Someone here

What is 'unconditional pleasure'? Pleasure is a condition. Pleasure is not pain. And pain is not boredom. And boredom is not grief etc. Well perhaps if you followed my recent threads.. I discovered that there is no transcendental aspects of reality. So called material world is all there is. All that we are certain of at least. This gets tricky. I have to ask what do you mean by God? And what does 'true' mean? Is there a false nature? The true nature is already the case (since true) which is what you are directly experiencing all that time.

Well that can work up to a certain point and then you can't do it right? You just have to eat or otherwise you will starve and suffer until death. So My point you actually NEED stuff to be happy. And as soon as it lacks you will suffer.(namely food in this case). That goes against the idea of unconditional happiness. It seems happiness IS dependent upon certain things. Certain conditions. There is no way you will be happy while starving. You will feel like shit.

The point is that pain is inevitable. It's an intrinsic part of life. However.. Obviously if you could minimize your pain you would do it. It's not a realistic expectation to expect that you will never again in your life going to have a bad day... The hedonist works on minimizing pain not completely eliminating as that is not possible (there is no pleasure without some sort of pain or price).

Well if I were to choose between winning a million dollars in the lottery or working /putting effort /positivity for 10 years and then earning a million dollars.. I would choose the first ?.

I get that. But still just because this endless desire of the ego and the inability to be fully fulfilled no matter what doesn't mean that living a painful life is better or even equal to living an exciting life. I don't agree with this concept. As far as I know there is no holy book somewhere that says what happiness is. It's subjective. Some people are happy by being religious. Others are happy with torture as I mentioned. Others are happy with watching TV shows etc. And there is no way I'm going to agree that happiness=sadness. That just makes the whole discussion superfluous. I think it's biological programming. Even a cave man from 3000 years ago will naturally gravitate towards finding food and shelter and a partner and will averse against suffering and pain. Tried it. Didn't work. I felt nothing. Saying yes to no means saying no.

And just to not beat around the bush.. This utopian Buddhist unconditional happiness is a myth. The reality of the matter is that you are a biological robot.. Play with the levels of Serotonin in your brain and it will become impossible for you to be happy. And you will need 3 pills of Prozac every day just to feel just fine. It's all programed into you from the beginning.. Stuff like a good meal.. Sexual orgasm.. Socializing.. Entertainment.. Etc pull the switch of dopamine in your brain and that basically makes you happy... That's all that there is to it. There is no such thing as "unconditional happiness". Or happiness via no means whatsoever. Just doesn't make sense. And of course on the other side as I mentioned in OP.. Even chasing those material means will not ever be good enough due to the fact of impermanence and hedonistic adaption and so Forth. So basically there is no such thing as actual happiness. Because it will always be a transitioning and a temporary phase.

@Surfingthewave no I'm just good at hypnosis. That post was pretty dark. Well the world is a fucked up place and this isn't pessimism from my part. Just stating some fact. When I speak the default state of any living organism is basically tension. You are naturally dying and decaying. That's the path of least resistance. Inertia. So you have to put on constant effort to go against this decaying process and survive. This expresses itself for example in the constant ever renewable biological needs (water...food... Rest). It kinda when you put it into perspective.. It shows you that life is indeed a worthless piece of shit. But it's not an option to quit the game. To be or to be. Is the choice.

Beautiful. What is beauty is a good question to start. Because it seems like a subjective thing. Not universal.

@zeroISinfinity you didn't read between the lines.

No one is enlightened. Except me. How do I know? God told me.

@Ensho sorry to hear man. I hope that post didn't trigger bad emotions for ya. Stick around and keep fighting for yourself. There is light at the end of the tunnel. @Surfingthewave thank you. Well I'm not suffering actually. In that post .. I wasn't expressing my own state .. I was speaking about the state of depressed people. Which I don't need to go through it to be able to relate to their suffering. Heard of Wu Wei? Lol I'm from the Wu Wei culture

Let's take a look at direct experience... Everything boils down to sensations. All you have is basically the five senses. A visual field compromised of colors and objects. And audio emerging out of these different objects. And physical signals in the body. Different sensations. And thoughts. Which are nothing but sensations as well. And that's basically all there is. This might seem like a naive reductionist philosophy. Where I'm denying everything that is not contacted with directly. But it is what it is. I'm stripping away all that's not certain. All that's not present. Because even the idea of cause and effect.. Of the need for explanations to this existence...are not present in direct experience. No where on the universe is it written that this universe has a cause. Or a start. Or a creator. Or even an explanation. No where is logic written. What is logic? Words and language. Which boil down to shapes and symbols and colors. Again just sensation.

What the hell is reality? What is this thing? What is your body? What is sound? What is sight? What is every detail of this 3D realm? What is every moment? Where does it come from? Where is it going? It's real. Here it is. Perhaps it's unknowable? It sure is. It's a complete miracle. A complete unexplainable appearance. Some philosophy.. An observation that is getting sharpened in my mind recently.. There is no difference between dream and reality. It's literally like... The dream phenomenon is identical to the 3d waking world. And both are just what they are. Exactly as they are. Light and sound. Smell and taste and touch. etc. And that's all there is. There is no explanation. Direct experience is God. Is rock bottom. This experience that's happening right now is all.. Is everything.. Is God.. Is unexplainable. I dream of the day that everyone can understand this. It should be obvious.

@Nahm @allislove you can lock thread atm. I said all I want. And not feeling like going in circles again and again.

So I'm advocating that direct experience is the one and only source of Truth. And anything that you have no direct experience of is horseshit (at least for you.. Maybe others have direct experience of it. And maybe you will too... Later on ). I just wanna tackle the objection of "perception". A common objection against direct experience being the only source of certain knowledge about the world is.... "But Leo.(?.) .. Direct experience is just" perception" . We are not experiencing the" real world "as it is. "the thing in itself" as Kant calls it. We are merely experiencing a filtered "copy" of the real world via the senses. For example.. Our eyes.. They don't show us the raw vibrations that are the real reality.. Instead... They show us colors. And color is not a third person objective thing. It's subjectively shaped by our perceptual system. And since different creatures have different perceptual systems.. Different creatures can see different colors from the same object. For example.. A person with color blindness might see a yellow object to be green or orange " Answer : Take a very close look at your direct experience of sight... the eye is not seeing... it is just 'eyeing'. It is the appearance of an eye. In other words.. The experience of" eyes" is not the experience of "sight". You experience "eyes" as a separate experience into itself. And you experience "sight" as a separate experience into itself. All you can say for certain is that there is a correlation between the experience of eyes and the experience of sight more than it Is with your ears for example. But notice that's not the same things as "I see through the eyes" As one looks into someone's eyes.. one is looking at an image. Behind the image and within it are nothing. The image has no 'behind' or 'within'.. any more than the image in an 'apparent nightly dream' has a 'behind' or 'within'. There is no 'spark' or 'focal point' or 'bit' of consciousness in.. or associated with the image seen. One is wholly present. One is not divided into 'bits' or 'loci' or any other differentiators. seeing is an appearance. Eyes are a different appearance. The eyes don't see. You have no experience of the eyes seeing anything. They are distinctions happening within consciousness.the visual field is occurring exactly where is it occurring. It is not occurring in your eyes lmao . Or in your so called brain. It is occurring exactly where it is occurring. Just like the 'dream world' at night.. It appears as if the dream character's eyes are seeing the dream world. But actually it's consciousness who is appearing as eyes.. As sight.. As world. P. S. that being said... I have no specific answer to the color blindness objection thing.

@allislove @Nahm I love you guys ❤️? But... Sometimes different people just have different paths in life you know?

Two questions.. 1 - are you saying that obtaining these material things are not going to resul in increase in one's level of happiness and satisfaction in life? Or are you just saying that it will but it's never good enough? 2 "happy no matter what" doesn't make sense. You see happiness is a specific thing. A happy face is not a crying face. How is you going to be happy when you are not happy? Why is it that we imagine happiness to be conditioned by obtaining specific things if that's actually false? Because if satisfaction as you call it is Indeed induced or can be induced via specific material means.... How is it that it can also be induced without any means whatsoever? If that was the case...why were we chasing those false means in the first place if we could just sit and happy? A serious question.. How can you sit and be hungry and be happy? ? I think what you are referring to is a state of freedom or unconditional openness which is a feature of existence itself.... But then comes the separate self which just happens to be not accepting the present moment and conditions all the time... And it cannot be aligned with this quality of existence fully... Otherwise you will die. If you stopped rejecting pain and suffering you will die. After all.. Why eat if you don't mind being happy with an empty stomach?

Now seriously? if there is no me.. Then who is it that you are trying to discredit? And if there is no me.. How can me realize that there is no me? ... This whole' no self ' business.. The entire Buddhist doctrine that teaches no-self could be easily debunked by simply saying "I'm this body right here. This organism that breaths and eats and sleeps..".are you going to say body is a thought and whatnot? Sorry but that is just utter nonsense. I'm really not baby-sitting anyone or here. I'm a hardcore Truth seeker. I identify as that. And I ask you to respect this. Body is an object that you have actual sensual direct experience of. I'm sorry I need to point such obvious things. Relative means it's not true from all possible POVs. You are using language. Your words are subject to relative falsehood. If you want to never be wrong just stop using language. Silence is never wrong. What you say is not absolutely true. Otherwise we can't be disagreeing about it right now if it's absolute. "there is no you" is relative. It's not the end-all be-all God-given golden Truth. It all depends on what do you mean by you. We could define me as the body.. Or As an ego.or As all of existence. And again if there is no me.. Who are you talking to? ? Sure. The illusory self which doesn't exist can't see its own illusion. This is paradoxical irony Supreme. ?

How is "being" the same as happiness? Being is such a robust thing. Being includes suffering from diseases. Is diseases and pain included in happiness as being? And if you are going to twist the word to such a degree it becomes meaningless. Also not sure why are you always laughing?

@Preety_India sounds like a write-off. You need to elaborate or address my specific point.

Yeah but what is happiness and is it really separate from "pleasure"? It all basically boils down to sensations in the body. We don't need abstract off and theorizing about what happiness means. Actually go back in your past and remember your experiences of happiness. Weren't they linked to specific things (maybe getting high grades.. Buying new iPad.. Getting new friends etc)... Now a hedonist will argue that you just keep doing more and more of these good feeling activities and that's basically what a happy life is! @Tim R will come to your lengthy post later ?(off to bed atm lol)

A baby is shiting his pampers.

This might take you some intelligence to grasp... The earth is both flat and round... Flat when you are standing on it.. Round when you are viewing it from outer space... And to get extra devilish... Have you actually seen the earth from above or traveled across the whole diamater to verify that it's round? No. Then you are just blindly Believing that it's round.

@mandyjw how is happiness separate from specific experiences of specific things? Is there a pure happiness that comes out of nothing? Also isn't "happiness" itself sort of relative? What is considered happiness? Some people are happy by pain (masochistic).... This gets deep.