Question...

RE*AC*TOR

Firstly, I'm not a Buddhist, and I'm not really any religion to be honest. However, like many people I have had thoughts and discussions about life and existence. I appreciate percpetion is a lot.

My question is regarding the four noble truths (and my little understanding of them). They say that the origin of suffering is attachment to transient things. To a large extent I agree with this. However, people and loved ones are transient things. Those this not suggest that to end our sufferring we should become detached or dispassioned to our loved ones. That if they were to die or be harmed, we should feel no sorrow?

Perhaps I am reading it correctly and it is merely an alien thought to me, otherwise I am reading it incorrectly and the meaning is different?

Yoda

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

Those this not suggest that to end our sufferring we should become detached or dispassioned to our loved ones. That if they were to die or be harmed, we should feel no sorrow?

Buddhism does not teach us not to be human, and not to have feelings. Quite the opposite. Compassion is perhaps the highest Buddhist ideal. When your loved ones die, Buddhism teaches that you should not be attached to your grief, and that you should understand why you grieve. It doesn't teach that you should not grieve.

AnonymousBloke

I think it's a common misconception that the opposite of attachment is cold detachment. We all feel care and concern for loved ones- the suffering is that we don't usually recognise that everything, including those we love, is impermanent- we try to hold onto things as fixed that are actually in a constant state of change. We are attached to the illusion of permanence.

Some of the meditations on metta or generating compassion aim at increasing our sense of care and concern for all beings, family, friends, strangers and enemies, which can help broaden our outlook. Meditations on impermanence, the inevitability of death etc can help us be less believing of permanence.

Asiaprod

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

Perhaps I am reading it correctly and it is merely an alien thought to me, otherwise I am reading it incorrectly and the meaning is different?

As a Buddhist for more than 20 years I have to say that the correct statement should read "the origin of SOME suffering is due to an attachment to transient things" Not all suffering. Buddhism was founded to combat the 4 inescapable sufferings of humans, Birth, Sickness, Old age and Death, none of which are caused by attachments to transient things, though I suppose in a higher sense we could say we have an attachment to life and hence to die is to suffer.


Unfortunately, just as with all other religions, there are a thousand flavors of Buddhism. It is important to remember that long ago when the religion was founded a belief was held that only the priesthood could attain enlightenment, not us common folk. It was our lot to serve. After all, the original Buddha gave up all his possessions, but he also left his wife and family in the lurch so to speak. As a result of his actions, a very strict code of practice was drawn up for those entering the priesthood. It is from this practice that the issue of transient things is handed down to us. Priests give up everything to concentrate on praying for humanity. While this sounds very nice, I find it to be a form of escapism. If one wishes to become a priest, then by all means give up attachments to all things. If one wishes to live and function as a Buddhist in this society, there is no way you can. This attitude to transient things is nowhere more obvious than in ZEN, which treats every thing as transient. But in the case of Zen there is a very real reason why this approach is adopted. Here in Japan, Zen is not treated as a religion, because in reality it is a type of mental training that Samurai warriors underwent to enable them to not fear death. By eliminating the fear of death from the equation, the Samurai became a deadly fighting machine. The entire thrust of original Zen was to enable the individual to blot out everything from his mind and focus 100% on the task at hand. The samurai therefore, disgarded all possesion except his Sword by which he lived, his sleeping mat so he could always find a place to sleep and his writing implements which he used to write cligraphy or Buddhist sturas as a form of relaxation and meditation. Zen of course has also changed down through the years, but that is its origin....mental training.

In a nutshell, Buddhism stands for compassion, compassion to ones fellow man. This means to interact with and be part of society and its trappings. You might need a car to get around if you lived down the country, that is not an attachment, that is a requirement. Nowhere in any Buddhist document does it say that we cannot have nice things, unless we are a priest dedicated to living the same lifestyle as the Buddha.

I think what the statement really refers to is an OVER attachment to things. A person who cannot bear not to have the latest fashion, or cars, or computers, or what ever. In addition to the 4 Noble Truths are the 3 three deadly sins so to speak, easy to remember GAS (Greed, Anger and Stupidity). Obviously, an over attachment to transient things comes under the heading of Greed, not being able to have them makes one Angry and getting angry over transient things is Stupid. The progression then goes on to say that if transient things bring out these 3 bad qualities, best to eliminate attachment totally. Now in my book, that is Stupidity.Thats the same as cutting off the arm to cure the broken fingernail. The goal is to overcome the obstcals by facing them, and not by running away.
In the case of dispassion to our loved one, What a ridicules statement who ever made that one up originally should be shot. How on earth can we equate compassion with dispassion. It run completely counter to the driving principle of Buddhism which is compassion for all things. The point to remember as a Buddhist is that a buddhist in fact welcome death as a gateway to the next life. For this reason we can be sad at the sense of loss we feel if someone close passes away, but we also feel joy for that person that they are out of here and on their way. They have overcome the 4 sufferings we mentioned earlier, for this lifetime at least.