Saengnapha wrote: ↑Sat Jun 30, 2018 1:49 pm
I would equate how the body operates itself as a natural law. The cell rebuilding themselves. The various systems like digestive, lymph, brain functions, the way information of a molecular nature is transmitted through the body are governed by energies and laws that we have no control over or understanding about.
Many scientists might disagree with you, in that our understanding of physiological systems has hugely advanced over the last few hundred years. Even to grasp what types of laws our bodies are subject to is an important form of understanding.
The thinking structure might be a similar system but since our thoughts are given to us by our culture and the accumulation of mankind's experience passed down through this structure, the natural laws seem prior to the content of thinking. But the thought structure is more like an overlay of values over the sensory information that the body processes to stay alive.
Again, many people might disagree with you on the grounds that there are laws (in the sense of regularities analogous to those of the natural world) which shape our thoughts. They might be of a different order, or assume the existence of a different substance, etc., but I can't see any
a priori reason why thinking should be excluded.
You can adjust what you think, change the channel, so to speak. But this doesn't stop dukkha. It can make you more comfortable, less stressed.
It can certainly stop particular types of Dukkha. (For example, if I abandon a thought that distresses me, then that particular instance of Dukkha is finished, so it seems.) Perhaps all dukkha can be eliminated in a similar fashion; I don't know, and the terms are probably too loosely defined to make much progress here.
The end of dukkha is the end of the psychological, that system that puts into place the sense of self/separation that is the dream of existence. That is the world of 'becoming' and 'craving'. Truth is a wholly different matter and hopefully, you can see why. It's not a matter of putting on any rosecolored glasses and grooving your way through the day being mindful and thinking good thoughts. To me, it seems like a radical transformation that real insight brings to the body and mind, not a shift in your thought structure.
Well, unless we have had that radical transformation, we don't know whether it could be usefully paraphrased as being a shift in one's thought structure. There doesn't seem to be much point in arguing about the exact nature of a future transformation we haven't yet had. However the radical transformation is characterised, I think that those who advocate the Gradual Training or following the Eightfold Path are usually working on the received opinion that certain types of mental preparation are more likely to bring it about than others. I don't know anyone who advocates the putting on of rosecoloured glasses and grooving one's way through the day being mindful and thinking good thoughts; where is this from?