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**Doctorpills** · 01-07-2012, 05:35 AM

What I am trying to say is that randomness is not the cause of suffering but the mental proliferations, fabrications around such events because ignorance, lack of understanding and insight about impermanence, the idea of self hood, craving, etc...

A newborn baby is born in a state of suffering. The Buddha speaks of the suffering of birth and suffering of death. So, the suffering of birth comes from ...where? Mental proliferations; when did they occur---in the womb? A newborn baby that is experiencing physical pain can't be having mental fabrications that lead to behaviors that result in that pain (suffering of suffering). The pain, especially if the baby is born with a birth defect that's excruciatingly painful, is simply there, and it persists until death, for many...for far too many. It does bother me that nothing at all can be done for these babies and for most other beings as well. If being a Buddhist who actually believes liberation in one life is possible and lots of practice, resources, and leisure time is necessary, means that I'm a member of a very tiny select club of privileged people then it does bother me. I am more interested in alleviating the suffering of others than in achieving personal knowledge that can free myself from all suffering. If, by achieving that knowledge I can help all beings then it is certainly worth doing.

So I simply can't agree that the pain from birth defects in an infant is caused by mental proliferation. I'd say that the pain causes mental proliferation mediated by ignorance as, surely, a newborn is ignorant in terms of understanding self nature.

01-07-2012, 05:35 AM	#19
Doctorpills Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 441 Senior Member	What I am trying to say is that randomness is not the cause of suffering but the mental proliferations, fabrications around such events because ignorance, lack of understanding and insight about impermanence, the idea of self hood, craving, etc... A newborn baby is born in a state of suffering. The Buddha speaks of the suffering of birth and suffering of death. So, the suffering of birth comes from ...where? Mental proliferations; when did they occur---in the womb? A newborn baby that is experiencing physical pain can't be having mental fabrications that lead to behaviors that result in that pain (suffering of suffering). The pain, especially if the baby is born with a birth defect that's excruciatingly painful, is simply there, and it persists until death, for many...for far too many. It does bother me that nothing at all can be done for these babies and for most other beings as well. If being a Buddhist who actually believes liberation in one life is possible and lots of practice, resources, and leisure time is necessary, means that I'm a member of a very tiny select club of privileged people then it does bother me. I am more interested in alleviating the suffering of others than in achieving personal knowledge that can free myself from all suffering. If, by achieving that knowledge I can help all beings then it is certainly worth doing. So I simply can't agree that the pain from birth defects in an infant is caused by mental proliferation. I'd say that the pain causes mental proliferation mediated by ignorance as, surely, a newborn is ignorant in terms of understanding self nature.
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