Facebook & Suffering

[dhp273]

I do not know how to deal with my strong empathy of their quiet suffering. To know how free of suffering a person can be has suddenly put an even heavier load on my shoulders. It is depressing me and creating doubt. I do not know how to deal with it all.

If knowing how free of suffering a person can be is functioning as a cause of suffering, perhaps it's best to put that knowledge aside and simply work towards freedom from suffering.

Yes, that is the obvious action, but what I am saying is that I am stuck there.

[tiltbillings]

I do not know how to deal with my strong empathy of their quiet suffering. To know how free of suffering a person can be has suddenly put an even heavier load on my shoulders. It is depressing me and creating doubt. I do not know how to deal with it all.

If knowing how free of suffering a person can be is functioning as a cause of suffering, perhaps it's best to put that knowledge aside and simply work towards freedom from suffering.

Yes, that is the obvious action, but what I am saying is that I am stuck there.

Only because you think you are.

[dhp273]

Yes, that is the obvious action, but what I am saying is that I am stuck there.

Only because you think you are.

Yes, uhm, thought is the problem. Again, that is obvious. (It feels like I came here saying "I am broke and do not know how to pay my rent" and do not know what to do and your advice is "You need more money".)

The Buddha gave advice regarding hindrances. If you have never been here please be careful what you say. This is not new to me, this is not a beginners issue.

[daverupa]

Generate compassion and goodwill instead of empathy; you may find that 'empathy' is in fact compassion + judgment.

Also, engage with SN 47.19.

[tiltbillings]

"'I shall protect myself,' in that way the foundations of mindfulness should be practiced. 'I shall protect others,' in that way the foundations of mindfulness should be practiced. Protecting oneself one protects others; protecting others one protects oneself. And how does one, in protecting oneself, protect others? By the repeated and frequent practice of meditation. And how does one, in protecting others, protect oneself? By patience and forbearance, by a non-violent and harmless life, by compassion and loving kindness." -- SN 52,8

Before all else, you will need to learn to protect yourself, which mean being compassionate, forgiving and loving of yourself.

[Mkoll]

Generate compassion and goodwill instead of empathy; you may find that 'empathy' is in fact compassion + judgment.

Also, engage with SN 47.19.

Some equanimity wouldn't hurt either I think.

[dhp273]

Generate compassion and goodwill instead of empathy; you may find that 'empathy' is in fact compassion + judgment.

Also, engage with SN 47.19.

SN 47.19 is not a good metaphor in this case. It implies that the other person is actually working on escaping samsara. Instead of my friends being fellow acrobats, they are sitting in dark alleys shooting up heroin.

I guess it just comes down to letting them go, being truthful to them and myself.

This reading gets to the point:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... ay_12.html

For when, with eyes unhindered by emotively tinged blinkers, we turn to contemplate the wide expanse of the world, we find ourselves gazing into a mass of suffering that is vertiginous in its volume and ghastly in its intensity. The guarantor of our complacency is the dumb thoughtless glee with which we acquiesce in our daily ration of sensual excitation and ego-enhancing kudos. Let us raise our heads a little higher and cast our eyes about, and we behold a world steeped in pain where the ills inherent in the normal life-cycle are compounded still more by the harshness of nature, the grim irony of accident, and the cruelty of human beings.

[Sam Vara]

SN 47.19 is not a good metaphor in this case. It implies that the other person is actually working on escaping samsara. Instead of my friends being fellow acrobats, they are sitting in dark alleys shooting up heroin.

Here's another way of seeing it. Maybe those people sitting in dark alleys shooting up heroin are fellow acrobats. They don't use the term "samsara", but they are trying to escape from the suffering they experience in a way that seems to make sense to them.

They haven't learned that heroin is an unskillful way of doing it, that's all...

[dhp273]

SN 47.19 is not a good metaphor in this case. It implies that the other person is actually working on escaping samsara. Instead of my friends being fellow acrobats, they are sitting in dark alleys shooting up heroin.

Here's another way of seeing it. Maybe those people sitting in dark alleys shooting up heroin are fellow acrobats. They don't use the term "samsara", but they are trying to escape from the suffering they experience in a way that seems to make sense to them.

They haven't learned that heroin is an unskillful way of doing it, that's all...

Have you ever seen someone killing themselves in front of you? Would you really say "Of they are just looking for happiness wrongly, that's all..." and walk away?

The Burning House parable comes to mind, the Buddha tricks people from mundane enjoyments, like Facebook, to show them the perfect enjoyment of enlightenment. I am just frustrated that I cannot show them this yet and I need to let go of it.

http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phal ... otus1.html

[daverupa]

Instead of my friends being fellow acrobats, they are sitting in dark alleys shooting up heroin.

As I said,

You may find that 'empathy' is in fact compassion + judgment.

See the judgment as a fetter, I suggest, and root it out by finding out how it arises for you & what its nutriments are in your case.

---

The parable of the burning house isn't Canonical, coming instead from the Lotus Sutra, which is adhamma.

The Buddha seems instead to have taught in this way:

"Even so, brahman, nibbana does exist, the way leading to nibbana exists and I exist as adviser. But some of my disciples, on being exhorted and instructed thus by me attain the unchanging goal — nibbana, some do not attain it. What can I, brahman, do in this matter? A shower of the way, brahman, is a Tathagata."

[Sam Vara]

Have you ever seen someone killing themselves in front of you? Would you really say "Of they are just looking for happiness wrongly, that's all..." and walk away?

Who said anything about walking away?

[Mkoll]

I see my friends spending endless kalpas on Facebook, unaware of the trap and addiction that it is.

Instead of my friends being fellow acrobats, they are sitting in dark alleys shooting up heroin.

You've talked about your friends going on Facebook and then you say they're shooting up heroin. Which is it? Or is it both?

Those are very different activities, by orders of magnitude. You'd have to provide more details about the situation if you want better advice.