tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595253270791554701.post548332424906961758..comments2023-10-31T09:50:07.091-06:00Comments on Marko Polo: The Yin and the Yang...Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07072259264111848667noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595253270791554701.post-32596318167490901492008-01-31T22:25:00.000-06:002008-01-31T22:25:00.000-06:00Interesting question. "Suffering," in the sense th...Interesting question. "Suffering," in the sense that your friend Max (if you are named "Max" are you destined to be a consequentialist?) intends, is a value-loaded term already, so the question of whether it is evil or bad sounds like asking whether injustice is bad. There's the neutral sense of suffering--"being the recipient of some action"--but that's clearly not what any utilitarian means. There's also the neutral, different term "pain." I think if you ask whether pain is *inherently* evil or bad, the answer is less obvious, isn't it?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595253270791554701.post-16119284477877426422008-01-05T16:36:00.000-06:002008-01-05T16:36:00.000-06:00i wouldn't say max is wrong--i've seen some suffer...i wouldn't say max is wrong--i've seen some suffering that is really evil, where no good comes from it. think of children who are just born at the wrong time in the wrong place--how could their suffering produce anything good?<BR/><BR/>however, i know that as a human being, i learn much more in times of brokeness and suffering than when everything is going well. as the old poem goes:<BR/><BR/>"i walked a mile with pleasure-she chattered all the way, leaving me none the wiser with all she had to say.<BR/>"i walked a mile with sorrow-never a word said she, but oh, the things i learned from her, when sorrow walked with me."<BR/><BR/>rgwthe flyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12995365310821629505noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595253270791554701.post-71097233137256941102007-12-10T18:51:00.000-06:002007-12-10T18:51:00.000-06:00Good and bad, as you describe in the story of the ...Good and bad, as you describe in the story of the horse, are relative terms. In Buddhism these are categorized is what are known as the vicissitudes or the eight mundane concerns: <BR/><BR/>• Gain and loss<BR/>• Praise and blame<BR/>• Fame and disrepute<BR/>• Joy and sorrow<BR/><BR/>These fit neatly into the discussion of yin and yang and are part of everyone's life. Each one is a form of suffering. Gain, for example, inevitably leads to loss. The challenge is to avoid being blown about by them. <BR/><BR/>You ask if suffering is evil. I don't think evil is the right word here, at least in the way I think of the word. Suffering is just suffering and is a condition of life.<BR/><BR/>Much suffering in life can be avoided, but life itself inevitably leads to old age, sickness and death. <BR/><BR/>And I agree - detachment plays a big role in mitigating suffering.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595253270791554701.post-62655672917629061732007-12-06T14:12:00.000-06:002007-12-06T14:12:00.000-06:00This topic is pretty interesting for me. As I rea...This topic is pretty interesting for me. As I read about the interrelatedness of everything in terms of yin and yang, I keep thinking "yeah, this is really intuitive." I feel that it's intuitiveness is genuine, but then I look at my own life and I see myself applying a lot of these ideas, whereas a lot of other people don't seem to. I wonder if that may be because I've been a casual enthusiast of eastern tradition since an early age, so some of the core teaching has begun to become natural? It's an interesting question for me.<BR/><BR/>To respond to your question, I agree with you that suffering seems to be relative. The poignancy of the farmer's story says it better than I ever could.<BR/><BR/>It also makes me think about you and I talked about, though. yin and yang are representative of good and evil, hard and soft, male and female, etc. However, I think those are just examples used to convey the truth behind the symbol of yin yang, and shouldn't be correlated with each other (lest we assume, for example, that one gender be associated with "good" and the other "evil"... yeesh). Also, I wonder is "good" and "evil" carry different, much more value-neutral connotations in eastern society, given their spiritual history?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com