Hi, Suresh,
What you post, or have quoted, is fine as far as it goes (to an extent).
But Buddha did better.
He showed that there is suffering, and that there is a way OUT of suffering.
What do you -- or your author -- show as a way out of suffering?
Surely it is not in criticizing pessimists, or in praising optimists.
Firstly, no one is either one or the other, all the time.
Secondly, there are also DEGREES of pessimism, and optimism.
Thirdly, the conditions of peoples' lives are all different.
So, what practice shatters both the optimist and pessimist vessels? Neither
optimist or pessimist is realistic. There must be a larger and less
self-concerned vessel.
How do we become realistic ...and an intimate partner of life, rather than a
critic or a praiser of its unfoldings?
I think we do better not to stand outside life and look in; nor, outside life
and expect that it will conform to unrealistic wishes.
Buddha claims that attachment to desire -- insistence on certain outcomes -- is
the cause of suffering. Why shouldn't it be? The are eight billion people in
the world, and only one FLOW of life.
Do you -- or does your writer -- really think there can be 8 billion flows of
life without some collisions and catastrophic accidents?, and a lot of
unfulfilled wishes?... hence the "99 percent" pessimists. A figure I doubt the
accuracy of, but it will serve as a place-holder for the truth.
You mention Sat-Chit-Ananda.
Can you tell us about bliss from a Buddhist perspective?
And now, from a Zen perspective?
With Friendly Greetings,
--Joe / in Arizona
PS To imitate your subject-line: "Trouble-shooters are LOOKING for trouble".
;-) I think of the guys fixing the electric power lines here, above the
streets.
> SURESH JAGADEESAN <varamtha@...> wrote:
>
> The pessimist is the common variety. Out of a hundred
> persons, ninety-nine are pessimists. They are looking for misery, they
> are waiting for misery. They are convinced that something is going to
> happen which is going to be wrong.
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