(March 4, 2022 at 11:19 pm)emjay Wrote: In Buddhism there's the useful analogy of the 'two darts'... that is, distinguishing between the avoidable and unavoidable aspects of pain/suffering. The person hit by the first dart feels sensory pain, ie raw pain let's say, and that can't be removed, only endured. But the second dart represents the additional pain/suffering we often create mentally on top of raw pain, such as fear (that it won't end for instance, or that it will worsen or lead to this or that etc), exaggeration, delusion etc... that part is avoidable... if you basically don't feed it, or in Buddhist terms, aren't attached to it. So to deal with physical pain, this is what Buddhism teaches... ie that most people naturally are as if hit by two darts when it only needs to be one... ie no magic bullet to get rid of physical pain, the first dart... you just have to endure it... but oftentimes the mental baggage that goes with physical pain, the second dart, is far worse, and that part is avoidable.
I know you guys aren't talking about physical pain per se, but I think this speaks to any kind of suffering really; just our ability/tendency to make our suffering worse by the mental baggage we often pile on top of it.
I hadn't heard "two darts" before. That makes a lot of sense.
No doubt it applies to emotional issues as well as physical pain. Like when you get depressed you get inactive, and the inactivity makes you feel guilty and angry with yourself. It's a terrible feedback loop.
It occurs to me that my cats feel pain and have hormonal or other physical changes -- obviously -- but don't pass judgement on themselves for it. The pain is just pain. There are some advantages to being a cat, I guess. (In addition to the free food.)
