Is it true that if you don't know suffering you don't know Christ?
For that to even be vaguely true, there would need to be proof of the life and sufferings of Jesus Christ. Sadly, outside of the stories in the Bible (which were all written well after the death of Jesus and are not the those of the Apostles whose name they bare), there exists not a shred of historical evidence that the man, much less the myth, even existed.There are many levels of “suffering” and their efficacy is wholly subjective. To compare ones suffering to another is a false equivalency that denigrates both.
Is it true that 'To exist is to suffer'?
If existence is defined as having memories and attachments from which your “self” forms reality around those memories and attachments then yes… to exist is to suffer.It's almost like living in a bubble that spawns out of your conscious. This bubble reflects and distorts the actual (which most people never truly knknow...myself included) and since this bubble is spawned from your “self” everything you observe/feel/need/want/do/don't do/etc is tailored specifically through and for your conscious.This bubble becomes the world for us and when reflections leave this world, they leave our “self” bubble. This bubble being your conscious and interwoven into your “self” a part of you also “dies”. As cartilage leaving bone...it hurts.This is suffering. Even inside of empathy or sympathy, within this bubble all is selfish, all is suffering.I don't like the saying…simply because of the bias and scared look most people get when You say it to them…and I cant remember it exactlybut Aleister crowley said if you want to know the truth kill yourself.Meaning if you want to see the real world beyond our small petty conceptions… kill your ego, kill your “self”. This is essentially the same escape all religions offer, but religion has been so manipulated that it is a dull shimmer of the truth after all these years. I actually said to someone yesterday that religion at this time is like a vulgar man walking into geometry 101 and after the class going off to start his own school of mathematics.To put a stamp on my answer.. life is not suffering, we make it suffering.
True or False,y!a is suffering a brain drain of users?
Yeah I agree ... but if I leave please don't include my stupid self in that statistic lol ;)~
All suffering is caused by desire. True or False?
Suffering is desire. Defining suffering as desire is one of the Buddha's most important contributions to philosophy and a cornerstone of Buddhism.
The Buddha said, desire is the cause of all suffering, but is that true?
In Buddhism, you have to make a difference between craving/desire (attachment) and aspiration. Attachment means you over-exaggerate the attractiveness of your desired object, which always leads to suffering. Like when you fall blindly in love and only see the positive qualities in your partner, unrealistically exaggerated, while you often don't see the negative qualities at all, or pretend they are just "cute". If you contemplate this, you will probably find you virtually always exaggerate the qualities of worldly things you desire, which is also why the contentment with them seldom last forever. After some time, you want another thing. Then another. Then another. And so on. Attachment (craving/desire) is always rooted in egoism, since you always want, want, want for yourself - even when you think it is love. "Possessive love" is a Western expression for the same thing. In Buddhist terminology, love is something quite different, namely the wish for others to be happy. Aspiration, on the other hand, is not always negative. Aspiration just means you take a strong interest in something, and is what you use as a basis for enthusiasm, another important factor in Buddhism. Whether aspiration is positive or negative depends on the object or goal. Aspiration for enlightenment, others happiness, peace in the Middle East or freedom for the Burmese people is positive, whereas aspiration for superficial entertainment, worldly fame, the latest car model or drugs is normally negative. The highest aspiration in Buddhism (as formulated in the Mahayana traditions) is to attain buddhahood for the sake of being able to help all sentient beings to be free from suffering and reach buddhahood themselves. This is called "bodhicitta" (the mind of enlightenment), and is not only a positive aspiration, but actually a prerequisite for attaining buddhahood. In English you might translate both terms "desire" or "craving", but in Buddhism they are definitely different things.