Buddhism is False in regards to happiness
The only way to be truly happy is to get what you want otherwise you're just living in self denial. It's how we've evolved. Happiness is a reward mechanism for when we do something to aid our survival which is the only reason you can never be happy permanently.
But Buddhism is False in their approach. Let us use cleanliness as an analogy for happiness. You have to shower everyday in order to be clean but that doesn't mean cleanliness doesn't exist and the Buddhist advice would be to not bother showering at all.
This is in reference to how Buddhist say no matter how much material you get you'll never be fully happy so stop chasing material.
We humans are not designed to let go of our desires that's like pretending to be full when you're hungry...We have to constantly eat to survive just because you can't eat once and be full doesn't mean you should stop eating all together.
The only time you can be content when you don't get what you want is when your mind is fully convinced it's completely unattainable for you to achieve for example no one is upset that they won't live 300 years because they know it's not possible.
So instead of pretending to be satisfied with the little you have, strive to achieve and get more.
But Buddhism is False in their approach. Let us use cleanliness as an analogy for happiness. You have to shower everyday in order to be clean but that doesn't mean cleanliness doesn't exist and the Buddhist advice would be to not bother showering at all.
This is in reference to how Buddhist say no matter how much material you get you'll never be fully happy so stop chasing material.
We humans are not designed to let go of our desires that's like pretending to be full when you're hungry...We have to constantly eat to survive just because you can't eat once and be full doesn't mean you should stop eating all together.
The only time you can be content when you don't get what you want is when your mind is fully convinced it's completely unattainable for you to achieve for example no one is upset that they won't live 300 years because they know it's not possible.
So instead of pretending to be satisfied with the little you have, strive to achieve and get more.
Comments (72)
That sounds like a bad habit to me, and bad advice to reinforce it.
You are a victim of cultural conditioning.
Good advice for people who are not well to do, and have lots of potential. Bad advice for spoiled rich kids.
The topic is about happiness, isn't it? Granted there's an amount of satisfaction that can be gained in merely pursuing a goal, of any sort, and achieving it.
And what about tomorrow?
Tomorrow, I'll realize happiness is neither about desire nor suppressing desire but self-knowledge and will.
Quoting Baden
:grin:
He's yet another budding John Galt.
As long as one wants to be happy, one is unhappy. Rather as one can want a bath anywhere except in the bath.
What makes you think this is the case?
The idea behind Buddha's philosophy, if we could call it that, is not to seek permanent happiness but to find happiness in the permanent. I initially thought Buddhism was hedonistic in character - making a big deal of life being suffering and being all about finding an exit strategy from this suffering, which in effect makes it hedonistic in nature.
This, it seems, is holding the wrong end of the stick. Buddha was simply not satisfied with the ephemeral, the fleeting, which basically includes everything; He probably thought it foolish and even extremely dangerous to allow our happiness be linked to, what Buddhist's term, the impermanent - something which he, in his wisdom, realized is bound to fail. Isn't it obvious then that the Buddha would've sought something eternal - that which doesn't change, that which always remains the same? Now if that eternal something could be found, and if you can make that eternal something the cause of your joy, it would, in Buddha's eyes, do the job.
Notice here that Buddha is not seeking happiness per se but that something, eternal in nature, that, in his eyes, would be something to be happy about. Happiness here is like love, you can be happy as you can be in love but Buddha didn't just want to be happy, he wanted the perfect thing to be happy about, just as [some] women don't just want to be in love, they want Mr. Perfect to be in love with.
Perhaps I digress.
Quoting Gitonga
Quoting Gitonga
As you can see, from above, Buddha wasn't free from desire - he desperately wanted a permanent outpost, as it were, for his happiness. It follows then that Buddhism isn't about letting go of desire, all desire, because the Buddha had one and because it's impossible to free oneself from desire.
Quoting Gitonga
Strive alright but for the metaphorical Mr/Ms Perfect is what Buddhism recommends.
That’s an odd take on Buddhism, a basic tenet being that everything is impermanent.
You have already received many good responses to your concern. I'll only add that the concept of inner peace and joy, can come from an interminable love for thyself, the world (nature), and other people.
So if life and happiness is about all the possible relationships of Being, what greater relationship is there to Love?
In a way the Buddha got what he wanted - he meditated furiously on impermanence and came to the conclusion that change is the only constant. Perhaps not, his desire to exit the causal web, cause being the engine of impermanence, and attain nirvana (extinguishment) - his hope was to transcend impermanence by extricating himself from the causal web and, in that, achieving something eternal.
He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.
William Blake
Just because you don't understand the meaning of the word, it doesn't mean that no one does.
The meaning of the word is the problem. You'd know that if you understood it.
"The term happiness is used in the context of mental or emotional states, including positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. It is also used in the context of life satisfaction, subjective well-being, eudaimonia, flourishing and well-being."
"...differing uses can give different results. For instance the correlation of income levels has been shown to be substantial with life satisfaction measures, but to be far weaker, at least above a certain threshold, with current experience measures. Whereas Nordic countries often score highest on swb surveys, South American countries score higher on affect-based surveys of current positive life experiencing.
The implied meaning of the word may vary depending on context, qualifying happiness as a polyseme and a fuzzy concept."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness#:~:text=The%20term%20happiness%20is%20used,%2C%20flourishing%20and%20well-being.
Clearly, without qualification, the term is absolutely useless in terms of any serious analysis.
I hate to nitpick but he might have included stuff like time or gravity. Maybe he wasn't as observant as they say.
Quoting TheMadFool
According to the doctrine, impermanence isn't the cause of suffering but ignorance. Ignorance of our true nature (emptiness). If we could realize our true nature or 'make emptiness real' then we wouldn't suffer, so they claim. That actually makes sense. For instance, a rock doesn't suffer when it's broken because it has no illusory sense of self that it wishes to sustain. For the rock, there's no before or after, no gain or loss, no cause or effect... nothing at all to stress over. People are not rocks, however, but a subdued sense of self definitely reduces existential anxiety and can lead to greater well-being.
Right. And Buddhism instills contentness with only the essential. Food, water, shelter, etc.
I am skeptical of Buddhism as some define it but there are philosophies of it that ring true.
What was that zombie movie where the guy led all the remaining zombies into a room and detonated a grenade? He died truly happy, because he placed the happiness of others, humanity itself even, above his own petty understanding of his own. Was he or was he not a hero?
Happiness results from an enjoyment of life.
Desire exists on a spectrum, with hate at one end and desire on the other.
If you can hate that which you desire in equal proportion, then you effectively annihilate them both.
This leaves you free to simply enjoy life.
What if you desire that which you hate in equal proportion?
Your suffering is no more.
Hatred might be a desire.
I believe people don't exist in isolation although the Buddha did, quite literally, wander off into the woods to live as an ascetic for some years. The point being the Buddha was heavily influenced by the ideas of his time and at best could've only taken a few steps outside of the zeitgeist of his time and at worst could've only produced a mishmash of prevailing thought. The same applies to all those who stand out in their respective era - making only modest progress in actuality but the novelty blows everyone away. Buddha, at the very least, was ahead of the competition in many respects - his religion was based on years of experience and observation of human behavior, these then being analyzed with exemplary logical rigor, inferences were made and out came Buddhism. Buddhism opts for a reasoned approach, basing itself on not metaphysics but on the empirical - impermanence is its foundation and who, in his right mind, can deny the truth of the ever-changing nature of reality? Such simplicity with such profundity is missing even in the dominant faiths of present times. Doesn't this make the Buddha worthy of the adulation and respect he's afforded by both Buddhists and non-Buddhists?
Quoting praxis
This doesn't make sense. I could know the entirety of Buddhist doctrine, be a bona fide master of the philosophy and yet be completely ignorant of spaceships and aliens. If ignorance per se were the problem I should end up suffering for this huge lacuna in my knowledge. This, however, isn't the case which proves that it's not ignorance in and of itself that's the obstacle but ignorance of certain truths, e.g. the four noble truths and impermanence, that lead to suffering.
Someone discovered empirical evidence for karma, rebirth, etc. and didn’t tell me? :sad:
The alleged simplicity has you expressing curious thoughts like ‘cause is the engine of impermanence’, I notice. Anyway, you could just as easily reduce Christianity to ‘love’ or whatever, claim its simplicity, and be equally wrong.
We can’t say that something like ‘emptiness’ is true, can we?
Quoting TheMadFool
I think you both bring up excellent points.
Would you say that it was consciousness that Adiyogi and Buddha engaged with some 5000 years ago?
When we speak of our true nature, would that not reside in our consciousness?
In the West, for the past 2000 years, consciousness has been the domain of the soul, and as such has been off limits to philosophy. I wonder if Descartes would have gone further if he could have? That he could have gone further seems likely, given Buddha managed to some 5000 years before him.I think therefore I am begs the question why do you think? But he stops there, just short of consciousness! – and consciousness remains off limits – in some peoples minds – the unknowable – ineffable.
It wasn’t until Jung and Freud, that consciousness was first dealt with in the west, and lately there has been some progress, but there still remains a cultural aversion to engaging with consciousness.
I wonder what your thoughts are on the matter?
Quoting Pop
At first I thought that might not be an accurate statement, that it’s just that we begin to wobble when we address it, but on reflection you might be right.
Edit: maybe not an aversion but a pretence to engaging with it which, I guess, is a form of aversion.
Consciousness is what it feels like when your brain is working.
Quoting praxis
Working to do what?
Like an internal family feud that can’t be resolved because they can’t talk about it because it just causes trouble.
Why do you think it is?
Quoting Pop
Maybe because we’re essentially materialist creatures. Without that the world’s full of ghosts and devils,
Maybe I should gave said that we’ve become essentially materialist creatures.
Consciousness contains the past. Like I said, ghosts and devils.
(Deep breath...count to ten...)
Which particular work of psychology gave you that impression?
The key term in translations of Buddhist texts is the 'unconditioned'. There is a canonical statement to that effect:
I think the Buddhist diagnosis of the problem with the human condition is that humans cling to, or identify with, that which by its nature is impermanent, compound, fabricated, subject to change, and therefore painful. In a pan-religious sense, this is a universal theme - that humans have 'fallen' into the domain of impermanence and suffering but in their ignorance, they take this to be real, when according to the Buddha is 'empty' of anything permanent or enduring (which in my view is the meaning of the Buddhist '??nyat?'). So humans are clinging to an illusory reality which results in endless suffering, even though, in the final analysis, nothing compels them to do that beyond force of habit (albeit a very long-standing habit).
Indeed, desire is very the essence of man (Spinoza) and trying to get rid of it is illusion. But there is value in realizing that desire is never ending, that you will never be fully satisfied. It helps manage the frustration.
In any case, your op, and most of your other remarks, mistake Darwinism for philosophy, which it isn’t. An understandable mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.
I see a lot about links between dopamine and environmental stimuli which may have conferred a competitive advantage. Ignoring for now the question begging problem of evolutionary explanations, all you have here are a collection of links between certain environmental stimuli and certain reports of mental state (or neurotransmitter activity).
Nothing necessitates an inflexible link between the two, nothing shows that self-reported happiness is limited to these environmental stimuli, and nothing shows that the measures of happiness used exhaust the range of measures of happiness.
Quite a long way to go before evolutionary psychology even indicates what you're claiming, let alone justifies it.
How many of your toys have provided you with enduring happiness?
Is ??nyat? based on impermanence - nothing being capable of withstanding the forces of change and so a becomes b and b becomes c, and so on, none of them lasting long enough to constitute something and thus are empty?
I stop short of idealism and its many incarnations.
An indirect inference to karma can be made based on causality. This is what is unique to Buddhism - it always has some connection, even if vague and tenuous, to some sound logical principle.
Quoting praxis
I only refer to simplicity that is also rational, in the simplest sense the absence of inconsistencies. Christianity has more many inconsistencies than I care to mention.
Quoting praxis
Look at my reply to wayfarer, if you wish.
A vague and tenuous connection to sound logical principles. :chin: :lol:
I think you’re guilty of seeing what you want to see. I could point out some glaring inconsistencies though, if you like.
I’m completely with you, nevertheless, I think we’re too ignorant (in the general sense) to say this is true.
A connection missing in other faiths. Something is better than nothing seems to apply here.
Quoting praxis
Feel free to do so.
Quoting praxis
Explain where.
In general. For example, it may have once been reasonable to conclude that the earth was flat. Today it's highly reasonable to say that the earth is spherical or even to say that it's true that the earth is spherical.
Quoting TheMadFool
Let's start with inconsistencies in the foundational principles of rebirth and emptiness. I imagine there are countless vague and tenuous ways to make these concepts appear consistent with each other, but none are reasonably sound.
For an essence or soul-like thing to be reborn in another body, it would need to be immaterial or unaffected by matter, and therefore separate and unchanging, which is the very antithesis of emptiness.
This is the best introduction to emptiness I'm aware of.
Quoting praxis
There is ample documentation of people, mainly children, who remember their past life. Bhikkhu Analayo's recent book has many such examples. Review here.
Anecdotal rather than empirical evidence.
:up:
I was once schooled by a devout Buddhist that his religion, for sure, rejects eternalism (sunyata) but that that didn't imply nihilism. Buddhism dwells somewhere midway.
I'm not sure how to respond to that. :smile:
Indeed.
You're equating happiness with pleasure -- it's not the same thing, neither in Buddhism nor in Aristotle.
Quoting Gitonga
No. Stop craving, and becoming attached with, material. Seek what you want, but with equanimity and understanding.
Quoting Gitonga
Same thing applies. I was using your word because that's the example you chose.
One shouldn't be attached to family and friends either. One shouldn't be attached to anything in life. Why? Because (1) there's no good reason to be and (2) what good does it do? What does it add? Mostly it adds unnecessary, counterproductive sufferring, and we know this from experience.
So what is meant by "attachment"? It's a clinging to beings of any kind -- material, social, or abstract. What's "clinging"? Identifying with, and thus feeling "ownership" of something ("mine"), which is implies an idea of "me" (selfhood) and which ultimately betrays a belief in permanence.
Chasing pleasant sensations and emotions, or clinging to the phenomena of life, is a guaranteed way to be disappointed. Schopenhauer is pretty convincing here.
It does not mean, however, we have to drop all of our projects in life, become apathetic, commit suicide, withdraw, become passive, or turn into cold, bloodless zombies. I'm much more Aristotelian and Nietzschean when it comes to how one should or shouldn't live -- when it comes to morality.
The synthesis here, in my view, is this: by recognizing craving and aversion are two sides of the same coin, by facing up to this reality (and not fleeing from the reality), you can momentarily get outside of it. In this space of "simple awesome," which is often described in Buddhist literature, you can cultivate yourself -- it's freedom in a sense. Freedom from the past and its accumulation of habits and regrets, freedom from worry about death (the future), and freedom from thinking. You're just "being," and it's exactly the practice (the "exercise") of getting in touch with being that allows you to cultivate your life -- your thoughts, your emotions, and your actions.
Then you can choose your values, rather than have them choose you (in a poetic sense). Meaning you no longer have to fall "victim" to anything, good or bad -- whether depression, being a workaholic, anxiety, mood swings, laziness, lack of attention, sex addiction, being "overly nice," or any other habit or way of being that you've developed in your life.
Nearly everything we do is learned, despite there also being a real "nature" (genetic endowment), with its scope and its limits. If that's true, then if we can understand the process by which we come to acquire our various behaviors through experience, we can also harness and direct that process, shaping it in various ways. This is essentially the goal of psychotherapy, in fact.
Bottom line: don't be reactive, be responsive. Buddhist meditation fits right in with this, just as Hindu yoga fits in with the goal of a healthy body. Better to just do it than debate the philosophy of it.