Pleasure and pain go together. The thought of not having that pleasure again breeds fear and anxiety. Can one be free from pleasure knowing that it comes with fear?
The drive to maximize pleasure and minimize pain runs very deep. Itâs automatic, like a reflex. When faced with unavoidable pain, the brain can turn it into a kind of perverse secondary pleasure.
Can one be free from pleasure? Anyone who experiences pain occasionally or frequently knows that, yes, one can be free from pleasure.
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Maybe the question should be , does one want to be free from pleasure or one is satisfied with the pain/ pleasure phenomenon?
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There is a big difference between
free from pleasure as in not dependent on it
and
free from pleasure as in not feeling it,
yes?
The former sounds good, addiction in any form is limiting. The latter ⌠perfectly horrible! But, living the pleasure/pain way of life, my take is skewed.
We are apparently satisfied with the present state of the society ,so we remain with the pleasure/ pain structure, which is essentially continuation of the pain structureâŚ
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Pain is not a static thingâŚ
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Freedom from anything is not freedom.
Where does that come from ?
K-Freedom is at the beginning.
Yeah. The society is okay with it. Majority of the people in this world are okay with the cycle of pleasure and pain, desires, fears.
But, what about you personally? What about the people who gather in this forum? Are we fine with this?
(Or)
Are we finding whether there is any freedom from this cycle? Not only freedom from the known but freedom from everything.
I think that the question is can one be free from pain and suffering? Physically I cannot be free from occasional toothache or tummy ache. Psychologically I have made an image of myself through reward and punishment which leads to suffering. Can that accumulated image end or be wiped out without any struggle or effort?
((( Incognito and False and nobody walk into a bar ⌠)))
I doubt there is any possibility of freedom from requiring air, food, water, from aging, from the laws of physics. So everything period might be a stretch. But freedom from everything psychological, from all fruit of the poison tree of reified self seems within the realm of possibility.
Whatchas think?
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Yes. Physically we cannot stop those. Not as a human.
But, what about psychological freedom? What about knowledge? Is freedom from the known means stopping/erasing the knowledge?
We cannot stop the accumulation of knowledge/memory/experience. But though it is present, we can be free, sit in itâs place and not to occupy us.
Likewise, in case of physical things, we can be free from hunger and it doesnât mean stopping hunger (as a human. I read about people who had stopped hunger and iâm not talking about that).
I need food to eat. I enter a hotel and I can eat whatever the available food is. But choosing only some food and running for only that food, is what I feel we have to be free from. From history, before globalization, people were satisfied with the food available in their region. But, when many opportunities arise due to science(,technology, etcâŚ), desires for more varieties arise. It is also a desire. Isnât it?. If we cannot get the food we desire at that moment, we suffer (or) feel angry. But, what if we enter the hotel without any desire for particular food (I.e. free)?
Freedom from the psychological might be understood to mean 100% absence of the psyche/psychological, i.e. the self. This is imo highly unlikely, except perhaps for meditating monks.
More realistic and achievable imo is the freedom from NOT being attached to the psychological, not hungrily reaching for it or desperately pushing it away. Free from emotional dependency.
Freedom from pleasure would in this sense not mean experiencing no pleasure, rather letting pleasure come and go on its own, without trying to hold onto it. Same for pain, it comes and goes.
?
Yeah. This what I feel too. Not try to end it but look at it whatever and whenever happens. Not âfearâ âwhether I will end up with painâ - but face whatever happens.
This is the lighting up on darkness. When light is thrown on darkness, darkness disappears but not ends immediately. The reach of the light is not far and strong enough, to put an end to darkness immediately. Darkness will grow every time and makes one to forget lighting it up. So, every time we have to light up. In this continuous lighting up, we can be free from âdarknessâ and one day might end making the differentiation between âlightâ and âdarknessâ.
This âlightingâ up is nothing but questioning. This the power we have and not with animals,etc⌠Questioning what happens within and around me. Questioning whatever is shared and not caught up with the âimageâ of person sharing. Facing every question asked, whether tainted (or) not, as it is posed to me and responsible to share what I feel, but not ignore it and run away. In this facing, it might light up, what I failed to see.
So to be free from suffering one has to understand the causes of suffering and be free from the causes .
The image that one has is external. It is created by the society . Maybe the main cause of suffering is this interference of the external with the internal .
Psychological âcravingâ is basic to suffering isnât it? I can crave food shelter sex etc and get it, satisfy it. But craving âpeaceâ âhappinessâ affection , silence, enlightenment, etc, is a recipe for sufferingâŚbut itâs not: âdonât craveâ, is it? Itâs, see it and let it go. The seeing it, is, the letting go.
When the mind is very quiet, the slightest movement can be seen.
Knowledge has a place for sure but can it bring about a silent mind?
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Thought is the outsider . Human knowledge and experience is collective. But we like to take thought personally. Why do we do that?
I think that it is very difficult to be free from fear because we are addict to pleasure.