Craig,
A lot of suffering is caused because I wish for things to be different than they actually are - this suffering is caused by my thoughts.
If people wish that they had food instead of starving, that they did not have to choose between drinking poison and dying of thirst, that their governments would stop slaughtering them... is their suffering caused by their thoughts?
this does not in any way apply to those innocent infants that suffer horribly, as they have no control over their mental processes.
There are millions of adults in the world today who do not have and have never had control over any aspect of their lives. They are buffeted daily by forces - often hostile ones - far beyond their control, and their horizon is simply survival. Can anyone hold them accountable for their own misery? Least of all anyone who has never known hunger, violence, poverty?
In this regard I suspect that E, with her years in Africa, and I, with some little time in Asia, have a perspective with some others may lack. We are all aware of the quantity of suffering in the world. Until you live in the middle of it, it is very hard to even begin to realize its intensity, or the complexity of the means by which it is induced.
Steve |
