Suffering is the major content of life, most of the serious or worthwhile thinkers begin here or with special consideration to it. I'm not trying to be emo or whatever, but I think it's true to say that most people's (outside perhaps an extremely lucky and certainly wealthy class of people) lives are divided between periods of slight discomfort (endless work, decaying body, etc.) and tragedy.
More than any sophistic discussion about the "meaning of life", the question about what to do about suffering is the truly profound and truly captivating question.
The Buddha says that suffering is a product of our craving. To escape samsara, one must become enlightened, which requires among many other things, a total destruction of ones craving and attachments. This is very attractive in some ways, a rejection of the expectation to serve capital, total unburdening of oneself to the fullest extent popular. I am interested in this, but I cannot abide Buddhist rejection of self (or rather I don't really understand the emptiness of the world aspect). I also like some of my desires and am reluctant to part with all of them.
Nietzsche starts in the same place as the Buddha, like his old teacher Schopenhauer, that to live is to suffer also. Nietzsche departs from them in his reaction. Instead of trying to escape suffering, Nietzsche embraces it as the crucible of greatness. Hurl yourself into the fire and come out a diamond. This is attractive too, who doesn't want to become their greatest self? This kind of thing sounds nice when you're a young man in a moderately prosperous country. Will the murdering in Gaza create some great men among the Arabs? I don't think endless suffering is worth the birth of the Ubermensch lol, but I do think there's value in some of his thoughts too.
Marx solves suffering by creating a more just and prosperous world. This doesn't stop the suffering inherent to living, but it is probably the best material solution available. The average person will never become a Buddhist sage or a Nietzschean overman. My caveat here is namely that I am lacking in faith in the great communist victory forseen by many leftists and others here. I suppose I'm just being small minded or what have you, but it seems that the only hope for some kind of meaningful communist victory lies with the chinese eventually supplanting the US as global hegemon. I am not opposed to this but like many here I am somewhat doubtful of China's supposed socialist convictions.
What do you think bros? Should suffering be solved, embraced or escaped?
>>676353i legitimately can't tell if it's
transhumanism or
transhumanistism Old thread, but of interest to me in particular as someone brought up by Buddhists who are also Leftists.
There are a LOT more Leftist Buddhists than you would think despite it being a full blown religion. Vietnam especially has a long lineage of Communist Buddhist figures, and Uncle Ho himself was a strict Buddhist, the Dalai Lama has also proclaimed himself to be a Marxist after studying it when he lived with Mao, etc. Its especially easy for Mahayana practitioners to lean into, because the Bodhisattva ideal leaves a lot of room for interpretation and many practitioners fully believe that it is immensely beneficial to try and steer the world towards systems that will eventually lead to a mass reduction in material suffering.
Buddhists think that inevitably suffering can be entirely eliminated, but the only way to do that is if everyone entered the path, which is obviously not happening anytime soon, so working to improve material conditions for the masses, including non-Buddhists is of utmost importance to many of them.
Its a bit trickier for Theravada (South/South East Asian tradition) practitioners to justify since they are entirely focused on their own awakening within the next few lifetimes and this often requires them to withdraw from worldly concerns, while Mahayana practitioners want to become Buddhas and even come back to help if necessary (a project which supposedly takes eons), however I've seen leftist writings from multiple Theravada monastics. There is a major one, can't remember his name whose a full blown ancom.
It is a kind of ultimate form of escapism, a transformation into a being who is incapable of experiencing suffering, but you'd be surprised at how serious Buddhists often are when it comes to praxis. Some of those Communist Vietnamese Buddhists during the Vietnam war genuinely, wholeheartedly believed they were reaping immense negative karma that would result in an extreme increase in the amount of suffering they'd experience in this life and the next, and yet still did what they thought was necessary and accepted that negative karma to do the right thing. I've personally never met anyone that dedicated to the cause, especially being in the imperial core, most people are leftists because they know its technically right, but are absolutely unwilling to commit to any form of positive actions.