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-Craving pleasure can certainly be satisfied.
-Getting material goods, also.
-We already are immortal or another way to say it, 'continue on'.
Not always, no. As the song says, you can't always get what you want. Besides, spending your life trying to get everything you want isn't healthy, either, even if you can actually do it.
Since I'm not a Buddhist - although I have read 100 or more books on it and did sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night - I'm not going to launch into an in-depth discussion of Buddhist teachings.
In my conception, it is "clinging" - to anything, including self. Failing to accept the transitory nature of everything, including self. Attachment is the root cause of all the negative emotions and suffering.
It is ironic that one of the 4 attachments to give up is one to opinions. Yet the whole article is full of opinions!
Non-Buddhists try to demolish it by saying it's about nothing other than suffering. Then after that false premise, they proceed further. It's easier to attack matters when made to look foolish or unbalanced from the start.
Just so it's clear, I'm not saying anyone in this thread is guilty of that.
This is something most Buddhists think about, at least at some point...and at least those who think at all.
And this is where the middle path comes in.
I don't think there's anything wrong with having a nice car. I don't understand why my neighbor has to have a new Mercedes Benz every other year.
I don't think there's anything wrong with having a nice house. I don't understand why my doctor friend has to have a house worth $4 million.
I think the key may be one particular word you used: craving. I've told this story once before, I think, but let me tell it again. One year when I spent my 7 week vacation in Thailand I was down to the last two days of my visit and I went to a "trade fair/handicraft fair" sponsored by the Thai government. Then I saw it. A stone Buddha that was beautiful and would have been so nice on my mantle at home. The problem was that to take a Buddha statue out of Thailand it first has to be taken to the Fine Arts Department for their evaluation that it is not an antique (this takes days), and then has to be taken to another federal department to get permission to actually take it out of the country; this takes several days as well. I craved that Buddha statue, and was very upset that I couldn't have it. And all of a sudden, after stressing out over it for several hours, I laughed at myself and said wow...what kind of Buddhist am I if I am stressing out over craving a Buddha statue...a frame of mind that was the antithesis of Buddhism.
I have several Buddha statues at home here in America. They were easily obtained under other circumstances. They didn't become an issue.
So what it gets down to, to me, is -- and here is the ongoing theme of Buddhism -- when wanting something gets down to the point of craving, that is also the point of suffering...and the purpose of Buddhism is to reduce or eliminate suffering.
That's my view. YMMD.
^^This. There is middle way in between indulgence and deprivation, craving and aversion. Either one can cause suffering, particularly because they cause us to lose sight of the impermanence of the object or subject.
Human does not own anything.
It is impossible.
Even his own body is loaned from nature at conception and is returned to nature, after death.
Even mind is loaned from The Light of Intelligence as, without it, no thinking is possible.
Pretty much, nothing comes into this world and nothing leaves it.
yet, that nothing stubbornly believes that it can possess, own and control anything or something it wishes to.
Just to find, even under the most favorable life conditions - great health and stability in its estate (look at David Rockefeller. Had 5 heart transplants. Trillioner. Died and took nothing with him just like a hobo living in cardboard) - WILL come to point, when he realizes clearly that he wasted his life on things of no substance.
That was insight that young price Siddhartha had, when he encountered dead man.
Thing is, not everyone suffers. Suffering requires certain level of intelligence, to understand it. Many simply exist, from pleasure to pleasure, without giving it any thought at all. They just keep circling through same type of lives over and over and over again.
Human does not own anything.
It is impossible.
Even his own body is loaned from nature at conception and is returned to nature, after death.
Even mind is loaned from The Light of Intelligence as, without it, no thinking is possible.
Pretty much, nothing comes into this world and nothing leaves it.
yet, that nothing stubbornly believes that it can possess, own and control anything or something it wishes to.
Just to find, even under the most favorable life conditions - great health and stability in its estate (look at David Rockefeller. Had 5 heart transplants. Trillioner. Died and took nothing with him just like a hobo living in cardboard) - WILL come to point, when he realizes clearly that he wasted his life on things of no substance.
That was insight that young price Siddhartha had, when he encountered dead man.
Thing is, not everyone suffers. Suffering requires certain level of intelligence, to understand it. Many simply exist, from pleasure to pleasure, without giving it any thought at all. They just keep circling through same type of lives over and over and over again.
First of all, the Rockefeller story is blatantly FALSE. He didn't have multiple heart transplants; that story has been refuted repeatedly. He also wasn't a trillionaire. David Rockefeller was the richest of that generation, and that has been estimated at $3.3 billion, which is not even close a trillion.
First of all, the Rockefeller story is blatantly FALSE. He didn't have multiple heart transplants; that story has been refuted repeatedly. He also wasn't a trillionaire. David Rockefeller was the richest of that generation, and that has been estimated at $3.3 billion, which is not even close a trillion.
And just to add, there are no trillionaires, although Bezos is approaching it.
First of all, the Rockefeller story is blatantly FALSE. He didn't have multiple heart transplants; that story has been refuted repeatedly. He also wasn't a trillionaire. David Rockefeller was the richest of that generation, and that has been estimated at $3.3 billion, which is not even close a trillion.
This is like looking at the hole rather the whole of the donut.
Naked man comes into this world, in borrowed from nature clothes of physical body and, leaves it, with nothing else attached, to what left that body in return to the nature. Any "possessions" man has through his existence are only imaginary as he can not "possess" anything.
Jeff Bezos, who is next to becoming first official trillionaire, will follow same path. He lives in borrowed body and will not carry with him even a single atom of it, what he calls "my body", least to say - a penny of "his" possessions.
Thus, man dedicated his life to achieving a chimera.
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