Non-Buddhist views of samvega

[greenberg]

Greetings.


In Buddhism, the term samvega has this meaning:
the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived; a chastening sense of our own complacency and foolishness in having let ourselves live so blindly; and an anxious sense of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle (source).

I think most of us experience samvega from time to time, some experience it very often. It does not seem to be something that would be necessarily specific only for practitioners of a particular religion but not for others.


Buddhism has developed its own strategies and practices for addressing samvega.

I am interested to know what other views there are on samvega and how to address it.

 

[skaught]

I usually cry...

 

[everneo]

Greetings.


In Buddhism, the term samvega has this meaning:
the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived; a chastening sense of our own complacency and foolishness in having let ourselves live so blindly; and an anxious sense of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle (source).

1. the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived;

2. a chastening sense of our own complacency and foolishness in having let ourselves live so blindly; and

3. an anxious sense of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle .


In the above cluster of feelings, (1) is necessary to have the other two.

How strong (1) is in you ?

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

1) deeply experience the feeling
2) notice if the feeling leads you to
a) desires for how you would like your life to be or to stop being like
b) specific past experiences

if a) explore all the feelings and judgements you have about this desire. see if you can let go of, challenge, or get to root experience causes for why thee judgements of the desire seem true. explore these emotions. notice judgements about desire in general. see if these can be relaxed, challenged. seek counterexamples in the world - for example people with strong desires or who have what you want who are also appealing as people. see if there are specific judgements about why you, in particular, should not have or experience certain things. get underneath these ideas to root experiences and the feelings they produced.

if b) find out if the past experiences - or relationship patterns - have left behind unexpressed/unnoticed feelings that can be expressed now and the parts that have been denied, suppressed can rejoin the whole of you and notice where you are now - for example, if you've been abused in some way, by a specific person, you may find that parts of you still think and feel that it is still happening and always about to happen. These parts can, if allowed to express and are 'embraced', realize that that things have changed. They also have life energy in them, which it can be said is locked in the past. Usually these parts simply get blame for being weak, childish, locked in the past, too emotional and so on. and they are, therefore, treated rather badly. You, the conscious you that you identify with, are the lock, however.
Notice at all stages if there are judgements about you, the universe, other people, one of the sexes. see if these can be challenged, gone underneath to find emotions locked there, or connected to past experiences where they were set in place.

a) and b) generally overlap to a great degree.

 

[S.A.M.]

the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived

Why should life be futile and meaningless? Inspite of poor choices or poor circumstances, it is the most unique journey there is.

Though I can see the futility and meaninglessness from putting Vega with Sam.

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

Why should life be futile and meaningless? Inspite of poor choices or poor circumstances, it is the most unique journey there is.

What you have said is a thought. An idea. Even a fine one. I think you will find that it does not reach
certain people at certain times
perhaps even certain parts of yourself.

Perhaps it 'should' work. But I have found it doesn't.

 

[S.A.M.]

What you have said is a thought. An idea. Even a fine one. I think you will find that it does not reach
certain people at certain times
perhaps even certain parts of yourself.

Perhaps it 'should' work. But I have found it doesn't.

I find when most people talk about futility and meaninglessness, they are actually talking about control issues. ie their inability to influence or change opinion, people or circumstances. As most people (including myself) sometimes tend to do, they generalise this to the whole of existence. But I also believe that this is a temporary state of mind, except for those who consider alternatives less attractive than ending it all. People will adapt to the most heinous of circumstances in life, which leads me to believe that meaning is a subjective phenomenon.

 

[greenberg]

In the above cluster of feelings, (1) is necessary to have the other two.

How strong (1) is in you ?

That is hard to measure objectively, it's relative to me. I'll put it this way: If I were sure that ending my life by my own hands would remedy the problem, I would do it. But I have the fear that I might be reborn and then the whole thing called "life" would happen all over again, all the suffering all over again. So ending my life would not help one bit. This is why I don't do it.

 

[greenberg]

Many people will say that feelings of samvega is "just depression talking", and that one ought to take some pills and that will do it, and that worst case scenarios are something one shouldn't think about. Sure, this works sometimes, for some people.

But I think a religion or philosophy needs to be such that it can address the worst case scenario a person can think of, and still give the person some reasonable hope for something better and provide instruction for living a meaningful everyday life despite the possibility of the worst case scenario coming true.

 

[greenberg]

Why should life be futile and meaningless? Inspite of poor choices or poor circumstances, it is the most unique journey there is.

I suppose since you are a Muslim and have faith in God, samvega doesn't really concern you.
I don't think you can actually relate to those who don't have that sort of faith.

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

I suppose since you are a Muslim and have faith in God, samvega doesn't really concern you.
I don't think you can actually relate to those who don't have that sort of faith.

Another way to look at this - since many non-religious people share SAM's, what I would call, logical approach - is that we have different kinds of intermeshing with the world and some of us have certain kinds of goals/skills that make us want to reconcile certain issues rather than others. We are as compelled as the kid who must solve rubik's cubes and becomes a mathematician. Our skill/burden/problem/gift is around improving experience and self-relation to levels that others basically kind of assume is being too perfectionistic. To do this we notice and are less likely to brush past areas of pain, lack of intimacy, abuse, yearning and must find the solutions or strive toward them.