X-Ftn-To: Blue Rajah 

"Blue Rajah"  wrote:
>> >Perhaps Westerners are conditioned to think of unpleasurable
>> >feelings as pathologies.  When they don't feel "happy", they
>> >think they're sick.
>>
>> Maybe, but if enlightenment isn't happiness, it must be
>> something more.
>
>Surely it must be.  In Buddhism, enlightenment is described as bliss, but
>not necessarily happiness.

In buddhism, the first noble truth defines suffering as a problem, and
the fourth noble truth offers the solution to the problem of suffering
in the form of the noble eightfold path, which leads to the cessation
of suffering - nirvana. And no, buddhism doesn't describe
enlightenment as bliss, not primarily; it defines it as sunyata, the
void, which _is_ bliss.

>> After all, I didn't hear a definition of sat-cit-ananda that
>> would be consistent with pain and suffering.
>
>Aren't pain and suffering irrelevant to enlightenment?  

Maybe, but only because in enlightenment there is no suffering.

>The enlightened
>person transcends them.  

:)) You probably think that you said something very wise. ;)

When one is happy, one transcends suffering. When one is liberated,
one transcends happiness. That's how it works. You don't transcend
suffering by indifference. Indifference is the opposite of
transcendence, although many clueless people imply that it's the same
thing. Indifference is the worst aspect of tamo-guna, while
transcendence goes beyond sattvo-guna. Therefore, the transcendence of
suffering must go through happiness, before it goes beyond it.

>Happiness would also  be transcended and be
>likewise irrelevant.

I fart on your transcendence.

>> It would thus seem that the "western" definition of sickness
>> isn't far from the truth.
>
>I don't know anything about truth, so I can't tell you what is closer to
>truth than something else.

Then shut up and don't attempt to sell your ignorance as high wisdom.

-- 
Homepage: http://www.danijel.org