crogman1..could this be the question?

Quote:

---

I could let it got at that and say you can stuff religion except that ever since I can remember I wanted someone to tell me what the purpose of being here, being alive is for.

---

Quote:

---

Personally, I've found many important answers in Yogananda's teachings (the source of much of what I know) like for example, earth is a type of "hell" so that explains the suffering everyone goes through here.

---

Quote:

---

In a way we sit for no purpose; that's one side of practice. But the other side is that we want to be free from suffering. Not only that, but we want others to be free from suffering. So a key point in our practice is to understand what suffering is. If we really understand suffering we see how to practice, not just while sitting, but in the rest of our life. We can understand our daily life and see that it's really not a problem. A few weeks ago someone gave me an interesting article on suffering, and the first part of it was about the meaning of the word - "suffering." I'm interested in these meaning; they are teachings in themselves.

The writer of this article pointed out that the word "suffering" is used to express many things. The second part, "fer," is from the Latin verb ferre meaning "to bear." And the first part, "suf," is from sub, meaning "under." So there's a feeling in the word "to be under," "to bear under," "to totally be under" - "to be supporting something from underneath."

Now, in contrast, the words "affliction," "grief," and "depression" all bring images of weight; of something bearing *down upon* us. In fact the word "grief" is again from the Latin gravare, which means press down.

So there are two kinds of suffering. One is when we feel we're being pressed down; as though suffering is coming at us from without, as though we're receiving something that's making us suffer. The other kind of suffering is being under, just bearing it, just "being" it. And this distinction in understanding suffering is one of the keys to understand our practice.

I've sometimes distinguished between "suffering" and "pain," but now I'd like to use just the word "suffering" and distinguish between what I call false suffering and true suffering. That difference in understanding is very important. The foundation of our practice, and the first of the Four Noble Truths, is the statement of the Buddha that "Life is suffering." He didn't say it's suffering sometimes - he said life *is* suffering. And I want to distinguish between those two kinds of suffering.

Often people will say, "I certainly can see that life is suffering when everything is going wrong, and everything's unpleasant, but I really don't get it when life is going along well and I'm feeling good." But there are differnt categories of suffering. For instance, when we don't get something we want, we suffer. And yet when we *do* get it we also suffer, because we know that if we get it we can lose it. It doesn't matter whether we get it or don't get it, if it happens to us or doesn't happen to us. We suffer because life is constantly changing. We know we can't hold on to the pleasant things, and we know that even if unpleasantness disappears, it can come again.

The word "suffer" doesn't necessarily imply a dramatic major experience; even the nicest day is not free of sufering. For instance, you might have the best breakfast you can imagine, you might see just the friend you want to see, you might go to work and have everything go smoothly. There aren't many days as nice as that; but even so, we know that on the next day it could be just the opposite. Life presents us with no guarantees; and because we know that, we're uneasy and anxious. If we truly examine our situation from the usual point of view, life is suffering, like an affliction.

---

Quote:

---

Now my friend noticed that when there was just the physical pain, there was no problem. The minute she began to have a thought about the pain, she began to suffer and be miserable. It makes me think of a few lines of Master Huang Po: "This mind is no mind of conceptual thought and it is completely detached from form. So Buddhas and sentient beings do not differ at all. If you can only rid yourselves of conceptual thought, you will have accomplished everything. But if you students of the Way do not rid yourselves of conceptual though in a flash, even though you strive for aeon and aeon, you will never accomplish it."

It's the play of our minds, of conceptualization about anything that happens to us, that is the problem. There's nothing wrong with conceptualization per se; but when we take our opinions about any event to be some kind of absolute truth and fail to see that they are opinions, then we suffer. That's false suffering. "A tenth of an inch of difference, and heaven and earth are set apart."

Now a point to add here is that it doesn't make any difference what's happening: It may be very unfair, it may be very cruel. All of us have things happen to us that are unfair, mean, and cruel. And our usual way is to think, "This is terrible!" We fight back, we oppose the event. We try to do as Shakespeare said: "To take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them."

It would be nice if it did end "the slings and arrows of most outrageous fortune." Day by day we all meet events that seem most unfair, and we feel that the only way to handle an attack is to fight back; and the way we fight is with our minds. We arm ourselves with our anger and our opinions, our self-righteousness, as though we were putting on a bulletproof vest. And we think this is the way to live our life. All that we accomplish is to increase the separation, to excalate the anger, and to make ourselves and everyone else miserable. So, if this approach doesn't work, how do we handle the suffering of life? There's a Sufi story about this.
At one time there was a young man whose father was one of the greatest teachers of his generation, respected and revered by everyone. And this young man, having grown up hearing his father speak great words of wisdom, felt that he knew all there was to know. But his father said, "no, I can't teach you what you need to know. The person I want you to go and see is a peasant teacher, a man who is illiterate, just a farmer." The young man wasn't pleased with this, but he went off and traveled on foot, not very willingly, until he came to the village where this peasant lived. It happened at this time that the peasant was on his way by horseback from his own farm to another farm, and he saw the young man coming toward him.

When the young man came near and bowed before him, the teacher looked down and said, "Not enough."

Thereupon the young man bowed to his knees, and the peasant teacher again said, "Not enough." Then he bowed to the horse's knees, but again the teacher said, "not enough." So the young man bowed once more, this time to the horse's feet, touching the horse's hoof. Then the peasant teacher said to him, "You can go back now. You have had your training." And that was all.

So (remembering the definnition of the word "suffer" ) until we bow down and bear the suffering of life - not opposing it, but absorbing it and being it - we cannot see what our life is. This by no means implies passivity or nonaction, but action from a state of complete acceptance. Even "acceptance" is not quite accurate - it's simply *being* the suffering. It isn't a matter of protecting ourselves, or accepting something else. Complete openness, complete vulnerability to life, is (surprisingly enough) the only satisfactory way of living our life.

Of course, if you're anything like me, you'll avoid it as long as possible - because it's one thing to talk about, but extremely difficult to do. Yet when we do it, we know in our very guts who we are and who eveyone else is; and the barrier between ourselves and others is gone.

---

Quote:

---

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Personally, I've found many important answers in Yogananda's teachings (the source of much of what I know) like for example, earth is a type of "hell" so that explains the suffering everyone goes through here.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Actually, this line of thinking was what I found limiting about these teachings. It's very easily misconstrued. Why should we look at our life here on earth as "hell" even if it's not going well, even when it's excruciating? Why can't it just be "as it is?"

---

Quote:

---

Perhaps Easyrose is our Godsend that we may openly and candidly air our issues as needy, seeking children of God instead of presenting ourselves as experts and erudites, if you will. Just perhaps.

---

Quote:

---

please feel my love, and allow me to request that you see where you have left me out in the cold

your advice is always needed, please also be nice

---

Quote:

---

...the whole idea that some nirvana is waiting for us somewhere "else" which will be oh so much better than where we are now...that pleasure in sex, food, beauty (not attachment mind you, but being fully aware of the pleasure) is somehow "bad" and "experiences" in meditation are "good" ...I don't know, the whole shebang just doesn't cut it for me anymore.

---