That we sure do, don’t we? It’s obvious in our posts which we cannot even substantiate, under closer scrutiny.
Well, not really. Got the computer right, on which we are are typing. Got the hygiene products, medicine, transportation, etc right, and i am sure we can add a 100 things to the list. Life in general is less violent as in the struggle for physical survival/, mortality rate has improved significantly than let’s say the middle ages.
Speaking of conditioned responses…
Yep. K. called it ‘the wrong turn’.
It’s human relationships that we have never gotten right…that will destroy the whole human race along with planet earth if we don’t change. K never said that our progress in science, medicine, and technology was an issue. In spite of all the astounding advances there many of us are killing ourselves with drugs and alcohol and cigarettes and over eating. The problem begins in the consciousness of man.
He did indeed. Essential to understanding - the wrong turn.
It is also important to move from the personal to the general, when discussion into human disorder is serious.
Yes, they are predictable…
It is also important to move from the personal to the general, when discussion into human disorder is serious.
Actually it is the other way around, human disorder IS personal , the effects of which we see above, doesn’t want it exposed, and therefore wants to hide behind generalities where it will continue its nonsense.
Bingo! Actually the inner and the outer are the same disorder, however we can’t understand this disorder which is our life by looking outward at the society. Then we never face the conflict in ‘me’. Human disorder needs to be faced in ‘me’, as I’m seeing it.
All true and more marvels to come. But the side of the brain that needs to ‘evolve’ is stuck. That to me is what this is all about. To free the brain from it’s (my) pettiness greed and fear so it can ‘blossom’ and create a world for humans as well as our neighbors that is as innovative, ingenious, as the tech side has done, but intelligent, compassionate, non-destructive. That is what’s at stake here, not only the survival of our species but the ‘flowering’ of it and what that entails for not only us, but for everything around us.
Before it gets out of hand and others also get into the teacher mode, my post at #40 and prior, was an attempt to highlight the other side of the picture, which conditioned minds often fail to factor, in their zealous defense of fragmentary beliefs.
Yes @Thomas-Paine, can we say it isn’t the same disorder, that the inner is the seed and the outer the fruit?
I don’t know. The disorder in the parent obviously creates disorder in the small child. The small child is sent to church which creates further disorder in the unfortunate child. So it can go both ways. The seed is disorder in the consciousness of man …our divided thinking creates our divided world. The seed is thought created division and disorder, as I’m seeing it.
The short answer is that we do not want to end suffering and we don’t see that the house is on fire. Humanity would have ended suffering after all these millions of years if they were serious about it.
Do we feel the house is on fire when we are having a jolly good time with friends and family?
Do we feel the house is on fire when we are busy making tons of money?
Do we feel the house is on fire when we are trying to achieve something significant in the field of science, medicine, etc?
Do we feel the house is on fire when we are cleverer than most, have more and deeper knowledge about many fields than most?
Etc., etc., etc
Suffering is a fragment of the mind in an interconnected network. It may be wrong (because it is fragmentary) to ask this question without understanding what it means to end suffering - ending excitement, pleasure, security, companionship, etc etc etc. And our intense investment and efforts in achieving and maintaing them.
That is why very few in human history have ended suffering. Very few genuinely want to.
Yes. It takes the insight that someone somewhere in time put down in words : that we are “selling our birthright for a mess of potage”.
Sounds like we’re not suffering with enough consistency
Yep…that’s what man lives for…excitement, security, pleasure, fulfillment (sensual), attachment (to friends, family, church, etc). Who wants to end all that? Rhetorical question. We all DO suffer, but we get out on the golf course or beach or go to a film and forget about it temporarily. K enjoyed a good adventure film and a good mystery novel. When young he enjoyed golf. Yet, perhaps he wasn’/t attached. It’s the attachment that causes the violence and division in the world. If my wife or girlfriend wants me to take her to lunch with her mother and I don’t want to miss my gold outing, there’s anger and conflict…right? If I really don’t want to miss a special sports event on TV and my kids want to watch a Disney movie, there’s conflict…at least in ‘me’. Perhaps with the kids too. They may feel my anger and disappointment. So it’s not the pleasure and enjoyment that’s the issue, but the attachment to same? And the cause of the attachment is, what? My suffering? Perhaps that’s the issue that needs some looking into. I suffer and then I escape and the whole mess of attachment begins?
Aren’t we brought up to attach our selves to things? That is how we have been conditioned…then along comes someone who says that that’s all a ‘mistake’. The attachments give relief to the confusion and suffering but there is ‘something’ outside of that cycle of pleasure and psychological pain. Then the search begins. but always from within the conditioning itself. The search to avoid the pain and keep the pleasure, make it permanent…find a permanent psychological ‘haven’.
Attachment is seeking continuity of experience. When I say ‘my’ wife or my child it indicates that I am attached because I want my pleasurable experience with them to continue in the future and not end with a single instance. When both parties feel the same way and want continuity of pleasure, ‘my’ wife and ‘my’ husband starts (and is formally created with social approval) with the hope of continued pleasure in the relationship which is security. This ‘future’ is not real but is the projection of the me. Call it wishful thinking. When reality strikes conflict and suffering ensue. The ‘me’ has created this suffering and invests heavily in its own suffering through various pursuits.
Suffering has no independent existence. It is a by product created by the activity of the ‘me’. One factor that makes this difficult to see is the time lag involved. Pleasure does not create suffering instantly. If I experience the pleasure of smoking today the suffering of diseases like cancer is 5 or 10 years away. So the ‘me’ as thought is able to create and live in its own fantasy world. To pursue pleasure it projects and creates its own future. And it avoids the reality of having sown the seeds of suffering in its past. The me/thought/mind creates its own time and lives in illusion. In some religious literature the mind is indeed described as illusion.