We learn how to develop our brain into a thinking machine that can parse the world into words and images and emotions, manage and manipulate these, analyze, speculate, anticipate, remember. It’s amazing, kind of miraculous. Why do we suffer, and cause suffering? What’s our problem?
Yes the movement of this universe is amaaazing!
I don’t know whether we are responsible for the human experience any more than a spinning top is responsible for spinning - it just spins because thats what it is in that moment thanks to causes and conditions of the wondrous univers.
We suffer because thats what we are. Why? Because the first bio-organisms that survived moved away from bad and ate the good. We are the complex systems based on that movement. When we developed the first senses was when the chase really took off.
Why did God make a universe founded on life eating life? It feels cruel.
You are focussed on animals, most of the universe was and is not like this - in fact the first movement is non-life becomes life.
Cruelty is a recent phenomenon - it necessitates emotion (thus brains capable of creating images, meaning, identity and desire) - brains are the newest model of life - maybe a dead end, maybe with exciting new potential.
You are focussed on animals, most of the universe was and is not like this - in fact the first movement is non-life becomes life.
I take your point, but there are plenty of ‘life eats life’ analogies in the non-animal/plant realm, just ask your friendly neighborhood LLM! Is ‘life eats life’ a quasi-universal law, Law of Transmutation?
Cruelty is a recent phenomenon - it necessitates emotion (thus brains capable of creating images, meaning, identity and desire)
Interesting: The ability to be cruel seems to require emotional sophistication.
From the point of view of humans. From my point of view my point of view takes up a lot of space (LLMs repeat human memes) says the speck of dust in a quasi infinite void.
This is just a very simple x = x thing
PS - I replied too hastily to the life eats life bit - even if we take early forms of life, this is a very recent phenomenon - the current presentation of this universe is billions of years old, life emerged only a little while ago. And in terms of space this is also the case - The important bit is cruelty, which has only been possible for a few instants, and which we hope is a minor glitch that will be resolved.
Isn’t our problem the confusion and conflict, the incoherent thinking, that results from choosing to make my self (the chooser), the arbiter of truth?
If that much isn’t clear by now, are you serious about the question?
Perhaps rather than a glitch it’s inherent in our species. Dormant in 50%, active 1% (wild guess).
I would say it definitely seems to be at or near the root of the suffering process.
Why the qualified answer?
Without thought - with silence - would there be a “suffering process”?
I have the strongest of aversions to any form of absolute answer. (As you probably already know!) Everything is relative from my pov (also relative). I don’t think anyone knows the ultimate origin of suffering. But speaking relatively, I acknowledge that suffering seems to correlate highly with the identification with an illusory fixed separate ego self. Sorry to come off so stuffy, my tech writer persona is guiding my fingers, with my Advaita teacher looking over my shoulder! 
I didn’t ask about the ultimate origin of suffering. I asked if there can be mental anguish, suffering, without thought? It’s a rhetorical question. Why evade the obvious answer?
Answers are rarely obvious to me. For relative answers, there’s always another pov. For absolute answers, I have no clue. Though you may think I’m being evasive, that’s not my intention at all!
‘To live is to relate’ and ‘relationship is painful’ are Krishnamurti’s statements. So, it seems clear that as long as we live in relationship we, human beings, will suffer one way or the other.
If I asked you if it’s raining where you are right now, you would answer yes or no without equivocating. So why equivocate when I ask if it’s possible to suffer mental anguish without thought?
Are you conflating psychological suffering with physical suffering because mental anquish has a physical effect?
A basketball is a sphere. If I burst and squash that ball it is no longer a sphere.
Are you able to question, deny, relativise these statements? Or are they irrefutable facts?
Can you clear this up for us @rickScott ? What is your view on the above?
Yes inherent - I’m confused about the 50% dormant, 1% active. We are always happily willing to eat other sentient beings, If my wellbeing always outweighs everyone elses, thats constant potential cruelty. Even though I cannot constantly be eating.
I am surprised - do you remember anything else about this statement? Is relationship necessarily painful?
When and where did Krishnamurti supposedly state this?
Hello, Macdougdoug and Inquiry!
Before I posted I looked on internet to make sure I wasn’t going to say something I remembered but could be not exact. And he said so as a matter of fact when trying to explain why we isolated ourselves … because ‘relationship is painful’. If you look on internet you’ll find it as I did. I understand why Krishnamurti said so and it is generally true yes, it has to do with attachment.
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Thanks - I can get that : we avoid pain. That is the function of the self.
If he really was saying “life is pain” - that would be a very buddhist statement.
So either “life is pain”, or “I experience life as a spectrum of pain and pleasure”