Thursday, November 27, 2008

Thanksgiving and the Buddha

On this Thanksgiving Day, I thought it appropriate to remind all of the teachings of the Buddha: Suffering is caused by craving, but if you stop craving, you stop suffering.

5 comments:

normajean said...

But to summarize our dear friend, John Piper. Our cravings will never cease until we rest solely in God.

Ilíon said...

Didn't ol' Buddha *really* say that suffering is a function of entertaining the illusion that you actually exist? And, thus, that cessation of suffering follows from ceasing to crave existence?

philip m said...

To be honest, I think hunger and tiredness are just withdrawal symptoms of our addictions to food and sleep. Get past those addictions, and then you're free to live.

Hope you had a happy thanksgiving, Victor!

Anonymous said...

Maybe 'Existence' itself is an arbitrary concept. Maybe 'Existence' is a convenient, conventional truth.

Ilíon said...

"conventional truth" = "not actual truth"

Moreover, if there does not exist actual truth, then Brian's question is incapable of conveying meaning.

Oddly enough, Brian's question both:
1) cannot be asked without denying that there exists actual truth; or, at minimum, cannot be asked without denying that we can *know* actual truth
2) cannot convey any meaning unless there exists actual truth, and we can know actual truth.