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Perspective and Emotions

Blogs > NDDseer
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NDDseer
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
Australia204 Posts
July 15 2012 14:40 GMT
#1
I’m agnostic, but of all the religious faiths I’ve had some contact with, Buddhism seems to be most on the right track (the other’s all have valuable gems, but in general I find religions to be a support system for people who cannot cope without an authority figure/lack of implicit meaning to life).

Buddhism’s basic tenet is something like this:
We are slaves to the compulsion to fulfil lofty ideals, which is why we find things to desire
We get unhappy when we cannot reach our desires
Ergo, happiness is truly found by not desiring anything

A spiritual teacher of sorts once told me that proper self-awareness changes your life from an emotional rollercoaster (each day filled with moments of varying happiness, sadness, anger, joy etc.) to an emotional cruise (by internally monitoring and managing your own emotions and inner monologue your day becomes far less vulnerable to sudden peaks of joy crashing into troughs of frustration etc.). The way I visualise it is, if you graphed your happiness over a day, the range or amplitude would be a lot smaller but the mean, median and mode happiness values would be higher.

I think of myself as on the whole being quite calm and relaxed. I certainly have times that I’m happier or more melancholy, but nowhere near the extent that I observe in others. Many people spend all their time absorbed in their anger that they missed out on that one thing they REALLY wanted (in three days, or three months, or three years, it’ll be irrelevant so chill out) or suddenly exhilarated by achieving that thing that they wanted (the high only lasts until a minor disappointment crops up to ruin it). I understand this, it’s what I was like when I was younger. I talked about this to one of my friends who is particularly prone. His response was that the trajectory (smaller variation) of my emotions isn’t living life to the fullest. I disagree, because by maintaining a greater perspective on things I enjoy the moments of my life consistently and contentedly. The alternative is sudden bursts of exhilaration that are accompanied by even more frequent states of dissatisfaction. As I see it, this is ultimately unfulfilling and ensures personal emotional state at any moment in time is essentially random.

Still, it’s up to each person to decide the best way to live life. Maintaining this kind of perspective isn’t the default and at first isn’t easy, but I’m throwing it out there for others to try (or to discuss if you have tried it). The next time some disappointment occurs in your life, you become angry, pissed off, don’t let your mood crash but think to yourself if you will still be concerned about this issue in a years time. In 99% of cases, your logical mind knows you won’t, so why is it such a big deal now then? Let it go.

One year ago to the day, were you in a bad mood? If so, why or why not? … It must have been some pretty big life event if you still remember. In the words of Meher Baba, “Don’t worry, be happy.”

If you found my reflections on life interesting, check out my first blog post here:

------

I started off my writing today on a completely different topic, but couldn’t find the train of thought to form it into a coherently structured post. When I do, expect a post entitled “The Path To Happiness”.

If you found this post a productive or insightful use of your time, my previous blog post can be found here:

Things That Matter In Life


[On balance, and qq about cheese] "Sure some strategies might be easier to execute, but you can do them too - you have the same tools as your opponent, including your race selection." - Pokebunny
hypercube
Profile Joined April 2010
Hungary2735 Posts
July 15 2012 21:28 GMT
#2
I don't really know much about the spiritual or metaphysical aspects of Buddhism. I imagine if I did I wouldn't be a huge fan of them. But I really like the concept of mindfulness.

For those who haven't heard the term before, mindfulness means paying attention on purpose, moment by moment and non-judgementally. It usually means paying attention to your thoughts, feelings and emotions but it could just as well mean paying attention to some activity or another person.

It's a great tool for dealing with negative emotions without avoiding them or letting them completely overwhelm me. But for me it also makes small positive experiences more "real" or vivid. It sounds cliche but sometimes it's nice to stop for a second and experience the present moment in it's entirity.
"Sending people in rockets to other planets is a waste of money better spent on sending rockets into people on this planet."
radscorpion9
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
Canada2252 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-07-15 22:03:37
July 15 2012 22:00 GMT
#3
I'm not sure if Buddhism truly is about not desiring anything, but if it is...don't you think that kind of destroys any meaning and value in life? If you no longer have any aspirations or drive to achieve things (because in doing so, we think we become happier), then what are you reduced to? Someone who can just work at a minimum wage job living off the bare minimums, and nothing else matters because one can brainwash him/herself to believe that? Its kind of disturbing to think that people could accept that as an ideal way to live.

It also suggests that people should accept problems and injustices without desiring any change. If they were Buddhists, would women, or LGBT people, or people of different race have tried to achieve social equality with the philosophy that their desires for X is what causes them pain? Wouldn't they be happier just embracing the idea that if they had no desires for social equality, they would feel better and at peace?

Now I'm pretty skeptical that that's what Buddhism advocates, so I'm thinking there's a misunderstanding here somewhere. I did do a little spiritual reading myself from authors like "Eckhart Tolle". If I remember correctly, what he advocates isn't that people have no desires, just that they have no *attachment* to those desires. More specifically, that there is no egoic investment in a particular identity that needs to be defended against criticism and constantly built up to make oneself feel better.

That to me makes more sense, and is something Tolle suggests can be achieved by maintaining an awareness of the present moment and what you are doing. But besides all that, like hypercube said it actually brings a feeling of peace. I have personally experienced some pretty profound levels of peace and happiness when meditating, unfortunately its pretty difficult to do
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