Originally posted by M. Gaspar
But a brief response to one point: If one takes away the sufferings of war...there's still plenty left. Mothers lose children. Loves are unrequited. People lose their jobs, their houses, their health...each in their own personal "drama" and each with the ability to make their CHOICES with regard to HANDLING what life throws their way.
All good points
Originally posted by M. Gaspar
As I have said, I don't think "the game" is for us to "eliminate suffering by curtailing desire" -- which I believe is a Buddhist idea (but could be wrong) -- but to be the "highest self" we can be in the face of life challenges...including suffering.
But here is where I believe a person has to be thorough in his/her investigation. Your's is pretty good philosophy, but I don't believe what the Buddha taught was philosophy.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will again point out that what the Buddha was doing, and what Buddhism is, may be two entirely different things. Let me give an example.
Say we know the species who was to directly to evolve into the modern human, and the time is over a hundred thousand years ago. These man-beasts could crudely shape and use tools, solve elementary problems, speak words (but only to identify things), and cooperate in tribal endeavors.
Suddenly a member of their tribe begins retreating to a cave for 3 or 4 hours each day. This goes on for years before the other tribal members become curious to know what he is doing in that cave. They all go there and find the man writing things on the wall. There are maps, strange hieroglyphic figures arranged in rows, symbols he is using for numbers, and so on.
They are so interested he somehow let's them know that he will teach them what it has taken all those years for him to learn, which is to
reason. To them it is magic that he can figure out things, and teach them to write and speak. He tells them it isn't magic really, but it will take years of dedicated practice to rise up from the state of consciousness they are into what he's achieved. But if they will dedicate themselves, he will guide them.
Okay. So the Buddha similarly retreated to realize something, not a philosophy, but an entirely new level of consciousness. It is not easy to understand what this consciousness realization is because we, like the proto-human, do not have the conscious skill needed to understand the phenomenon. So what we do instead is translate it "down" into what we are familiar with, which is philosophy/theology.
Buddhism, and in my opinion all religion that's descended from an enlightened person, is just such a translating down. That 's why people take part of the methods of attaining enlightement (like the four noble truths) and convert them into morality, or rules for living, or rituals, or belief systems.
But the four noble truths really were meant to help someone aspiring to enlightenment turn inward. The practice that leads to enlightenment is called
samadhi and it is a practice where one turns one's attention inward, and merges one's mind with the breath. In that experience "conscious oneness" is attained or, as it is called in the West, "union." In that oneness experience one sees reality in a different way than one ever has. It is an entirely new sort of consciousness.
The experience is very fulfilling, and leads to deep contentment and bliss. So the teaching of the Buddha was specifically designed to encourage one to let go of being dependent on the external world for happiness, and instead turn inside and realize the Buddha's secret. Out of the context of striving for enlightenment, I don't think "ceasing desire" makes all that much sense.
Similarly, Totoro's comment that if one is not thinking something then one is nonetheless thinking about nothing, is spoken from the mind of someone who doesn't know what it is like to experience an utterly still mind. In that experience, there is only consciousness. One is aware of everything, and no thoughts are necessary. But it is a mistake to think one can stop the mind with will power; when one merges and attains samadhi, that union is what makes the mind still (for awhile at least until our old habits come back . . . that's why one must practice every day).
Of the religions that have descended from enlightened individuals, 99+% of it (IMHO) has been "externalized" into what people call "Buddhism" or "Christianity." But there is also that little fraction of people (historically you will find them in monasteries, the sangha, ashrams, etc.) who understood the "inner" part and pursued that instead. Because it is virtually impossible to learn the inner part without guidance from someone who's realized it, it has been that thin thread of samadhi/union devotees who have kept the experience alive through the centuries for other inner seekers.
Regarding China, the same was true. The externalized religion of Buddhism made it there, but so did a solitary enlightened monk. The two strains developed separately, with the externalized aspect far outdistancing the inner part, as usual.