P. Ralston on unnecessary suffering - avoidance?

[CARDOZZO]

38 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

I get upset by your advices like empty your cup and that because seems that you are placing in a superior position, like you are Budda telling easy obvious slogans of non duality, but of course, I shouldn't because that makes me automatically an idiot

I know that of empty the cup, knowing nothing etc, I meditate a lot and I know perfectly the non dualistic teach and I tried a lot to practice them, as anyone who is serious in spirituality, then I realized their fundamental mistake that is the separation of the observer and the reality, I'm pointing that, and you haven't understood 

I'm sorry if I sound like a enlightened asshole. This was not my intention. 

I just want you to get my point. You can analyze your mind for years but if you don't get an insight/direct experience of what it is (invention), you will get stuck forever into a maze.

[Breakingthewall]

15 minutes ago, theleelajoker said:

Self-generated pain. 

I break my leg, it hurts. No suffering.

I wake up, I wished reality was different, I feel worse. Suffering.

If your broken leg hurts that produces suffering. Suffering means that you deeply want that things are different, and if your leg hurts enough you will wish very hardly that things are different . If you have chronic pain, it's a source of real suffering. 

The point there is that you are differentiating between the self and reality. The thing is that the self is reality. It is not an illusion that can be transcended; it is an energetic pattern that can be aligned.

The self is a hyper-complex set of energetic patterns built over eons of evolution that has a coherent and real existence. The suffering of the self is no different from the suffering of the body in essence. Both are self-preservation mechanisms that compel actions to avoid destruction or optimize survival.

[Breakingthewall]

12 minutes ago, CARDOZZO said:

You can analyze your mind for years but if you don't get an insight/direct experience of what it is (invention), you will get stuck forever into a maze.

The mind is not an invention, it's the reality in a form. It's as real as a rock or as the body, it's a stable cloud of energetic process created by eons of evolution that lives. That idea of the non dualistic teacher is simplifying what's not simple to feel safe. I know well what deep mental suffering is and I know well how to finish it absolutely and sustained for years 

[theleelajoker]

25 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

If your broken leg hurts that produces suffering. Suffering means that you deeply want that things are different, and if your leg hurts enough you will wish very hardly that things are different . If you have chronic pain, it's a source of real suffering. 

The point there is that you are differentiating between the self and reality. The thing is that the self is reality. It is not an illusion that can be transcended; it is an energetic pattern that can be aligned.

The self is a hyper-complex set of energetic patterns built over eons of evolution that has a coherent and real existence. The suffering of the self is no different from the suffering of the body in essence. Both are self-preservation mechanisms that compel actions to avoid destruction or optimize survival.

You asked for my definition. I gave one.

You have a different definition.

Whatever works for you, works for you.

Maybe different things work for others. 

Infinite possibilities ♾️ 

 

[CARDOZZO]

44 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

The mind is not an invention, it's the reality in a form. It's as real as a rock or as the body, it's a stable cloud of energetic process created by eons of evolution that lives. That idea of the non dualistic teacher is simplifying what's not simple to feel safe. I know well what deep mental suffering is and I know well how to finish it absolutely and sustained for years 

So teach your practices and knowledge.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

57 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

If your broken leg hurts that produces suffering. Suffering means that you deeply want that things are different, and if your leg hurts enough you will wish very hardly that things are different . If you have chronic pain, it's a source of real suffering. 

The point there is that you are differentiating between the self and reality. The thing is that the self is reality. It is not an illusion that can be transcended; it is an energetic pattern that can be aligned.

Do you have to suffer if a leg is broken, or can you just feel pain? Just sense pain? 

Does reality suffer? 

Does a rock suffer? 

If it is all one - if you claim that there is no differentiating between self and reality - how does the wind suffer? Do my eyelashes suffer? My toenails suffer? A cup suffer? It is all one, so it must suffer, yes? 

[Breakingthewall]

10 minutes ago, CARDOZZO said:

So teach your practices and knowledge.

1 hour ago, theleelajoker said:

 

That's what I'm doing, but it doesn't resonate with anyone so what to do. 

1 Suffering is inherent to life because life is a self-preserving system that needs to repair itself, avoid destruction, and strive for conservation and permanence. Suffering and desire are the energetic configurations that drive this process; without them, life would not be possible.

2 The distinction between physical and mental suffering is false; it is the same thing at a different frequency, since the mind is a real energy structure, as real as the body but in a different phase of existence.

3 Modern spirituality claims that the mind and the sense of self are illusions. This is false and only leads to spiritual bypassing. The ego-mind is a phase or qualitative leap in life, just as the difference between a bacterium or a multicellular being and between that being and a being with a brain and sensory organs is a phase leap. The ego-mind is an interface that creates synchronicity between individuals to reach new phases of existence. Reality leaps to new phases whenever possible.

4 If there is mental suffering, it's because something is misaligned in the complex energetic structure of the mind. Denying it as an illusion never works. At a certain point, the only path is the opening of the mind to its absolute nature. The mind is reality in a limited form. When the limitations are broken, the mind recognizes itself as the whole, and the fear of death ceases. The whole is not consciousness, nor a creator god; it is absolute reality and can't be said ot thought, and ultimately, you are that.

[Breakingthewall]

5 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Do you have to suffer if a leg is broken, or can you just feel pain? Just sense pain? 

Physical pain is an engine of suffering. Same than emotional pain. If you feel maximum pain you will suffer. All your sistem is going to scream: stop the pain. But the pain won't stop. That's suffering. 

5 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Does a rock suffer?

No because a rock is not a closed system that preserves itself, as life. It's another phase of reality 

5 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

you claim that there is no differentiating between self and reality - how does the wind suffer? Do my eyelashes suffer? My toenails suffer? A cup suffer? It is all one, so it must suffer, yes? 

Because they aren't alive. Being alive is another phase of reality that happens when a system that is self-preserving and self-organizing within a universe with laws creates its own differentiated framework of laws and separates from the main universe, being part but temporary a whole.

The mind is a living being that arises in another living being, another phase of life, and as it is self preserved it suffer. The only way to relativize that suffering is the ability of the mind of dissolving it limitations and be one with the total. It still suffer, but in another frequency, much lower 

And the most conflictive point: mind is consciousness. The mind have to realize that consciousness is not essential. Absence of consciousness is same absolute than consciousness. The mind has letting go the consciousness, that's a difficult point 

Consciousness is the reality being aware of itself, in a dual configuration that register time. Reality is not consciusness, consciousness is the reality . Reality can't be said.

Edited 1 hour ago by Breakingthewall

[Rishabh R]

22 hours ago, Hello1 said:

From all he says it seems like I should just skip negative emotions. Isn't it the case that I should actually feel through the negative emotions and not avoid them?

Avoiding negative emotions make them worse while accepting or feeling them fully decreases their power over you as well as remember that it's healthy to have negative emotions. A person who is always happy will not be capable of improving his/her life.

[gettoefl]

45 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

That's what I'm doing, but it doesn't resonate with anyone so what to do. 

1 Suffering is inherent to life because life is a self-preserving system that needs to repair itself, avoid destruction, and strive for conservation and permanence. Suffering and desire are the energetic configurations that drive this process; without them, life would not be possible.

2 The distinction between physical and mental suffering is false; it is the same thing at a different frequency, since the mind is a real energy structure, as real as the body but in a different phase of existence.

3 Modern spirituality claims that the mind and the sense of self are illusions. This is false and only leads to spiritual bypassing. The ego-mind is a phase or qualitative leap in life, just as the difference between a bacterium or a multicellular being and between that being and a being with a brain and sensory organs is a phase leap. The ego-mind is an interface that creates synchronicity between individuals to reach new phases of existence. Reality leaps to new phases whenever possible.

4 If there is mental suffering, it's because something is misaligned in the complex energetic structure of the mind. Denying it as an illusion never works. At a certain point, the only path is the opening of the mind to its absolute nature. The mind is reality in a limited form. When the limitations are broken, the mind recognizes itself as the whole, and the fear of death ceases. The whole is not consciousness, nor a creator god; it is absolute reality and can't be said ot thought, and ultimately, you are that.

I think what you’re pointing to here contains deep truth, especially around not denying suffering or bypassing it. Where I’d like to gently nuance things is in how suffering is explained versus how it is experienced.

It seems to me that suffering is not actually inherent to life itself, but to a life interpreted through the mental modes of continuity, preservation, and memory. A self-regulating organism clearly repairs damage and avoids destruction, but suffering is what arises when these functions are experienced as personal threat, loss, or meaning. Repair and avoidance can however occur WITHOUT anguish; anguish appears when past meanings are carried forward and reapplied. In that sense, suffering is less a driver of life and more a by-product of remembered meaning being reused.

On the physical / mental distinction: I agree with you that separating them too sharply doesn’t hold. Still, what seems crucial is not frequency but how meaning gets assigned. A sensation becomes suffering simply when it is interpreted as proof of danger, failure, or impermanence. The same sensation, without that interpretive overlay, might be intense without any being psychologically binding. So suffering isn’t in fact the energy itself but rather it’s the conclusion drawn from it.

Regarding ego-mind: I fully agree that it’s not helpful to simply dismiss it as “not real.” It clearly functions. But function doesn’t mean final truth. An interface can be useful without being authoritative. The difficulty comes when the interface is taken as a reporter of reality rather than a translator with limits. When that happens, continuity, identity, and survival narratives harden, in which case suffering follows naturally.

I also fully resonate with what you say about misalignment. Where I might phrase it differently is this: suffering doesn’t indicate a broken structure so much as a fixed one. It’s not that something is wrong, but that meaning has stopped being fluid. When interpretation is allowed to loosen, even briefly, suffering often reduces without denial, suppression, or transcendence.

As for “opening to the absolute”: I will just add that this opening doesn’t always arrive as a dramatic recognition of totality. Often it shows up more quietly, as the absence of insistence, the release of certainty, or the willingness to not reuse old conclusions. Fear of death tends to soften not because one knows something new, but because the need to conclude anything at all relaxes.

So perhaps suffering isn’t best understood as a necessary engine of life, nor as an illusion to be dismissed, but as a signal that meaning has become frozen. When meaning is allowed to renew itself in the present, suffering naturally diminishes, not because reality is denied, but because it is no longer filtered exclusively through memory.

That reframing, at least for me, preserves the seriousness of suffering while also pointing to a way it can genuinely ease without bypassing, denial, or metaphysical claims that need defending.

Edited 6 hours ago by gettoefl

[theleelajoker]

I think there can be oversimplification of this topic, but also the risk of overcomplicating it.

Can you change your negative sensation by either a) putting focused attention on it or b) by changing your attitude, your mental constructs towards it?

Yes? 

Then you can reduce unnecessary suffering.

[Breakingthewall]

2 hours ago, gettoefl said:

seems to me that suffering is not actually inherent to life itself, but to a life interpreted through the mental modes of continuity, preservation, and memory. A self-regulating organism clearly repairs damage and avoids destruction, but suffering is what arises when these functions are experienced as personal threat, loss, or meaning. Repair and avoidance can however occur WITHOUT anguish; anguish appears when past meanings are carried forward and reapplied. In that sense, suffering is less a driver of life and more a by-product of remembered meaning being reused.

The moment life arises, tension appears. The essence of life is the will to be. A hyper-complex molecule, like RNA, lacks a will to be; it exists because the laws of the universe dictate its inevitable appearance under certain circumstances. Life is not the same; it is another phase in which a structure closes and self-preserves, protecting itself from the external world, attempting to adapt and endure. Suffering is anything that goes against this vector. The suffering of a cell is essentially the same as the egoic suffering of not getting likes on Instagram, only the latter operates through symbolism, but its essence remains the same: it is life pushed back when it points forward.

Suffering is not a mistake; it is the necessary tension for the development of life. Now, I, as the mind, take a step back and say, "WTF? What is this joke? Fighting to endure when it's sure I'm going to die? There's a problem here. I'm fighting against reality, when I am reality. I have to find a way out of this enigma.

The first thing the human mind does in the face of this dilemma is cling to religion, including non-duality. But this is on the conceptual mental plane. Your energetic system knows it's not real. There is only one way out: the opening to the whole. Death is not outside of you as a reality; it is within what you are. It is not an absolute boundary because what you are has no limits. You have to be limitless, then the life that comes from the first cell that encloses itself in a membrane opens itself to the absolute 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Breakingthewall cheers for the answer. 

Unnecessary suffering can still be ended in a healthy manner.

I don't see a cohesive argument from your worldview to deny this.

Pain can exist without suffering. 

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, theleelajoker said:

I think there can be oversimplification of this topic, but also the risk of overcomplicating it.

Can you change your negative sensation by either a) putting focused attention on it or b) by changing your attitude, your mental constructs towards it?

Yes? 

Then you can reduce unnecessary suffering.

Simplification are good in simple matters, but this is not the case. 

[Breakingthewall]

Just now, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Unnecessary suffering can still be ended in a healthy manner.

What means unnecessary? Maybe reality is, let's say, not smart enough ,and creates unnecessary things? Or maybe it's me who can't see deep enough to understand the purpose of what is? 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

4 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

What means unnecessary? Maybe reality is, let's say, not smart enough ,and creates unnecessary things? Or maybe it's me who can't see deep enough to understand the purpose of what is? 

Unnecessary is the portion self generated by the mind through the resistance of what is.

Or, aversion / desire in lieu of equinimity. 

I think you have formed a worldview where the idea one can be responsible for a portion of the suffering is rejected. 

Maybe there is a moral judgement of blame going on, for responsibility being within our hands. This would mean shame lies at the core of the issue. But there is no wrong in this scenario. Just correction.

Edited 3 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[gettoefl]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

The moment life arises, tension appears. The essence of life is the will to be. A hyper-complex molecule, like RNA, lacks a will to be; it exists because the laws of the universe dictate its inevitable appearance under certain circumstances. Life is not the same; it is another phase in which a structure closes and self-preserves, protecting itself from the external world, attempting to adapt and endure. Suffering is anything that goes against this vector. The suffering of a cell is essentially the same as the egoic suffering of not getting likes on Instagram, only the latter operates through symbolism, but its essence remains the same: it is life pushed back when it points forward.

Suffering is not a mistake; it is the necessary tension for the development of life. Now, I, as the mind, take a step back and say, "WTF? What is this joke? Fighting to endure when it's sure I'm going to die? There's a problem here. I'm fighting against reality, when I am reality. I have to find a way out of this enigma.

The first thing the human mind does in the face of this dilemma is cling to religion, including non-duality. But this is on the conceptual mental plane. Your energetic system knows it's not real. There is only one way out: the opening to the whole. Death is not outside of you as a reality; it is within what you are. It is not an absolute boundary because what you are has no limits. You have to be limitless, then the life that comes from the first cell that encloses itself in a membrane opens itself to the absolute 

I do concur that life involves tension and self-regulation, but I am suggesting that suffering itself is not inherent to life’s forward movement. A cell adapts, repairs, and persists, yet it doesn’t suffer in any human sense. What seems to introduce suffering is not tension alone, but memory and self-reference, namely the carrying forward of experience as meaning.

Indeed when life is filtered through continuity, comparison, and identity, tension becomes something personal. The Instagram example illustrates this well: the nervous system isn’t just responding to the moment, but to what the moment is taken to say about the self. Remove that interpretive lens and the energy remains, but the suffering now collapses.

So suffering doesn’t look like a necessary engine of development so much as a signal that meaning has frozen. Adaptation and growth can happen through responsiveness without any anguish; anguish arises when interpretation hardens and can no longer update.

Again I agree that denying suffering as “unreal” doesn’t work. But neither does assuming it is inevitable. What seems to ease suffering is not escaping life’s tension, but releasing the insistence that tension must be explained, owned, or resolved by a separate self. When that insistence relaxes, fear, even the fear of death, softens naturally, not through any belief, but through the loosening of fixed meaning.

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

think you have formed a worldview where the idea one can be responsible for a portion of the suffering is rejected. 

Obviously, there is suffering that is my responsibility as a self. For example, if there's a flame and I put my hand on it repeatedly and get burned, I'm responsible for that suffering. It's enough to simply not put my hand there, and that's it.

But we're not talking about that; we're talking about when I suffer because I obsessively remember being gang-raped in a Nigerian prison at age 9 (to give an extreme example). Tell me, how would you dissolve that suffering? What causes that suffering? What is the mechanism to deactivate it? It's possible, but let's see how. 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

2 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

But we're not talking about that; we're talking about when I suffer because I obsessively remember being gang-raped in a Nigerian prison at age 9 (to give an extreme example). Tell me, how would you dissolve that suffering? What causes that suffering? What is the mechanism to deactivate it? It's possible, but let's see how. 

Yes this is the portion you are unable to reconcile. 

See here, for a good breakdown:

And also Peter Ralston's book 'Ending Unnecessary Suffering'. 

Genuinely. I know you hate him, but you need to get past personal feelings for him and just look at the work seperate from who generated it. Look at the work for the truth that resides there. 

If you will not, then that is a loss indeed. And I do not mean to attack here - but you are essentially strawmanning Ralston. Continually. Your statements betray your ignorance to the process and possibilities. 

Up to you if you want the truth.

[Someone here]

the moment you realize nothing matters you dissolve such things . 

Same goes for "why should I survive if I'm gonna die anyway"? Why should you eat if you will get hungry again in few hours ? Why should you shower if you gonna stink again in few days?  You don't live by "why should i " ..you don't live by logic ..you live by emotions and animalistic impulses and "energetic patterns " . Conscious living is not denying suffering or crawling up in a corner until you die but you realize some fundamental truths about existence like in this case that nothing matters then the real fun begins ..not ansgt and depression.