Desire is the cause of all suffering
In Buddhism, desire and ignorance lie at the root of suffering. By desire, Buddhists refer to craving pleasure, material goods, and immortality, all of which are wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering.
"Wow, thanks. I'm cured."
Exactly..
Damn ppl are hella upset and somehow made this 2500 year old quote from the Buddha political.
The context of 'desire' for this Buddhist quote relates to the desire of ignorant things like a fancy car and not thoughtful desire like wanting better material conditions for all.
There are separate terms for this type of desire which are lost in translation.
Additionally I'd say the comic really over simplifies it because it's trying to be clever but basically it's saying the happiness is right in front of you and your ignorant desires are blocking you from reaching it. Meanwhile the path to enlightenment and even not desiring ignorant things is a long path.
Except this is a bastardization of Buddhist teachings. The Buddhist does not seek happiness by letting go of material desires. They seek peace, enlightenment, and release from suffering, but these are not the same as happiness.
It wasn't made political: it's always been political. Just because it's old doesn't mean it wasn't political then or isn't political now.
There are entire political parties functionally dedicated to the opposition of this statement.
No the “attachment” in buddhism does not refer to fancy things. It refers to using one’s mind like a pitbull’s jaws to grasp things tightly.
This can happen with anything, not just luxuries. You can be attached to your meditation practice if you approach it the wrong way. And it will cause suffering, just like attachment in all other contexts.
The attachment thing isn’t a moral phenomenon, it’s a psychological one.
This. Everything ends, no matter how tightly you hold on to it. Enjoy the time you have now, the future is promised to no one. Happiness, or at least contentedness, comes when you live completely in the moment, not desiring for a certain future or yearning for a different past.
I desire to have a place to live without fear of homelessness.
I desire a job I don't hate or have to slave away at for 50 years to hope someday I might be able to enjoy the last few years of my life, if I even get to live that long.
I desire a world that isn't slowly dying because of the shittiness of a fraction of the population.
My unhappiness is my fault. Clearly.
Yeah. If you stopped desiring those things and learned to live with your allocations, you would be happy. Now quit yapping and get back to work before I give this job to someone more desparate driven than you.
Happiness is an internal thing. Those are all external things. You can be happy despite there being things around you that are shit. You can be happy, and still work to improve your situation and others'. You can be happy, and uncomfortable. None of these are either-or.
What steps are you taking to achieve these goals? I think the most important one would be to find a job you like.
This is the equivalent of "Don't improve. Lower your expectations."
How is it equivalent?
Happiness comes when your needs are fulfilled. You can't be happy if you're constantly thinking about how to survive next week.
Stop wanting to survive. Then the true embrace of happiness will be upon you...
True but I am skeptical that many people here are really at risk of not surviving.
Though there could be people at risk of eviction which is an extremely stressful and dangerous thing to happen to you.
Man the Buddha would be so disappointed with the responses in here.
If shaving your head and wearing robes absolved us of suffering we would do that to our children at birth and throw them out the door for they are already perfect.
If thinking the word happy was enough to make someone truly so the world would be a different place but that is not the case. We must make many stands and apply ourselves in several aspects to be resistant to the suffering. And it does not end.
But it does not mean you are free to halt action or pushing for better. If you cling to a single aspect of stopping the suffering you do not change as needed to live within a changing world.
There are 8 aspects to living a life of reduced suffering so try not get stuck on one and miss out on all the others, sometimes you must change more than just your mindfulness.
Yeah. Fuck, not all of us are even ready to escape samsara. I’d love to go again when I’m done. I understand it will suck, but it’s what I want. Nirvana is nearly impossible with that in my heart. Instead I am better off living a life of kind wisdom and trying to find my way to staying middle class in future lives.
Sometimes you’re miserable because you’re thinking guarantees it, other times you’re miserable because you’re not planting the seeds of joy, but expect to harvest it anyways.
Or don’t listen to me, I’m not even a Buddhist, I just bothered to figure out what they think is wrong with me
That's fine. Did you know according the people "in charge" of Buddhist sects there are only 28(ish) people who have reached nirvana and they even say that they are all reincarnations of Gautama, which makes the whole escaping Samsara thing kinda a losing battle for all of us if you think about it for a second.
Mahayana even doesn't agree and says that none of us get out of it until all of us do (which at least hold consistent that you can't have humans suffering if there are no humans left)
I think you may be looking to much into it though. But apparently so am I.
Sometimes you are just miserable.
And sometimes you aren't.
I wish you well on your path however you choose to go it, and if you choose nothing at all I hope the fates are kind.
Oh cool so if I just stopped Desiring to want to be part of a family group and stop Desiring connection to a community and stop Desiring friends I'll be happy haha it's that easy!!!
It's literally a lifelong journey to find happiness despite the things you can't control not being exactly how you want them. No one said easy, just possible.
The face in that last panel isn't happiness; it's acceptance that happiness is a transitory state.
Both title and comic are toxic bullshit that ignores the material reality of most peoples lives, akin to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons people aren't happy, most of which far beyond their control, the idea that wanting to be happy is to blame, rather than those reasons, is gaslighting (no, no, it isn't the systemic issues you're facing that are to blame, it's your unwillingness to grin and bear it!).
E: your sneaky edit doesn't change anything, the comic isn't talking about "desire" or whatever the specific Buddhist definition of the word is, it very specifically says "happiness". Also, an idea coming from Buddhism doesn't make it true, right, nor especially profound, see "karma", which is just a form of the just-world fallacy.
I fear that your understanding of karma comes from the massively bastardised western idea of it. Karma in buddhism is very far from "good things happen to good people."
Granted idk how it works in theravada which i assume this is about but it's weird that you'd achieve things once you stop desiring them. Seems like orientalist/new age weirdness. Like a reverse law of attraction or something. Happiness isn't the end goal nor the result of letting go of attachments.
Maybe its the way this comic was written but its more than a little ironic that people on here are so lib-brained that they understand the buddhist conception of letting go as a matter of morality
"just accept that however miserable you are, this is as good as it's ever going to get. Now that you've stopped trying you can be happy just submitting! Doesn't it feel nice to stop struggling and hand over control to someone else?"
Great fucking advice 🙄
Everything is sure to be just fine now 👍
Edit: silently downvoting everyone who disagrees with your post doesn't seem very Buddhist to me OP...
It's like happiness isn't really a thing or if it is real it's unobtainable and only the pursuit of happiness is real.
Nah happiness is real: I'm happy.
If it is something you can change... Try. It may not work and wanting it to work may hurt you should it fail to change, but you got to try.
If it's something you can not hope to change try to relieve yourself of worrying about it.
This is actual Buddhism and not the white yuppy idea of sitting in a nice garden and emptying your brain of thinking about stuff.
You should try to empty your head a bit. Focus on what is in front of you currently but you will always have some suffering. You may want food but not have anything to eat. You can try to ask for it, or make some, or think that food is unnecessary as ways to appease that suffering but you may just end up hungry at which point you must try not to lament on it. Things will not always be true, not even life.
The trick is to be content with living. And live the moments that are happy and not try to hold on to tightly should they leave.
Well you won’t find happiness in Buddhism. That’s not that it’s not worthwhile or a good religion, it’s a great religion, it just isn’t selling happiness. It’s hawking inner peace, and the price is adherence to the eightfold path in an attempt to live a life of neither excess nor self deprivation so that you may stop the suffering caused by desiring transient things like happiness.
Nah, my thoughts are fine for now - it's me who belongs in a garbage can, not some poor words.
Great comic, and text, thank you. And it is not only this. People want happiness and pleasure but not pain, and those two are sides of the same coin. Learning to be content with what you have can bring great joy.
Sorry OP it was too tempting
infinitely improved
Neither could I
for anyone who doesn't get the reference
EDIT: oof ouch owie thanks image editing software 1 sec lemme fix that
fuckin based
Joe Biden’s America smh my head
Daaaaamn you really shouldn’t have to tag a joke. I’m sorry, comrade.
this is th efutur the libturds want
Shaking my head my head?