suffering = your self image vs perception of reality self
The argument goes that man is a prisoner of his self image. This self image is a mixture of his desires, wants, tastes, hopes, fears.... This can be seen as a self image that arises out of conditioning by the society and self. You are like a frog in the well and imagine the well to be the universe. You are limited and shaped by the well. How can one know of what the possibilities are unless they ascend from their own intellectual/egotistical/scoietal wells or the well of self image?
On the other hand, I have noticed that rejection of natural tendencies leads to suffering as well. No matter how hard we try the self will never be a blank tape. When you reject the self image your self image becomes "Im he/she who rejects self image imposed on me". So now you are straight back where you started with a brand new self image, only this time you are more observant of your flaws(tendencies of self). So there is still suffering here.
Let me oversimplify again
the frog = Neo in the matrix,
Ignorance is bliss = Cipher in the matrix
It's about riding your life man. Not worrying about all the little details you just brought up. Letting go and seeing what happens. Personally, I don't think someone will acheive this by academic pursuit. You have to follow your heart to it.
We all think we are something. We an image of ourselves. When something happens that supports this image we are usually happy, otherwise we're unhappy.
The truth is that we are nothing in particular.
There is pain, there is hunger, there is thirst, etc.
The interesting part is: When does it become your pain, your hunger, etc?
suffering = your self image vs perception of reality self
The argument goes that man is a prisoner of his self image. This self image is a mixture of his desires, wants, tastes, hopes, fears.... This can be seen as a self image that arises out of conditioning by the society and self. You are like a frog in the well and imagine the well to be the universe. You are limited and shaped by the well. How can one know of what the possibilities are unless they ascend from their own intellectual/egotistical/scoietal wells or the well of self image?
On the other hand, I have noticed that rejection of natural tendencies leads to suffering as well. No matter how hard we try the self will never be a blank tape. When you reject the self image your self image becomes "Im he/she who rejects self image imposed on me". So now you are straight back where you started with a brand new self image, only this time you are more observant of your flaws(tendencies of self). So there is still suffering here.
Let me oversimplify again the frog = Neo in the matrix, Ignorance is bliss = Cipher in the matrix