Interesting dialog Murtaza. You appear have undergone a great deal of self examination leaning towards a philosophical realistic view on life. Perhaps a desire to measure and label life and make it understandable if not manageable.

Life is suffering, some suffering cannot be eased, therefore the compassion action, the logical one would be to end it? (This I believe was your initial question?)

The response to the Question of Life: No, get me off this ride and end this cycle of birth and death all of which is suffering. (Birth and death both literal and as metaphor. Every creation is also a destruction and every destruction a creation. Summer leads to winter which leads to summer. That is the wonder of Life and its Horror.) Life is broken, something that should not be, refusing to conform to my will of what it ought to be, I resist life.

Another response to the question of Life, one that also sees Life as it is, its wonder and horror, and that is with a YES and then a choice to Participate “joyfully” in the sorrows of the world. Such a Yes looks suffering in the eye and does not pretend life to be otherwise while resisting the temptation to turn toward indifference. Engaging in life with a aim of not adding to the suffering when possible, open to laugh in the moments of wonder.

I wonder if perhaps how we answer the question that is Life, isn’t the only choice and act of free will we have. Yes or No. Most wisdom traditions seem to flirt with both, maybe that’s dependent on the eye of the beholder.

My observations is that a ‘Yes’ is the more difficult answer to come to, at least until it is embraced and internalized. This Yes has the potential to lead to a kind of contentment and participating with the flow of life as it is. A No tends to push against the flow, the more painful as we know Life’s will, will in the end be done. But that can be fun and a kind of wonder too…

Perhaps the trick is to be honest with which ever answer and make it yours. Maybe their is a time for each?

The salmon struggles against the current to return home and lay its eggs, perhaps even having a kind of knowing that completing its task will be its end. An end that will be the same for its spawn.  A cycle of suffering, struggle and  wonder? One can imagine the salmon happy. (Did the Salmon answer life with a Yes or No?)

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Peter.