Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[Leo Gura]

@Natasha Tori Maru For you, imagine being eaten alive by a pack of ravenous kangaroos 

[Xonas Pitfall]

7 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

There's that horrible audio of the woman being eaten alive by a bear floating about... Awful.

Buddha said "Life is suffering" 

It seems reasonable to infer he had not transcended suffering - as he was alive (we assume!) when he said that. Life seems to be a qualifier! 

If he even said that. 

Could be hearsay! Or maybe the Buddha never existed 🙃

I think it's also so tricky with old scriptures and philosophies in general to truly know what they all meant.

You can easily imagine that if you only had a few videos of Leo left after hundreds of years, many people would also conclude, "Well, Leo said to transcend suffering and that it's possible, because he had that one trip where he said, 'Someone could shoot me through the head, I'm immortal, and I wouldn't feel a thing!!! Death is Imaginary! Pain is Imaginary!!!'"

But obviously, if you had the full context, this entire forum, his replies, and all of his videos, you'd see the actual message.

It's probably similar with many of these philosophies/religions too.

It's always way easier for someone to "appear" like a God when they're dead, haha.

Edited 7 hours ago by Xonas Pitfall

[Leo Gura]

Saddam Hussein would torture his political rivals by placing their children in a room with a glass wall, throwing a bunch of bees into the room, and forcing their parents to watch the bees sting their children to death as the kids ran around the room screaming.

Try transcending that.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Natasha Tori Maru For you, imagine being eaten alive by a pack of ravenous kangaroos 

No no! The leg-gut kick remember? 

The fuckers gut you with the legs, and leave you to slowly die, gizzards exposed. Baking on the cracked ochre earth under the hot Australian sun. Carrions picking at exposed entrails...

Suffering - what's that?

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Xonas Pitfall 100% agree. 

Who knows if someone didn't translate a word incorrectly - resulting in a whole fucken religious belief system?

[bazera]

23 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

imagine a bear attacking you.

This can help with that 

I wonder what would The Buddha do in this situation.

But I feel like we're strawmanning suffering transcendence now, because all Ralston was talking about in that book was removing background suffering that's generated with having a sense of self, wasn't he? I don't think that's unrealistic, at least temporarily. 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@bazera yes this is what I was pointing toward earlier -  even Ralston doesn't believe all suffering can be transcended. And that is certainly not what he was saying from my understanding of "Ending Unnecessary Suffering"

[Leo Gura]

But some smartass always brings up the case of the Buddhist monk who lit himself on fire with gasoline and didn't flinch.

Edited 7 hours ago by Leo Gura

[bazera]

4 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

@bazera yes this is what I was pointing toward earlier -  even Ralston doesn't believe all suffering can be transcended. And that is certainly not what he was saying from my understanding of "Ending Unnecessary Suffering"

He was very careful to not let us assume that all suffering was self-generated. But he claimed that some of it was coming from living life with certain metaphysical assumptions. He certainly wasn't talking about removing suffering that comes with getting stabbed with the knife, at least as I understood.

 

[bazera]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

But some smartass always brings up the case of the Buddhist monk who lit himself on gasoline and didn't flinch.

Yeah that's annoying to hear, I don't like the assumption that he didn't suffer in there.

There are some wierd genetic disorders that some people can't feel heat / cold, whatever. Maybe he had one of those 

[Leo Gura]

I feel like there is a more subtle form of psychological suffering that Ralston glosses over.

The worst suffering is not even necessarily physical. For a parent, the loss of a child is very serious suffering that they can't just ignore or dismiss at will.

Is the loss of a child unnecessary suffering that you can just shut off? I think not.

I once asked Shinzen Young how he would react if he lost his child. He said, "I would weep."

That was a good answer.

Edited 7 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Now children, let us all sit around the campfire and listen to a geriatric white man lecture us on suffering:

-1pt for the book plug 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Clarence]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

That's probably because of the adrenaline from being in a life-threatening situation.

If you don't like the stabbing example, imagine a bear attacking you.

One very gruesome way to die is to be restrained and dismembered alive. I've seen videos of this, and it looks incredibly painful, especially since these crimes are often committed with machetes that barely cut. It can take a long time.

It feels much more real to watch a video than to simply imagine an attack. I've also seen a video of someone being killed by a bear, but it wasn't as graphic. It's not one of the cases that immediately comes to mind when I think about suffering, even though it must be horrible.

I also saw a video of a man's genitals being eaten by a dog. That one is gruesome as well. It's easy to find [dog eating man's dick] if anyone wants to reflect on transcending suffering. (For the record, I didn't search for it myself, I came across it on Facebook years ago).

[vibv]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Saddam Hussein would torture his political rivals by placing their children in a room with a glass wall, throwing a bunch of bees into the room, and forcing their parents to watch the bees sting their children to death as the kids ran around the room screaming.

Try transcending that.

Oh I can think of even more terrible things. There's almost no limit how terrible it can get. I know that.

That's what makes this topic so spicy  ✨

Edited 5 hours ago by vibv

[vibv]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

I feel like there is a more subtle form of psychological suffering that Ralston glosses over.

The worst suffering is not even necessarily physical. For a parent, the loss of a child is very serious suffering that they can't just ignore or dismiss at will.

Is the loss of a child unnecessary suffering that you can just shut off? I think not.

I once asked Shinzen Young how he would react if he lost his child. He said, "I would weep."

That was a good answer.

Of course it's not about becoming a robot that has no emotion. Of course there would be tears and screams that have a certain beauty in their own right.

It's not about getting rid of suffering, but to realize that even THAT is part of LOVE and embracing it so totally that you wouldn't ever have it any other way.

[Jirh]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Is the loss of a child unnecessary suffering that you can just shut off? I think not.

This one in particular is clearly imaginary for me. Not that I am above it, but that I see how it's constructed.

A few thousand years ago, children were not seen as humans. They were survival machines, specifically created to extend the parent's territory.

You kill one of my children? I enslave your wife and create two more.

Also animals don't weep their dead children, they eat them. At least cats and some other species are so.

Edited 3 hours ago by Jirh

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Jirh you know the experience of animals?

[Leo Gura]

@Jirh You can call it imaginary, but how will you experience it?

I don't care about your philosophies.

[Jirh]

13 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Jirh You can call it imaginary, but how will you experience it?

I don't care about your philosophies.

I already admitted I am not above it. I suffer for the minor losses of others that I care about, let alone mine.

But the point is that the suffering is not embedded in the experience of losing a child. There are other factors that determine how valuable children are to someone.

Sometimes, losing a child may be perceived as better than having them.

[Human Mint]

2 hours ago, Jirh said:

Also animals don't weep their dead children, they eat them. At least cats and some other species are so.

Baboons mothers go into a depression. They eat less and isolate from the tribe more. Robert Saposkly studied that.