NikolaiPerhaps simply allowing for there to be no answer at all may be required.
I still can't do that. "Required"?? required for what? For enlightenment? For the end of suffering? For moving along in life? All of that is based on an "answer" already assumed. See what I'm saying? There's just no solution (yet) including the solution of accepting that there is no solution. Do you see how this is an escape? A way to gloss over that fundamental question? (albeit the most sneaky way)
sawfootAdam,
It is not clear that you want a solution, but here I go again anyway: the time tested solution to the problem of nihilism in (at least in Mahayana) Buddhism is compassion, and the understanding of the difference between conventional reality (where you can find meaning) and ultimate reality (where no meaning exists and asking "why" questions are absurd).
And if you need an antidote to the fuckedupness of pragmatic dharma, try soto zen. Joko Beck's books are a good place to start.
Thank you but I thought what was fairly clear is that i am
not looking for a solution, not to the extent that a solution assumes an un-investigated answer to the "why" questions.
I can't even find meaning in conventional reality, conventionally there is suffering and conventionally suffering is bad. Why should I care about these conventional notions? Why should I act on them?
I have read Joko Beck's books and I liked them. But they don't really do anything for me here. Why should I polish the mirror or see that there is no mirror? No reason to do any of that.
changeEveryone gets out of bed or does something rather than nothing because the fear of death is greater than the fear of suffering of doing something/getting out of bed and facing life. It might be that the suffering puts someone in bed but then eventually that person faces the prospect of dying which is even greater than the comparatively miniscule suffering of life, so the suffering of life is a better situation and this makes that person to get out of bed and do something.
If someone comes face to face with the fear of death, then other fears (of life) are nothing compared to it, and hence the suffering of life may not amount to anything.
This doesn't really relate to my question (though maybe it wasn't intended to). This is about why people (including me)
do get out of bed but I am interesting in why I
should get out of bed. I don't find there to be too much suffering in getting up and doing stuff, it's just that I don't have a reason to, and something in me suddenly is unavoidably interested in a reason.
I am going to keep investigating "whys" guys. It's not that I am sorry if it is annoying, it is just that over time it has become really clear that anything other than investigating "whys" just is the scenic route to investigating "whys". It keeps coming back to that for me and now I am just stuck at that question and can't get very far with ignoring it as I have in the past. I am just too conscious of ignoring it and something just pokes me really hard until I go back to investigating it.