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 deCypher
Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 53,700
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 So why not pursue bliss? 
#12815474 - 06/28/10 01:31 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Life is suffering, quoth the Buddha. So why not pursue the things that alleviate this suffering? Why not choose to do as many pleasurable drugs as we can, to pursue as many attractive women as we can, in short... to pursue all the behaviors we can that increase our level of happiness?
Your answer may depend on whether or not you believe in an afterlife. I personally choose to behave as if there isn't one, just in case. If this is our last life to live, why NOT enjoy it?
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We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
  
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 the bizzle
the joke that no one spoke
Registered: 04/14/09
Posts: 11,870
Loc: :seriousbusiness:
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 Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: deCypher]
#12815595 - 06/28/10 01:49 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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that depends. Are you doing things to relieve your suffering out of wanting instant gratification? If so, chances are you are mostly distracting yourself from your sufferings, not overcoming them
of course you should enjoy life.
it seems that the truest of things have a subtle and unexplainable contradictory nature
I don't know how to explain it in a way that doesn't seem to leave holes in it's connection to your question, but I've found that pretty much everything in life is reflected in the philosophy or discipline of playing a musical instrument. If you want to instantly play the most badass piece, you're going to play it sloppily, because you skipped all the fundamentals that construct the foundation for your playing. It might seem a lot funner to skip the practice and just play that cool piece, but really, the reward for discipline is much greater: the bliss is much greater
and at the same time, some of the best music just happens spontaneously. But it can't happen spontaneously if one seeks or forces its happening, it just has to happen. A lot like having fun
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MY HAIR IS A BIRD
YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID
   
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c0sm0nautt
Registered: 05/19/08
Posts: 10,027
Loc: NY
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: deCypher]
#12815620 - 06/28/10 01:53 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Pleasurable drugs not only bring pleasure, but also suffering - like when you run out of the drug. I do believe that Enlightenment can be equated with infinite bliss, but seeking it for the bliss is counter productive because the subject-identity of seeking is just another construct of the Ego. It is only when one identifies with what was always there that the ocean of bliss can be allowed to slip into the drop. In short, true bliss can only be realized when one gets off the roller coaster.
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The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant, and has forgotten the gift. - Albert Einstein
    
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Scantraxx
Wait........ what?
Registered: 04/15/08
Posts: 687
Last seen: 2 months, 25 days
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: deCypher]
#12815628 - 06/28/10 01:54 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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4 hours an of ecstasy high leaves me with 1 week of deppresion, chasing girls that are slutty gets boring/repetitive. Buddhism is the mid way point, so I think that means find a balance in life and spirituality. Depends what you true desires are though, if you truely desire to take drugs and have sex with random girls then go for it, if there are no negative side affects to the life style then why not live it up? haha
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the bizzle
the joke that no one spoke
Registered: 04/14/09
Posts: 11,870
Loc: :seriousbusiness:
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: c0sm0nautt]
#12815639 - 06/28/10 01:57 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
In short, true bliss can only be realized when one gets off the roller coaster.
that's odd. I am sure we are talking about different things, but the most blissed I have ever been is when seeing the nature of experience itself as a constant roller coaster ride
Quote:
It is only when one identifies with what was always there that the ocean of bliss can be allowed to slip into the drop.
yeah, we just have different meaning for "roller coaster." Mine is somewhat more like this
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MY HAIR IS A BIRD
YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID
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the human abstract
malaka the werewolf
Registered: 11/30/09
Posts: 8,817
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: Scantraxx]
#12815666 - 06/28/10 02:01 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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the living in the now needs to be mastered more than being happy at a certain point or from something external.
the moment at this point does not lack anything nor does it need anything added.
thats why i never think of drugs with glitter on them. they are external things that may just be part of our imagination
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c0sm0nautt
Registered: 05/19/08
Posts: 10,027
Loc: NY
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: the bizzle]
#12815676 - 06/28/10 02:03 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
the bizzle said:
Quote:
In short, true bliss can only be realized when one gets off the roller coaster.
that's odd. I am sure we are talking about different things, but the most blissed I have ever been is when seeing the nature of experience itself as a constant roller coaster ride
I think we are talking about the same thing. It probably is a bit of a misnomer for me to say "get off" the roller coaster, for that is impossible. Rather I should have said, 'is constantly aware one is on a roller coaster', for the awareness itself is constant and rooted in the deepest bliss.
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The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant, and has forgotten the gift. - Albert Einstein
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blewmeanie
Sativa Cyborg
Registered: 10/01/06
Posts: 28,512
Loc: Jacksonville FL 
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: c0sm0nautt]
#12815690 - 06/28/10 02:06 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Cyph3r said:
Life is suffering, quoth the Buddha. So why not pursue the things that alleviate this suffering? Why not choose to do as many pleasurable drugs as we can, to pursue as many attractive women as we can, in short... to pursue all the behaviors we can that increase our level of happiness?
Your answer may depend on whether or not you believe in an afterlife. I personally choose to behave as if there isn't one, just in case. If this is our last life to live, why NOT enjoy it?
When it comes to sensory pleasure, whether it be with or without drugs, I've never been satisfied.
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the human abstract
malaka the werewolf
Registered: 11/30/09
Posts: 8,817
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: blewmeanie] 1
#12815698 - 06/28/10 02:08 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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so youre saying you cant get no satisfaction?
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★★★ ★
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Poid
deBunker
Registered: 02/04/08
Posts: 40,361
Loc: SF Bay Area
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 Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: blewmeanie]
#12815719 - 06/28/10 02:13 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
blewmeanie said:
Quote:
Cyph3r said:
Life is suffering, quoth the Buddha. So why not pursue the things that alleviate this suffering? Why not choose to do as many pleasurable drugs as we can, to pursue as many attractive women as we can, in short... to pursue all the behaviors we can that increase our level of happiness?
Your answer may depend on whether or not you believe in an afterlife. I personally choose to behave as if there isn't one, just in case. If this is our last life to live, why NOT enjoy it?
When it comes to sensory pleasure, whether it be with or without drugs, I've never been satisfied.
What's your point?
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Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. -- Bob Dylan   fireworks_god said:It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.
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fazdazzle
Wanderer
Registered: 02/17/05
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: deCypher] 1
#12815747 - 06/28/10 02:19 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Cyph3r said:
Life is suffering, quoth the Buddha. So why not pursue the things that alleviate this suffering? Why not choose to do as many pleasurable drugs as we can, to pursue as many attractive women as we can, in short... to pursue all the behaviors we can that increase our level of happiness?
Your answer may depend on whether or not you believe in an afterlife. I personally choose to behave as if there isn't one, just in case. If this is our last life to live, why NOT enjoy it?
This is very true and something I think about often. Both an afterlife and no afterlife at all inevitably lead one to a joyous life. If there is an after life: fuck it! there's an afterlife! If this is all we got: fuck it! let's do this in style!
Even yet, I still find myself not fully latching onto this idea. I don't really know quite why this is...so I should probably think more fully on what I've written above. Some of it stems from insecurities, I'm sure. I find that in a way, being blissful constantly gives away to others who may not be so deserving, the credit of this bliss. Now we're just into an ego game....but it also points out that I'm placing the power of my emotions in other people's hands. I'm trying to transfer this power over to myself but I am constantly battled by my ego on this issue.
If we're to pursue pleasurable things constantly we have to look at the two most basic forms of pleasure: momentary and perpetual. So it's the least or the most. Or the most or the least, respectively. It depends on how you look at it. A lot of people look at it the second way, so they pursue immediate pleasure as often as they can. While this can be pleasurable and a boon to persistent pleasure, it has without a doubt,at times, very bad consequences. Certain pleasurable things are addictive or otherwise damaging to our life, so these things peter out eventually. If they are addictive, we may be flying high for weeks, or even years if we turn to crime and coercion, but eventually, *eventually*, it stops. Even if you completely follow daily pleasure until you die, chances are you will still die unsatisfied.
This is where I think perpetual pleasure comes into play. The thoroughly happiest people I know are people that cultivated their happiness over a lifetime. I'm inclined to believe that you could achieve a higher purely happy state through constant drug use, but the happiness which results in thereafter perpetual happiness, which undoubtedly happens most often without drugs, is the most profound and thorough.
Yeah, I'm all for pursuing pleasure, but it seems to be kind of a high wire act...you go too far into the immediate pleasures and you will probably fall to one side, while if you go too far into the perpetual pleasures you might fall off, but I think this side has much more leeway.
Beyond this, and going back to my first paragraph and as a fusion of the two types of pleasure I outlined above, why not instantaneously create pleasure? Get happy! IMO we have psychological blocks that stop us from being happy. And again, in my opinion, most of the egregious pleasures we pursue are to make us straight up happy, so if we are happy to begin with, what pleasures would we really pursue?
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blewmeanie
Sativa Cyborg
Registered: 10/01/06
Posts: 28,512
Loc: Jacksonville FL
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: Poid]
#12815863 - 06/28/10 02:44 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Poid said:
Quote:
blewmeanie said:
Quote:
Cyph3r said:
Life is suffering, quoth the Buddha. So why not pursue the things that alleviate this suffering? Why not choose to do as many pleasurable drugs as we can, to pursue as many attractive women as we can, in short... to pursue all the behaviors we can that increase our level of happiness?
Your answer may depend on whether or not you believe in an afterlife. I personally choose to behave as if there isn't one, just in case. If this is our last life to live, why NOT enjoy it?
When it comes to sensory pleasure, whether it be with or without drugs, I've never been satisfied.
What's your point?
Dukkha is the word we translate as "suffering". It's a weird term with a lot of strange analogies attached to it, and from what I understand it means something like "incapable of satisfaction", or "a self perpetuating pain". The idea being I think that by trying to avoid suffering you create it.
I don't know about all that, but I do know that I've never been satisfied by chasing pleasure or avoiding pain. The few brief moments in meditation where everything dropped away is the closest I've come to it.
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c0sm0nautt
Registered: 05/19/08
Posts: 10,027
Loc: NY
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Quote:
the human abstract said:
so youre saying you cant get no satisfaction?
I just listened to a section of the A New Earth audio book which synchronicitically said, 'I can't get no satisfaction' is the song of the ego. 
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The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant, and has forgotten the gift. - Albert Einstein
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circastes
Being too serious
Registered: 01/14/10
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: blewmeanie]
#12815913 - 06/28/10 02:56 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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I think all is suffering because we already have everything, right now, we're just poised into the future or past. It's like the whole thing goes nowhere, nothing happens, because you've already got it all.
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"Your salvation may lie in a rational apprehension of the present moment."
-Terence McKenna
she said there's good men
that there's God in everyone
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the bizzle
the joke that no one spoke
Registered: 04/14/09
Posts: 11,870
Loc: :seriousbusiness:
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: circastes]
#12815952 - 06/28/10 03:08 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
circastes said:
I think all is suffering because we already have everything, right now, we're just poised into the future or past. It's like the whole thing goes nowhere, nothing happens, because you've already got it all.
explain hunger and thirst
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MY HAIR IS A BIRD
YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID
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circastes
Being too serious
Registered: 01/14/10
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Loc:
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: the bizzle]
#12816068 - 06/28/10 03:38 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Well those are automatic processes. What I mean are our deliberate 'needs' (wants). Those are suffering because they say to us "I don't have enough/it all"
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"Your salvation may lie in a rational apprehension of the present moment."
-Terence McKenna
she said there's good men
that there's God in everyone
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Diaboleros
Devil's spawn
Registered: 07/20/08
Posts: 1,856
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: circastes]
#12816303 - 06/28/10 05:07 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Life is suffering only because we desire stuff. What I understood from Buddha is that when you desire to have sex with a girl for example, you remove your own access to that sensory pleasure from your imagination, until you have sex with the girl, then it comes back.
So when you stop desiring, you have access to all sensory pleasure you can imagine, thats when you attain bliss or nirvana.
Think about it, in dreams you can feel, taste, hear, see anything you want, why would this not be possible in real life? Because in real life, you block out that possibility by unconsciously holding back your imagination.
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The Chronic
Registered: 05/08/04
Posts: 12,003
Loc: 
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: deCypher]
#12816404 - 06/28/10 05:58 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Cyph3r said:
Life is suffering, quoth the Buddha. So why not pursue the things that alleviate this suffering? Why not choose to do as many pleasurable drugs as we can, to pursue as many attractive women as we can, in short... to pursue all the behaviors we can that increase our level of happiness?
Buddha also taught that no 'thing' can alleviate suffering, they can only perpetuate it, or at best postpone it
Usually we love something when we feel we derive tremendous happiness from it, so when that thing is gone, so is the happiness it once brought
So things may temporarily increase happiness, but temporary happiness is not real happiness, how can something so unstable & unreliable be called happiness?
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 79,903
Loc: underbelly
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: deCypher]
#12816574 - 06/28/10 07:55 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Cyph3r said:
Life is suffering, quoth the Buddha. So why not pursue the things that alleviate this suffering? Why not choose to do as many pleasurable drugs as we can, to pursue as many attractive women as we can, in short... to pursue all the behaviors we can that increase our level of happiness?
Your answer may depend on whether or not you believe in an afterlife. I personally choose to behave as if there isn't one, just in case. If this is our last life to live, why NOT enjoy it?
There is absolutely no reason not to pursue pleasure and love and fun as far as I know. The problem is in knowing how to choose and go about it. Everyone wants these things and most of their attempts at it don't seem to be working. That's why really understanding your personal psychology and motivations is so important towards that goal.
In my experience the people who understand themselves the best and can accept themselves as they really are the best are the best as pursuing pleasure and enjoying life.
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"Hang on tightly, let go lightly" -anonymous
“under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. we have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. we have never seen a totally sane human being.”
― Robert Anton Wilson
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 79,903
Loc: underbelly
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Re: So why not pursue bliss? [Re: The Chronic]
#12816587 - 06/28/10 08:00 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Buddha also taught that no 'thing' can alleviate suffering, they can only perpetuate it, or at best postpone it
Usually we love something when we feel we derive tremendous happiness from it, so when that thing is gone, so is the happiness it once brought
So things may temporarily increase happiness, but temporary happiness is not real happiness, how can something so unstable & unreliable be called happiness?
I truly disagree with this from personal experience. I have learned how not to suffer in many areas of life where I used to suffer. My suffering contininues to lessen step by however slow step.
I find that a minimal amount of suffering (middle path balance) is acceptable as far as enjoying life goes. I accept and do not have to suffer over the fact that life is not perfect.
And if I can postpone suffering as you stated, long enough, well that would work too. There are actually people who enjoy their lives for the most part and have no time for seeking the meaning of life because they are too busy living it.
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"Hang on tightly, let go lightly" -anonymous
“under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. we have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. we have never seen a totally sane human being.”
― Robert Anton Wilson
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