

Everything just is as it is... there is no "self" there to get involved or have some type of attraction or repulsion to whatever is.

But then if compassion or an awareness of being one with all is there as part of a liberated beingness, then action can take place without desire. One acts out of what one is, compassion, but does not act out of desire.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Rain95

Don't you need a ego type self and it's thoughts to have desire?

If I'm just being, without giving any attention or energy to thought, seems like it's impossible to have a desire. Whatever is, is experienced without any analyzing or analyzer so thoughts like I want something or don't have something never become a part of reality or experience.

Everything just is as it is... there is no "self" there to get involved or have some type of attraction or repulsion to whatever is.

But then if compassion or an awareness of being one with all is there as part of a liberated beingness, then action can take place without desire. One acts out of what one is, compassion, but does not act out of desire.

It seems to me, as one watching his mind, that if I'm just being, then what is happening is from the stillness found within mind, is the arising of the thought that I'm just being.
If I'm not giving attention or energy to thought, then that too is arising from the stillness that is found within mind.
What I do with that is simply be aware which is really the mind looking at itself.
Which I believe is God looking at itself.
That relationship between God, Self, Light and the awareness of God, Self, Light is the power of God, Self, Light. The creative power of what we are.
It all happens from stillness and it has the power to create form.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Gem

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'.

I think it translates as stress. I get that as well because when watching the mind I see the stress of wanting peace and bliss and joy but because of ignorance brought on by conditioning only finding outside itself these things as a temporary
Experience.
I think eventually it realizes this and turns towards itself, releasing it's stress by becoming aware of it, leaving behind its true nature which is peace, bliss, joy...unconditional.

[Rain95]

We don't have desires, we create them by focusing our attention on the thought stream of the brain. So the state of consciousness that talks about what to do with them is the creator of them. The person who asks, "How do I have no desires?," is the one who brings desire into existence. Desires comes with creating a person. The "person" can do various things to deal with their desires but the Buddhist solution is to not make a person, then desires are gone too.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by Gem

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'.

I realize you were not looking for answers and understand exploration was part of your reflections. You bring up a good point in your last paragraph. It would be so easy to sit in the meanings with a fixed mind and not explore for yourself what that means to you through the external offerings. If you haven't integrated the nature of what your exploring as the lived experience deeper through you, it would make sense you would cling to the belief or mind set in it's knowing in this way, using the mind to dictate the "right answer". Even so, I see that this serves to support the one investigating in this way. As I see this where you explore and hold and cling to anything, with attachment (unhealthy), that attachment will come into being through any means of your own life and exploration's at some point, simply because your already invested in some way to open something in yourself deeper just by noticing and being in it. The potential all the same is that you can work with this in the immediate sense if your open to do so, allowing the mind/body to let the knowing take you deeper into yourself, (which can open up a whole host of deeper awareness of you in all this) which then, of course will give rise to your own personal meaning beyond that point.

If I look at suffering, desires, cravings. etc..I tend to not 'see" them moving me, as my underlying fractured self now. So in some ways the words have no meanings in me other than the experience of myself understanding them as an association in many forms that people associate them and gave rise to them in the first place.

[sky]

Originally Posted by Rain95

We don't have desires, we create them by focusing our attention on the thought stream of the brain. So the state of consciousness that talks about what to do with them is the creator of them. The person who asks, "How do I have no desires?," is the one who brings desire into existence. Desires comes with creating a person. The "person" can do various things to deal with their desires but the Buddhist solution is to not make a person, then desires are gone too.

I don't think we create desires, I think they are part of our DNA. If our Ancestors didn't have desires we wouldn't be here. Desires motivate people to make their lives better and the lives of others in many ways, medical treatment, cleaner and warmer homes, healthy food etc: Positive desires enhance our lives but negative cause the problems. It's about working out though wisdom/experiences what are the positives and are worth trying to fulfill and which ones are going to turn into cravings if not fulfilled. Buddha himself had desires, if he didn't we wouldn't have his teachings... Same with Buddhists, they desire to help others through teaching.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by sky123

I don't think we create desires, I think they are part of our DNA. If our Ancestors didn't have desires we wouldn't be here. Desires motivate people to make their lives better and the lives of others in many ways, medical treatment, cleaner and warmer homes, healthy food etc: Positive desires enhance our lives but negative cause the problems. It's about working out though wisdom/experiences what are the positives and are worth trying to fulfill and which ones are going to turn into cravings if not fulfilled. Buddha himself had desires, if he didn't we wouldn't have his teachings... Same with Buddhists, they desire to help others through teaching.

I think another way of looking at desires created from our DNA is to say that some come from subconscious. Some also come from our ignorance and some come from a place of confusion.
They all come forth though. They all arise from emptiness, it's just that they can come from the stress of a restless conditioned mind or from a clear still reflected mind. And everything in between but I don't think labeling them positive or negative is helpful. I think they are either mindful or not.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by naturesflow

I realize you were not looking for answers and understand exploration was part of your reflections. You bring up a good point in your last paragraph. It would be so easy to sit in the meanings with a fixed mind and not explore for yourself what that means to you through the external offerings. If you haven't integrated the nature of what your exploring as the lived experience deeper through you, it would make sense you would cling to the belief or mind set in it's knowing in this way, using the mind to dictate the "right answer".

To me is doesn't come in the form of an answer. It comes within the direct discovery of finding out in the real lived experience how I create suffering for myself. So the thread is geared not so I can tell people the answer, but so we might inquire into it in a real lived way. Then yes it is desire aversion attachment craving ignorance and all those things any parrot can be trained to repeat, but instead of from a lesson we learned and remember, from the very noticing of it each time it arises in ourselves.

Even so, I see that this serves to support the one investigating in this way. As I see this where you explore and hold and cling to anything, with attachment (unhealthy), that attachment will come into being through any means of your own life and exploration's at some point, simply because your already invested in some way to open something in yourself deeper just by noticing and being in it.

It's just fundamental to Buddhist teachings that there is suffering, a cause of suffering, and the cessation of suffering. The first one is something everyone knows is true because they already see it in themselves. The second two are what people have to find out, lest they continue to suffer, be dissatisfied, unfulfilled etc. People will think they know 'the answer', but continue to suffer none-the-less, so perhaps the answer we know is not the same thing as actually realising it. In this realising it we enter into a very complicated area of our human nature, and I personally have no answers about that, and have nothing to tell anyone in that regard.

The potential all the same is that you can work with this in the immediate sense if your open to do so, allowing the mind/body to let the knowing take you deeper into yourself, (which can open up a whole host of deeper awareness of you in all this) which then, of course will give rise to your own personal meaning beyond that point.

Yes that's more like it.

If I look at suffering, desires, cravings. etc..I tend to not 'see" them moving me, as my underlying fractured self now. So in some ways the words have no meanings in me other than the experience of myself understanding them as an association in many forms that people associate them and gave rise to them in the first place.

In me there is the desire that escalates into basic survival needs, and the other desire that can escalate into all consuming greed which can never be satisfied. For example, we can probably see how hatred and greed in the world brings about a lot of suffering. So in that sense there are opposites, but hate isn't the opposite of love - it's the opposite of greed in the same way as the milder terms, aversion as the opposite of desire.

So if I feel thirst and want water it is one meaning of desire, and I have some water, needs are met, and I don't want it anymore. The other one, like desire for wealth, I get a lot of money, but I still want more.

This second meaning of desire, to 'want more' without ever it being satisfying is more in line with Dukkha. The want for a drink of water is just nature doing it's living, but what if there is no water there? Then can a person be still at peace with the real lived sensation we call 'thirst', or will a person start to become psychologically agitated and thereby enter into the greed aspect? Which is to hate that thirst sensation and subsequentially have strong greed for a sensation of hydration.

If we believe that pleasant sensations will bring satisfaction, and painful sensation disatisfaction, then we start to avoid (become adverse to) discomforts while we pursue means of creating pleasures, and that is the tension I could call avoidance and pursuit, aversion and desire, or other things. But the actual tension I refer to is what can actually be noticed as what we are calling 'suffering' - and whatever word(s) one wants to use to communicate that are just as good as any other(s).

[Gem]

Originally Posted by BlueSky

I think it translates as stress. I get that as well because when watching the mind I see the stress of wanting peace and bliss and joy but because of ignorance brought on by conditioning only finding outside itself these things as a temporary
Experience.
I think eventually it realizes this and turns towards itself, releasing it's stress by becoming aware of it, leaving behind its true nature which is peace, bliss, joy...unconditional.

Yes 'stress' is a good way of indicating that state we are calling suffering. Indeed suffering is far lessened when we stay calm compared to when we react with so much stressful agitation to the same given lived experience. That's basically how meditation goes, staying in that balanced, calm place regardless of the sorts of experience we have.

This is the way in which the thread isn't so much oriented on coming up with the answer, but rather, bringing about a sort of curious interest in what's going on with ourselves. You see, it's very easy for me to say what the cause is, but much harder for me to keep some aspect of attention with that calm, balanced space.

[Rain95]

Originally Posted by sky123

I don't think we create desires,

I would clarify that I believe the human brain creates the thoughts and therefore, eventually desires..but then we make them a living thing by identifying with them. So in that sense, we bring them to life or create them from what they exist as before we give them that reality.

Originally Posted by sky123

I think they are part of our DNA. If our Ancestors didn't have desires we wouldn't be here.

I agree, I think you are talking about our human bodies though and I don't see myself as a human body. I am merged with one yes, but I will eventually leave the human body. We have desires because we have a animal body and have identified with it.

Originally Posted by sky123

Buddha himself had desires, if he didn't we wouldn't have his teachings... Same with Buddhists, they desire to help others through teaching.

Someone who is said to be enlightened or liberated from their human mind and thoughts, like Buddha, has a different relationship with their thoughts and therefore desires than a normal person. So it's a bit complex. Like say you are right a liberated person had a desire to help others through teaching. Now that can be a huge ego thing, the desire to teach others what you believe, or it can be the work of a humble selfless person as well. It depends on what they have realized, what they are teaching and why and on and on... so really the word "desire" has many many meanings depending on a lot of factors.