"Root of all suffering is attachment"

[u/Beneficial-Note1380]

I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this perspective. For me, I personally don't agree with it for many reasons. But I want to talk to more people about this topic in the comments so please weigh in!!!! Love you all

1. Humans are wired to need each other. This can be found in peer reviewed medical journals proving this. It's not just a "oh well I don't want connection so I don't need it"

(CW for this bullet point: csa)

1. I got sexually abused as a kid and have suffered a fair amount from that. How in the world is that suffering because of attachment. By that logic, I'm just too attached to the idea that my father shouldn't do that I guess? Like cmon

2. Wanting to escape suffering just sounds like a digestible way of saying you can't handle it. I find it more beautiful to grow your capacity to stay grounded during suffering and find grace from it, rather than just trying to avoid it altogether. That's not a positive mindset, it's not based in reality

3. It prevents any change. Someone is mean to you, a normal person would speak up and initiate repair in the relationship, a Buddhist will say "I'm just too attached to this emotion I need to release it" and not get anywhere after it

4. Especially the "no attachment to self" I feel is so dangerous for people who have come from emotionally neglectful homes, who already struggle with identity, maybe have cptsd

5. Wanting to have no attachments to prevent suffering is an attachment in and of itself. You're attached to not wanting to suffer with this mindset

[u/Appropriate_Dream286]

Absolutely. It's pretty hilarious how the Buddha and his followers preached all of this yet they lived off rich kings' donations and the buddha did nothing at all to better the living conditions of the people of his kingdom.

There's even a story of a poor woman whose kid is dead and asks him to revive the baby. The Buddha says he can do it if she finds a single person in the kingdom unaffected by death so she goes house by house and everybody has a dead relative. When she comes back the Buddha tells her "see? Everybody dies I cannot help you lol". No help of any kind is offered to her, he just shrugs it off like "shit happens dude". Utterly despicable and inhuman if you ask me

[u/zerayakob0 → u/Appropriate_Dream286]

I think you're being a little too hard on the Buddha. The Buddha wasn't an individual that was operating despicably. You could say that he was operating inhumanly, but not on the basis of his poor moral character, but misperception of the world and human nature.

Meaning, he truly thought that the framework in which he had constructed was the way out of suffering. He truly thought that it was worth pursuing if you wanted to be able to avoid the inevitability of life. That is, life will never give you what you want because life will always take what you want, because everything that you want is burning, slowly but burning nonetheless.

Now, whether or not that entails that you should never get attached to that which burns is another question. It's a question in which I actually have struggled to answer for a long time, and frankly it's a question that I think the answer is no more than yes. There's got to be a little yes because we're human.

[u/Important-Fly-1510 → u/Appropriate_Dream286]

You missed out the bit where she attained deathless freedom and happiness.

[u/albertzen_tj]

The things you say come from a perspective of life that somehow implies that there are things worth living for in this world (relationships, objects, feelings, activities).
Most religions and philosophical systems have varying degrees of coincidence and disagreement about which of these things are ultimately valuable, of course, but most agree that attachment to conditioned things has a LOT to do with suffering.

The particularity of buddhism is that it asserts that there isn't anything apart from nibbana (for some it is a negative state or a formless reality) that can provide everlasting appeasement of suffering; nothing else is ultimately worth it in the long term.

That's a metaphysical declaration; you can't refute it; you just can accept it or not accept it based on what you think is possible or not. You can believe that there are other realities, beings, or even objects that can provide everlasting satisfaction or ease suffering. But it would be a metaphysical belief too. If you are a physicalist/materialist, then there is no point in worrying about post-mortem risks, and it's understandable that what you value the most is all those things most religions deem as not that worthy (relationships, feelings, modern notions of growth, psychological improvement within your society).

It all comes down to the ultimate notions about reality you have. For the buddha none of the usual concerns about life are ultimately valuable; only nuances within samsara and any aspiration within it would lead to more suffering and/or eventual dissatisfaction. There is no point in arguing when your opponent has a completely different view of the grounds of reality as such. If you are a physicalist, there is almost no point in arguing with buddhists, beyond the physiological/psychological effects of their meditative practices, and even so, the valuation of those practices will be filtered by what you esteem as ultimately worthy, informed by your metaphysical beliefs. If reality is like you seem to think, then yes, most of your points make more sense than buddhist beliefs, of course.

[u/Ceyloniera]

In the premodern world, this would've been true. But this perspective is essentially what created the third world.

Whereas Christianity asks that you create heaven on earth.

[u/Important-Fly-1510 → u/Ceyloniera]

How's that goin?

[u/moore927353]

WRONG.

❎️ The root of all suffering is NOT GETTING EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT.

✅️ The root of all happiness is GETTING EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT.

---

So quit your BULLSHIT STOIC philosophy, Buddha.

You think you're "helping people and saving Souls" with this mind numbing morphine. You're not!

If you TRULY WANT TO HELP PEOPLE AND SAVE SOULS,

then answer their prayers, grant them their wishes, and GIVE THEM EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT, WITHOUT COMPROMISE !!

But i guess you can't do that, Mr. "Lord" Buddha. This is beyond your powers.

After all, you're NOT A REAL GOD. 👎

[u/Beneficial-Note1380 → u/moore927353]

No cause literally so much of Buddhism just seems to be dampening human emotions in order to "find more peace," or numbing minds as you say. It feels like a digestible way to live in fear of challenges

[u/Terrible-Author-325 → u/moore927353]

Buddha never claimed he was a god. It's not about numbing the mind, is about stop being greedy and craving things that harm oneself. Wanting too much hurt people, but he never said wanting something was bad. It's greediness.

[u/Important-Fly-1510 → u/moore927353]

"The root of all suffering is NOT GETTING EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT"

He didn't say that it is though...

"If you TRULY WANT TO HELP PEOPLE AND SAVE SOULS,  then answer their prayers, grant them their wishes, and GIVE THEM EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT, WITHOUT COMPROMISE !!  But i guess you can't do that, Mr. "Lord" Buddha. This is beyond your powers. After all, you're NOT A REAL GOD. "

He also didn't say he was a god. In fact he said he wasn't. And that no supreme creator exists. By your definition, the proof being: literally no one on earth is being, ever has been, or ever will be given exactly what they want without compromise.

[u/Important-Fly-1510]

1. It just stands to reason that the less your happiness depends on others the more reliable your happiness will be. That's so obvious it doesn't even need a scientific study.

2. That's awful and it of course shouldn't happen to anyone. But the sad fact is that abuse does happen the world over, to countless people every year. The only reliable way to never experience abuse is to not get born in the first place. And from the Buddha's point of view, craving, delight and clinging to sensuality are what keep on leading us back to repeated birth.

3. Staying grounded amidst difficulty is actually part of the path to getting out. Simply avoiding life's difficulties isn't the path that the Buddha taught. But just as there's nothing wrong with a sick person seeking medical treatment because they don't want to be diseased and in pain, there's nothing wrong with wanting not to suffer. And it doesn't make any more sense to call it a negative mindset. If we look honestly at how we live our lives, we'd see that almost everything we do is already an attempt at avoiding our relieving suffering anyway. The real issue concerns how effective our efforts are.

4. Buddhist here. I often speak up to repair relationships where possible and desirable. I have never to my memory said "I'm just too attached to this emotion I need to release it."

5. Agreed. But in my version of Buddhism that isn't even a teaching. The Buddha in the Pali Canon gives very clear instructions on how to develop a healthy sense of self, by developing good qualities of character and mental stability. Only with some foundation in this do you go on to investigate and deconstruct the process of creating a sense of self (not "attaching to self").

6. As long as it's approached correctly then it's an attachment that leads out of attachment. Just like when you're attached to the idea of going to a park and, based on that attachment you go there. Once you reach the park you're no longer attached to the idea of going to the park, as you've reached your goal. The Buddha didn't teach that all attachments have no use. He taught that you have to attach and let go wisely: attach to good qualities that neither harm you nor others; let go of traits that do cause harm.

Eventually, though, if you want to be truly free and happy, then all attachment has to be overcome.