#it’s also the idea of suffering as something inherently transient and subjective

[straight-to-the-pain]

I have once again been thinking about why torture as a concept appeals so deeply to me in fiction and also as a historical and social phenomenon and like, besides the extremes of the human condition and my continuous admiration of how much we are able to endure when faced with no other choice, it has always been so compelling to me as a fantasy of escapism and catharsis.

Like, so much of life is just having to suffer but also having to be an active participant in your own suffering, you have to keep going to lectures, meetings, work, putting yourself in overwhelming situations, humiliating yourself for the satisfaction of others, all from such a young age.

When I first started reading about torture in books, it was always presented as something admirable I suppose? Like suffering itself was a noble act, that it was for the greater good, for your country or your comrades or your cause. And sure, there’s ways to resist and try to escape and communicate with other prisoners but when all’s said and done all you can really do is suffer.

You can win by suffering and taking it. You can hold your own by enduring something terrible, and it’s something objectively terrible that other people can’t dispute as being your fault or your responsibility (although obviously that’s a very flawed line of thinking once you realise how many torture survivors aren’t believed or listened to and how much victim blaming there is in our society).

But that’s the joy of fiction, you can write your story in a way where you suffer and also get to be the hero. That’s why I never think that characters who get hurt are just passive participants, I think making it through something awful is in itself an action.

[talonabraxas]

Celestial Buddha Lotus by Talon Abraxas

The Four Noble Truths

One: Suffering exists. Life is suffering. Suffering is real and universal. Suffering has many causes: loss, sickness, pain, failure, and the impermanence of pleasure.

Two: There is a cause of suffering. Suffering is due to attachment. It is the desire to have and control things. It can take many forms: craving of sensual pleasures; the desire for fame; the desire to avoid unpleasant sensations, like fear, anger, or jealousy.

Three: There is an end to suffering. Attachment can be overcome. Suffering ceases with the final liberation of Nirvana. The mind experiences complete freedom, liberation, and non-attachment. It lets go of any desire or craving.

Four: In order to end suffering, follow the Eightfold Path.

The fundamentals of Buddhism are to be found in the Buddha’s first sermon. In it, he expounded the “Four Noble Truths.” These explain that suffering is inherent to life; that it is caused by attachment, desire, and delusion; that these things can be overcome; and that there is a prescribed way to overcome them.

While this can seem pessimistic — the whole thing is popularly summarized as “life is suffering” — Buddhists tend to see it more as an accurate diagnosis of “life necessarily involves suffering” rather than a nihilistic statement that “life is nothing but misery.” Importantly, the third truth is that there is a way past suffering. That route away from suffering and toward nirvana — a difficult-to-capture idea of the state beyond the cycle of suffering and reincarnation — is the primary focus of millions of Buddhists.

Dependent arising

“All formations are transient; all formations are subject to suffering; all things are without a self. Therefore, whatever there be of form, of feeling, of perception, mental formations, or consciousness, whether past, present, or future, one’s own or external, gross or subtle, lofty or low, far or near, one should understand according to reality and true wisdom: ‘This does not belong to me; this am I not; this is not my Self.’”

A key teaching of Buddhism is the idea of “dependent arising” — it is one of the few tenets that every school of Buddhism agrees on. This maintains that everything is devoid of inherent existence. Everything that exists is caused by something else and will cause other things. Nothing is independent; every phenomenon depends on something else. Metaphysically speaking, nothing has an independent essence and can exist in perpetuity. This also means that when you try to find your “self,” there is no single, enduring, isolated thing to point to.

Buddhism teaches that a great deal of the suffering in our lives comes from the idea that things are permanent, unchanging, and unconnected to everything else. The doctrine of “dependent arising” teaches that everything is in flux, that nothing is permanent, and that even we aren’t as enduring as we might like to think.