Facebook induced suffering

A place to discuss casual topics amongst spiritual friends.
rucontent
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:59 am

Facebook induced suffering

Post by rucontent »

I happen to be in a situation where i have left facebook a few times but ended up returning. However now i am at a turning point once again wherein i feel like not only do i not gain from using it but I feel like the act of looking and checking facebook..induces sankhara's ...... I have talked to others about this and have found that many agree....FB being a breeding ground for ego driven comments, nuerotic postings of cravings and aversions.....etc....

without trying to analyze my situation directly....while you can certainly offer commentary....I would love to hear from the group about their comments....

of course suffering here is meant on a buddhist level instead of a nuerotic torturous type of suffering,,,,...instead a more subtle corrosive level, time stealer

Please chime in with a more thorough analysis...

on the other side of this coin....I wonder if i am running from potential opportunity to increase mental strength.....or is it like a alcoholic going to a bar just to prove he doesnt have to drink......


:namaste:
User avatar
retrofuturist
Posts: 27848
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: Facebook induced suffering

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,
Please chime in with a more thorough analysis...
MN 2: Sabbasava Sutta
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
User avatar
Dan74
Posts: 4529
Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:12 pm
Location: Switzerland

Re: Facebook induced suffering

Post by Dan74 »

I am kind of clueless about Facebook and would be interested in examples and more detail about the situation described in the OP. Also what keeps bringing you back, what are the positives?
_/|\_
User avatar
Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Facebook induced suffering

Post by Ben »

I have a very positive experience with facebook.
It allows me to keep in contact with the diaspora of family, friends and Dhamma-friends.
And there are plenty of worthwhile groups, such as this one:

Dhamma Wheel on Facebook
kind regards,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
User avatar
marc108
Posts: 463
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:10 pm

Re: Facebook induced suffering

Post by marc108 »

rucontent wrote: on the other side of this coin....I wonder if i am running from potential opportunity to increase mental strength.....or is it like a alcoholic going to a bar just to prove he doesnt have to drink......
i think it depends on you. i had a similar situation with talk/tv news shows, which i would listen to and watch very frequently... there definitely were certain aspects that i enjoyed, but eventually i decided the effect on my mind was overall very negative and stopped. it was a great decision for me. obviously everything is ground for practice, but life is full of areas ripe with potential for practice and sometimes the most skillful thing is to just drop things that are easy to drop and focus on applying the practice to other, more useful areas of your life.

another option, which i've found helpful on facebook, is to block status updates from people who are chronically unwholesome. this is useful for family/etc who it would not be appropriate to 'unfriend'.
"It's easy for us to connect with what's wrong with us... and not so easy to feel into, or to allow us, to connect with what's right and what's good in us."
User avatar
Hanzze
Posts: 1906
Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:47 pm
Location: Cambodia

Re: Facebook induced suffering

Post by Hanzze »

Modern networks and communications systems today make us very addicted to adherence. When we remember about 30 years ago, there was actually not a little need of all of that. This networks give us a kind of illusion, that we are able to act in a way we like it around the clock. One reality which comes with those technologies is, that we lose the capacity of remember. Another is that agreements are something we also reject. They make it kind of easy to follow one's moods and this gives us a kind of feeling of freedom.
Some say, today we can manage much more but I would say it's the opposite. Responsibility decays and promises have not much value. "You agreed something and now you feel hungry? No problem, give it a call."

From a perspective of letting go, letting go of worldly things, those systems are maybe the most difficult thing to overcome. If somebody for example left home and his family some years ago, then he actually left them. That means also to work on his desire for them. Today our thoughts are mostly hundred miles away and it makes our live here and where we are, very difficult.

Having no connection to the outside also means, that 90% of problem which are actually no problem do not enter our thought. We are not distracted from things which are not ours.
Actually this social networks in fact destruct real social networks, which go behind just mental relations ships. People more and more do no more meet each other, they meet avatars. Its like splitting the live into two parts.

Many might say that is one of the most beneficial achievement of today, I tend to say, that it is one of the biggest and destructive drug human ever developed. It makes us more and more dependent, not to speak about all the misuse and the not so well meant intentions of such networks. Its about stilling desire and creating desire and to turn on the business out of it.

But as long as we use it to understand our self better, like we use our mind to free us from it, it might have also its positive effects. How ever right intention is always important to reflect.
Just that! *smile*
...We Buddhists must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos, and the battlefields will become our temples. We have so much work to do. ... Peace is Possible! Step by Step. - Samtach Preah Maha Ghosananda "Step by Step" http://www.ghosananda.org/bio_book.html

BUT! it is important to become a real Buddhist first. Like Punna did: Punna Sutta Nate sante baram sokham _()_
User avatar
mikenz66
Posts: 19941
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:37 am
Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: Facebook induced suffering

Post by mikenz66 »

Like Ben I don't notice anything particularly negative about Facebook. I guess it must depend on who your friends are. In my experience, ego-driven comments and neurotic postings are much more common on Forums such as DhammaWheel than on Facebook (where they are non-existent for me). This is probably because all I do on Facebook is share links and photographs with friends.

:anjali:
Mike
User avatar
Hanzze
Posts: 1906
Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:47 pm
Location: Cambodia

Re: Facebook induced suffering

Post by Hanzze »

I guess that is because you could form "your" network like you like to have it, it's nothing but a castle where one can dwell like he feels good. Such a community like here for example, reflects live much better and therefore gives more possibilities to learn and watch your intentions.

Successful networks (in therms of worldly benefit) need to have the provide an illusory security, like a flat or house where you just meet things and persons you like. We are no more used to live with all that comes along, no more used to live a real community life which would make us understand ways and mind much better.

That is why I call internet the Deva and Asura world, it might be a good place to dwell but not easy a place for real growing in a spiritual manner, if our orientation is about just keeping it "harmoniously" and never come down on earth.
II. GUHAṬṬHAKA SUTTA
II. EIGHT-VERSED DISCOURSE ON THE CAVE

1. Holding fast in a cave, much obscured,
A man stays plunged in confused stupidity.
He, being of such a type, is far from detachment.
Objects of desire in this world are indeed not easy to abandon.

2. Founded in desire, bound to the pleasures of existence,
People are released with difficulty and indeed cannot get release
from another.
Hoping for what is after or before,
Longing for these desirable objects or former ones,

3. Greedy, engrossed, confounded over objects of desire,
Miserly, they are entrenched in the way of inequality.
And brought to an uneasy end they lament,
“What will become of us when we have passed away from here?”

4. Therefore a person should train himself right here and now;
Whatever he would know in the world to be a way of inequality
Not because of that should he go along the unequal way.
The wise say this life is but a little thing indeed.

5. I see in the world this race of men
Thrashing about with craving for existences.
Inferior men cry out in the jaws of Death
With craving not gone for this or that existence.

6. See them thrashing in the midst of what they call “mine”
Like fishes in a dried-up stream with little water.
And having seen that, one should go the way of “not mine,”
Not working up attachment for existences.

7. Having dismissed preference for either extreme,
Having thoroughly understood stimulation, not greedy for
anything,
Not doing that which would lead to self-reproach,
A wise man is not stuck to by the seen or the heard.

8. Having truly understood perception he would cross over the flood.
A sage is not mired with possessions.
With the spike pulled out, going with mind unclouded,
He does not wish for this world or another.
Just that! *smile*
...We Buddhists must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos, and the battlefields will become our temples. We have so much work to do. ... Peace is Possible! Step by Step. - Samtach Preah Maha Ghosananda "Step by Step" http://www.ghosananda.org/bio_book.html

BUT! it is important to become a real Buddhist first. Like Punna did: Punna Sutta Nate sante baram sokham _()_
daverupa
Posts: 5980
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: Facebook induced suffering

Post by daverupa »

I used Facebook once upon a time, but never had it meet a need other than boredom-habit. Also, it's not a medium conducive to meaningful discussion, only soundbites and games and running commentary on ones own life & the lives of others.

I failed to see the value, though it's easy to see the attraction.

:shrug:
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
alan
Posts: 3111
Joined: Wed Sep 30, 2009 12:14 am
Location: Miramar beach, Fl.

Re: Facebook induced suffering

Post by alan »

I love Facebook, use it to promote my photos and share a bit about my travels.
http://www.facebook.com/alan.hoelzle?ref=tn_tnmn
Friend me!
Pacific
Posts: 49
Joined: Tue Aug 10, 2010 9:48 am
Location: Sydney, Australia
Contact:

Re: Facebook induced suffering

Post by Pacific »

I don't use it much but I have joined the Dhammawheel group. I'm reluctant to live my life on the internet, I like some privacy. I don't feel the tempation to check facebook constantly but I can see how easily it could happen to some. The internet in general can really get the sankharas going
User avatar
manas
Posts: 2678
Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2010 3:04 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: Facebook induced suffering

Post by manas »

A few people, including my brother and sister who love facebook, have tried to rope me into it, and I have given it a go a few times. But I can never see what all the fuss is about. I find it kind of trite and uninspiring. Each to their own, but for me it's like a b-grade movie. And observing how obsessed my eldest daughter sometimes gets with it, does make me wonder about whether FB is good for today's youth, or harmful, ultimately. For example, there is so much bullying now on FB amongst teens, which can have devastating consequences.

I prefer to use the Internet for learning, and gathering information, rather than getting 'liked' by countless people I hardly even know - or don't really know at all. If I want to hang out with people, I prefer it face to face, rather than via my computer screen! Real people, real interactions.

But, 'each to their own', as the saying goes...

metta,

manas.
To the Buddha-refuge i go; to the Dhamma-refuge i go; to the Sangha-refuge i go.
User avatar
Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Facebook induced suffering

Post by Ben »

Hi manas

I think its a mistake to characterize all online relationships as inferior to real-world relationships. Very many people live isolated from family members, friends, teachers and sangha members and the internet, and even facebook, can and does facilitate ongoing contact. Thanks to facebook I was able to find friends who I had not seen for 25 to 30 years. There is great potential for facebook and online communications to be of great benefit. The fact that you have personally not experienced those benefits for yourself does not invalidate those benefits.
kind regards,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
User avatar
Hanzze
Posts: 1906
Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:47 pm
Location: Cambodia

Re: Facebook induced suffering

Post by Hanzze »

Dear Ben,

why not just visit them in person? Going for search of an old friend in the real world has maybe much more value and we would meet a 90% different person and a lot of our own history as well as intentions.
Just that! *smile*
...We Buddhists must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos, and the battlefields will become our temples. We have so much work to do. ... Peace is Possible! Step by Step. - Samtach Preah Maha Ghosananda "Step by Step" http://www.ghosananda.org/bio_book.html

BUT! it is important to become a real Buddhist first. Like Punna did: Punna Sutta Nate sante baram sokham _()_
User avatar
manas
Posts: 2678
Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2010 3:04 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: Facebook induced suffering

Post by manas »

Ben wrote:Hi manas

I think its a mistake to characterize all online relationships as inferior to real-world relationships. Very many people live isolated from family members, friends, teachers and sangha members and the internet, and even facebook, can and does facilitate ongoing contact. Thanks to facebook I was able to find friends who I had not seen for 25 to 30 years. There is great potential for facebook and online communications to be of great benefit. The fact that you have personally not experienced those benefits for yourself does not invalidate those benefits.
kind regards,

Ben
I know, and you make some valid points. There are some positives about online social networking. Although my experience of it wasn't very inspiring, I would assume that for physically isolated persons, or others who for reasons of injury or handicap find it hard to get around, it could be very valuable indeed. Maybe I just feel irritated that when my brother visits - and he lives quite a distance away, so I don't see him overly often - that he periodically checks his phone to see what's happened on his facebook account...I mean, can't it be left till later? Sheesh... :x maybe I'm just getting a bit grumpy in my mid-life...

with metta,

manas. :anjali:
To the Buddha-refuge i go; to the Dhamma-refuge i go; to the Sangha-refuge i go.
Post Reply