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Comment by halperter | Hacker News Reader

At least for me, the idea of giving up the craving for _everything_ seems to be rather...undesireable. I'd argue that a futile existence, with full knowledge that it is futile but living anyways, is much more "life-affirming" than giving up all desire. I want to feel, to touch, to yearn. Even if those don't mean anything, I think it's much better to do rather than to not do. And I think that humans, more than anything, want to feel alive. That's why we can never abandon that craving, why we must live with it and surpass it rather than retreating from it.

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I wrote the following and then realized it sounds a little pretentious, but I think it get my point across regardless. Also, I’m not a scholar of Buddhism or a practicing Buddhist, so I could be grossly generalizing or misunderstanding what I have read, but I believe I’m not to far off base.

I think the Buddhist reply would be that living without craving and without yearning leads to truly being ‘alive’ and enables one to feel, to touch, and to experience the world as it is and in the immeasurably short time a person is alive within it. An existence where the present is experienced and cherished in the moment of having it, while knowing and accepting the inevitability of this moments ending. Such a life, in the Buddhist tradition, embodies the knowing and accepting of the ultimate emptiness of reality and then proceed to live, not in spite of the emptiness, but in the full appreciation of the act of living.

Huh, haven't looked at it that way. I'm just not sure about the leap from a lack of craving allows us to truly experience the world. As a general rule, I think humans want more. We usually aren't satisfied with "okay enough" and is what led us to do basically everything we have done. Nobody does something if they don't have a motivation to do it. I think that desire is so fundamental to life that to lead life without desire is empty, but I can definitely see how chasing your desires can blind yourself to everything else.

You can probably fairly trivially prove their claim to yourself with 1-2 months of 10-20min daily of meditation.

There's a reason it's often referred to as "waking up." The essential claim is a bit broader than what it seems like you're picking up. It's not craving = blinding. Or rather that's the most extreme end of the spectrum.

It's that we are effectively going through life in a dreamlike state. We are so preoccupied with the contents of our mind that we effectively "shut out" nearly everything about the actual world. Actually clearing your mind feels quite nearly identical to the sensation of waking up from sleep into the waking world.

A bit of practice meditating, I think you will come to prove them correct. It really is incredible how constantly-full a person's mind is, and the degree to which that distracts them from what's really going on.

Note that what Buddhists call suffering or craving is a far, far more expansive set of things than what you would intuitively describe as such. So I think they can mislead into this craving = blindness extremity.

It's slightly too broad, but probably closer to say "thinking [preoccupation with the contents of your mind] = distraction [from the real experience of being your mind]"

Thanks for your explanations, It some times feels everyone's reality is mostly their POV from what's going on on their brain.

Two person on the same exact physical circumstances can experience the same events in highly different meanings and the "World" remains the same shared constant, but how you "Percieve" such events in the world ain't.

or something like that.

If you substitute "clinging" for "craving" (Burbea's Seeing that Frees expounds on this very clearly) then I think we get a better English interpretation of the material.

If the mind's full of clinging (either in demanding what isn't present or refusing to release what was present but which is now leaving the present) then that mind doesn't have any room left to experience aliveness.

So (to me) the material doesn't suggest asceticism or abandoning the human sensual potential, it reminds that clinging will sneak in and take over the mental cycles, undermining your ability to live to that potential.

I mean no offense if this the practice you've settled on and it works for your goals in life, but that is absolutely not what the buddha taught. It took me a long time to learn that what burbea was teaching is not 'buddhist' in any sense of the word. 'Meditating' to have pleasant or mind blowing experiences has nothing to do with developing the inability to suffer. Clinging doesn't sneak in and take over the mental cycles, "you" (me and anyone) ARE craving/clinging. Being is fueled by craving. Without it, there is no 'you'. The buddha taught the practice to reliably abandon craving and devlop the right view of existence. It has nothing to do with living up to you potential or anything like that.

I've listened to all of burbea's talks and read most of the TSTF, so i know where you're coming from. If it works for what you want, that's great. I would just encourage you look deeper if you think its what the buddha taught. Or really even related to what the buddha taught. It's pretty much the opposite direction

Yeah, there are all kinds of spinoffs. How closely does Alan Watts actually teach Buddishm?

He doesn't, really at all. Even in his labeled buddhist lectures. Its more a new age blend of advaita vedanta/hinduisim/zen (kind of), but really kind of just his own creation. I'm the least familiar with actual advaita, but I'd imagine he's doing the same thing there that he's doing with buddhism. I'm very grateful to Alan Watts, because he was sort of an entry point for me, but ultimately he was what he said he was - a spiritual entertainer. Imo it was basically the most interesting form of self help. Not necessarily bad, but certainly not accurate on any of the topics he claimed to be speaking about

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