re: #24 CuriousLurker

Buddhism is probably the religion that deals most directly with suffering or “unsatisfactoriness”. It can’t keep everyone happy, but it advises on ways to avoid exacerbating the unhappy things that come along - including the inevitable ending of happy times. Even if you’re reborn in a “heaven realm”, that’s bittersweet, because it will eventually end and you’ll be reborn again in another realm.

There’s a passage in the Buddhist texts about avoiding the “second arrow”.

When touched by a feeling of pain, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person sorrows, grieves, and laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical and mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, were to shoot him with another one, so that he would feel the pains of two arrows. In the same way, when touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person sorrows, grieves, and laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical and mental.

Now the well-instructed noble disciple, when touched with a feeling of pain, does not sorrow, grieve, or lament, does not beat his breast of become distraught. So he feels one pain: physical, but not mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, did not shoot him with another one, so that he would feel the pain of only one arrow. In the same way, when touched with a feeling of pain, the well-instructed noble disciple does not sorrow, grieve, or lament, does not beat his breast or become distraught. He feels one pain: physical, but not mental. (From “Sallatha Sutta: The Second Arrow” SN 36.6, translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, June 7, 2009.)

I don’t think the point is to deaden yourself emotionally, but to avoid letting things metastasize, so to speak. If you’re hurt, feel the hurt, but don’t dwell on it, or take it out on other people which would then cause more difficulties and strife, etc.