Have we ever looked at the nature of our suffering?

Kinfonet Discussion
21

And this - the personal solution - may be the very root of the mess in the world. The very root of the killing in Syria and elsewhere.
This - the personal solution - is our psyche, this is the self, this is the isolating process, this
is egocentrism.

22

The question is, or was, have we ever looked at the nature of our, my, suffering?

But…

Could we reform the question by saying: Have we ever looked at our nature which is suffering?

Or… Have we ever looked at our nature through suffering?

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23

But what is the first reaction, before we see anything at all, before we bring in anything else? Do we look or do we look away?

24

What is it that suffers? The body suffers when it meets with a physical accident or an illness. But if the body is perfectly healthy, whole, active, - let’s assume all this for the start - what else is it that suffers?

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Yes, generally there is a desire to seek for a solution via thought.

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We look away. We do not want to look at this horror.

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That’s just it, I question this assumption. The body cannot be separated from the brain, the psyche from the organism.

If the body is healthy and active that means there is no suffering. I’d ask then, what is it then that you are actually asking?

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28

But apparently the brain has made this separation, hasn’t it?

29

The desire for a solution always seems to take precedence over the careful looking at any problem. As soon as something is identified as a problem, the problem-solving brain is engaged. This approach works well enough when we meet practical problems because in practical affairs we have a store of information either within our own memory banks or in the memory banks of different experts. But in human relationships, where there is conflict, we have never solved this problem totally.

It is a problem. It is a horror. But it is also what we are. Yet we look away. Is there a looking that is neither looking at nor looking away, a looking that is not in any sense reactive?

30

Yes when you get lost in the content of suffering it’s easy to wallow. And wallowing, as pleasurable and even honest as it might feel, is a kind of cul de sac, right?

31

Yes looking within definitely can be an escape, a cocooning.

Is ‘my own’ peace of mind really my own?

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Firstly, is there a problem?

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I can find peace of mind by resorting to a familiar habit, finding comfort there and calling it peace, which is just a personal version of a much bigger thing. Peace can’t come about through escaping but only through an understanding and a cessation of all forms of violence within the human psyche. So it is not peace that matters, but the ending of violence.

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It is a fact that we are violent. The problem arises only when we seek to control the violence because this effort to alter ourselves gives rise to other forms of violence. The fact of violence may therefore have a non-fact as its source, which is the desire to control.

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‘I am conditioned’ or ‘I am violent’. Perhaps these labels or description may be another problem.

36

A fact is never a problem. We can see our violent reactions for ourselves as the self-protective responses that arise in our relationship to the world. These violent reactions are actual, factual. But the source of the violence may be mostly ideational, based on an assumption that life can be made to conform to a pattern. We try to change the fact to maintain this artificial sense of order; so we never look at violence directly, which is the fact. It seems we are always more concerned to be non-violent, which is a non-existent ideal.

37

Since we assume that all memories are stored in the brain, are you proposing that memory is an inseparable part of the brain?

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38

Thought is very much present in “my” looking.

The instrument of looking could itself be deceptively divisive

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39

It may or may not be relevant to your current enquiry; but it may be worth considering that ‘memory’ isn’t confined to only the brain cells. Our finger and toenails contain the memory which enables them to grow. ‘Memory’ in some form may be in everything .
There may also be a connection between psychological memory/ conditioning of the brain cells to that of the physical body.

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40

That’s just it.
The brain is corrupted by the psychological memory. I, conditioned, do not distinguish wholly between memory and psychological memory which is evidenced by the fact of my suffering.

@anon78228991 Is it relevant to ask: Are all the psychological memories stored only in the brain?

  • Science have noted that the heart does in fact have neurons.
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