Is life a precious gift, or is it suffering?

[Husseinisdoingfine]

In the Leo/Kurt Jaimungal interviews, Leo provides the perspective that life is a precious gift. Rajneesh as well shares this perspective.

But the Hindu perspective is that of a pessimist, and Hinduism tells that death is something to look forward to. We should purify our souls to escape the cycle of pain and rebirth. The virtuous and enlightened will be privileged enough to die, and stay that way, but the sinful and un enlightened will have to suffer through rebirth. Their punishment is literally that they have to re live the ‘precious gift’ of life.

How precious…

The Buddhist perspective is that life is suffering, and provides us the eighth fold path to relieve us from suffering.

Wait, isn’t suffering an illusion? How does Buddhism reconcile this? To be fair to Buddhism, ‘suffering’ is likely to be more accurately translated to ‘Dukkha’ (meaning dissatisfaction).

So which is it? Because it can’t be both, as why would the gift be suffering?

I’m sorry, but I don’t at all buy that life is a gift. Sure, it is a gift for you, having grown up in first world comforts. But this world is so full of poverty and violence. How is this a gift? This is not a gift package, this is world is a masochistic vengeance package.

Also, life = gift, isn’t that a relative human projection our minds put on the world?

Edited February 16, 2022 by Husseinisdoingfine
I was too harsh in my language, edited it.

[Yarco]

Both. Why can't it be both?

If the price of being alive is having to experience trauma and suffering, it'd take a lot of suffering before I'd wish that I had never been born.

If you fail a class at school, the punishment is that you have to take it over. Only when you learn the lesson are you ready to move on

If there is only one consciousness in the universe (non-dualism = not two, literally) then there is only you experiencing. You have to take the good with the bad. If you want to know what it's like to be a billionaire on a yacht surrounded by beautiful women, you have to live another life where you starve to death in a mud hut too.

If God just wanted to make this a utopia for everyone, it could. But obviously there is some higher reasoning why things aren't that way. The way things are, is the only way they can be. This is the most perfect form of the universe possible. Although it's hard to see how all of the pain and violence could possibly be justified from a finite human perspective.

If you think about the world for too long, it doesn't matter if you're coming at it from a Buddhist, Hindu, Actualized.org, or atheist perspective. It's still going to look crappy and depressing if you focus on the negative.

[PurpleTree]

it's more of a precious gift imo

but it's also a lot of suffering

the goal would be to get to the place where even suffering is perfect

[Einsteinonacid]

Its suffering until Leo rereleases the solipsism video.

[MovForward]

if you are confident, social and have a good psyche it is a gift

but if you are anxious, have a hard time dealing with everyday things its suffering

[Bob Seeker]

 

The way I think of it, It is a precious gift from the perspective of the soul, which uses any life to evolve and remember its true nature, and a magnificent gift of God to itself, being itself in experience.

Disclaimer: I don’t have much direct insight into this though.

It must be that the soul is brave to venture into the unknown and incarnate.

It is a nice thought to think that maybe my soul raised its hand and said “send me, Lord! Send me.”

https://youtu.be/CjIDKQEVlUo

 

Edited February 16, 2022 by Bob Seeker

[Osaid]

2 hours ago, Einsteinonacid said:

Its suffering until Leo rereleases the solipsism video.

lol

[Wisebaxter]

7 hours ago, PurpleTree said:

it's more of a precious gift imo

but it's also a lot of suffering

the goal would be to get to the place where even suffering is perfect

@PurpleTree Nice. I  like Leo's satisfaction meditation practice for learning how to to this i.e become content with any scenario, even a painful one 

[RobertZ]

I see a couple aspects in the word, ‘gift.’ First, this word suggests a sense of given-ness; and second, the word, ‘gift’ commonly implies a desirability. Your question challenges the desirability of life—but maybe you’re also impugning the analogous desirability of the Giver-of-Life [Whom life as “gift” implies].

All I can say is that I have 2 kids. For better or worse, at least in 2 moments, I decided that life was good enough to perpetuate. 

 

Edited February 16, 2022 by RobertZ

[Preety_India]

Life is a precious gift theoretically. 

But living life involves a lot of suffering. 

 

[Reciprocality]

Life is an imposition on your existence, for imagination can pose for you the contrasting element to that imposition as precisely what makes you realize exactly what it means for you to be enslaved as such.

But because there could be no restriction on the essential being which did not pose trough what we call "the future" its potential in equal extension we are free exactly because of our limits. 

But not even imagination can be of any contrast to for ex. the senses, in the ultimate sense, as to say it is not imagination as such which gives rise to the new moment but a force that an eastern influenced Pessimist like no other named Schopenhauer called 'The will as the thing in itself".

When you speak of suffering you either report on you own experience or you speak on how (and how much) suffering distributes over existence as a whole trough beings such as yourself, to fail the distinction between these classes of things would stand in bad proportion to application of language at all, as the recognition of people beside you (if as mere objects of intuition) would be a precondition as well as extension of both.

 

I believe suffering outweighs the opposite for most people by the reasoning that as an impression it takes all focus away, while a happy feeling seems to go readily unnoticed. Now, we apply dichotomies to all things for language to be sensible, that does not mean I say here that there is anything sensible to the idea that suffering has its real opposite, that is an assumption trough reasoning going haywire.

[EternalForest]

It's a difficult question for me because the thing I love most about life is creativity but the greatest creative works include suffering. So do I love suffering by proxy? I don't want to love it, but I sometimes think that it's a big part of what makes life interesting.

Again, I don't want to have this mindset, but I can't lie to myself either.

[Husseinisdoingfine]

Addition: According to Hinduism, we currently reside in Maya/Illusion. 

So the precious gift of life is to live in Illusion?
If I suicide myself, I’m technically then free of illusion, so why not? I’d be doing the ultimate spiritual good!

[itachi uchiha]

Life is a gift to people in usa or those with a lot of previleages

 

For majority of people , life is a greate suffering.only the dead are free from suffering

[PurpleTree]

life is life

[Nahm]

Pessimism is an emotion directly experienced. It is guidance in regard to the thoughts you’re focusing on and projecting. 

“You have to let it all go, Neo. Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind.”

Freedom is freedom from thought attachment. If you ‘suicide yourself’, you’ll not be free, you’ll end up exactly right back here, experiencing aversion.

Call a trained specialist now. Don’t wait or put it off.

 https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Attention is presently outward, to concepts, conceptualizations of religions, etc. Reorient inward, and feel, and understand what you are feeling. Start expressing. Find a good therapist or guru. Utilize the internet for your well being, instead of this. 

[Gesundheit2]

If we consider work suffering, then life is about 30-40% suffering. Add as much for sleep, and consider random events that can cause you suffering, and you're left with about 10% precious gift. I think most humans experience about only that.

[peanutspathtotruth]

Consider the perspective. Ultimately, it's a gift. It's not a matter of opinion, not even of perception. If by gift you mean it is "good", "beautiful", "loving", yes, couldn't be better. Every limited perspective though will not show you this truth, and thus we tend to call it a suffering, a burden. When the burden is made out of the gift though, it doesn't make sense to make the statement that it's ultimately suffering. No. There is suffering, but it is made out of the most beautiful gift: Infinite Love.

[patricknotstar]

On 2022-02-15 at 5:58 PM, Husseinisdoingfine said:

In the Leo/Kurt Jaimungal interviews, Leo provides the perspective that life is a precious gift. Rajneesh as well shares this perspective.

But the Hindu perspective is that of a pessimist, and Hinduism tells that death is something to look forward to. We should purify our souls to escape the cycle of pain and rebirth. The virtuous and enlightened will be privileged enough to die, and stay that way, but the sinful and un enlightened will have to suffer through rebirth. Their punishment is literally that they have to re live the ‘precious gift’ of life.

How precious…

The Buddhist perspective is that life is suffering, and provides us the eighth fold path to relieve us from suffering.

Wait, isn’t suffering an illusion? How does Buddhism reconcile this? To be fair to Buddhism, ‘suffering’ is likely to be more accurately translated to ‘Dukkha’ (meaning dissatisfaction).

So which is it? Because it can’t be both, as why would the gift be suffering?

I’m sorry, but I don’t at all buy that life is a gift. Sure, it is a gift for you, having grown up in first world comforts. But this world is so full of poverty and violence. How is this a gift? This is not a gift package, this is world is a masochistic vengeance package.

Also, life = gift, isn’t that a relative human projection our minds put on the world?

depends on your life 

[Loba]

I think that life is a gift, even if it is difficult, the awakening experiences I have had have told me that even being aware/alive at all is a miracle - being self aware is a literal miracle.  Maybe life is like a school, and we graduate by seeing through Maya?  Maybe there are things that a person can only handle when they are ready and that's what it's all about?  Idk, I'm just guessing.