Is Living Suffering?

Carl

[cite] nameless:[/cite]Hi Magenta,

Are there any online translators you recommend which show various English words for each Chinese character?

Thanks,
Ed

I am very happy with NJStar Chinese word processor for writing and translating.

http://www.njstar.com/

Carl

In the discussion The difference between Buddhism & Taosim something Derek said about Buddha’s First Noble Truth got me to thinking.

[cite] Derek:[/cite]I have a slightly different take on it. I'm interested in a formulation that is "airtight." To say that the unenlightened life is suffering would be, to me, better than the conventional "life means suffering" (http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/fourtruths.html) or "all life is suffering" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths), but it's still a bit too strong for my taste, because one can point to a simple soul who knows nothing about Buddhism and lives a completely mediocre, unremarkable and unenlightened existence - that person still experiences, at one time or another, joy as well as suffering. Thus, to assert that his life is suffering would be only a partial truth.

The "airtight" formulation I have in mind would be something like "there is always suffering in life." This is still a strong statement, but now you leave open the possibility that there is also joy in life simply by not commenting on it. It may sound very similar to the other formulations, but note that you cannot point at anyone and say that there is no suffering in his life, whereas it's a fairly simple matter to contradict the other, commonly accepted expressions.

I also feel that the yin and yang symbol is still infinitely better at expressing the reality of suffering / joy in the world than any words anyone (I do mean anyone - including the Buddha) has ever been able to formulate with words.

I see where his ‘airtight’ version would feel more comfortable, giving us a way out, so to speak. For me though the most ‘honest’ view is that “life is suffering”. Correlations brought me to that inescapable conclusion. Briefly:

yang = living, suffering, pain, excitement, action, heat, up, male, etc…
yin = dead, no-suffering, pleasure, tranquility, stillness, coolness, down, female, etc…

That’s the yang and yin of it. Now, looking deeper to that place of deep and [chref=56]mysterious sameness[/chref] (玄同) ’beyond’ discernment ([chref=32]names[/chref] and [chref=23]words[/chref]) it is another story. One which can’t be told. One which only [chref=2]the teaching that uses no words[/chref] can express (不言之教). Although, isn’t it fun and impossibly challenging to see how close we can come to expressing it!