What exactly does this mean in Buddhist teaching? I'm dense when it comes to these things so bear with me...

Is unattachment like indifference?

It is the point in suffering where the suffering itself shows you that you need not suffer. It is kind of like the breaking point where you learn what your suffering really is and how you create it for yourself and you can live in such a way as to alleviate it.

It's an epiphany.

Edit: And yes, I believe it has to do with a detachment or indifference from suffering.

Does it ever make sense to suffer? I mean, is it possible to train yourself to get over things without time as a factor (like a mind over matter thing)? Would a zen master ever experience PTSD for example...or is that more of a biological response thing?

I think it is lots of mental training. You can't turn off pain or a mental disorder, but I think you can, in a way, accept it and obtain a new perspective of it. I think when you are suffering, a lot of the suffering is because you are suffering if that makes sense. You compound it and make it much worse than it really is. I think you can train yourself to undo this. I'm not Buddhist but I'm sure it entails mental conditioning.

I remember discussing this study with a friend.

inkaStepa wrote:What exactly does this mean in Buddhist teaching? I'm dense when it comes to these things so bear with me...

Is unattachment like indifference?

Hi,

Unattachment – at least in Mayahana and Vajrayana Buddhism – refers to direct, unbound awareness: not caught up – either subtly or grossly – by afflictions, whether they manifest as mental, emotional, physical etc. The end of suffering comes via the unbinding of causes and conditions.

Unattachment has a tendency to get confused with a kind of zombie-like deadness of the personality, or what psychologists might call a flattening of emotional response. But, it's really quite different. Similarly, non-dual teachings have an unfortunate tendency to get confused with indifference, so people have a hard time with it, because they believe they've heard it's better not to have preferences, or to care for one thing over another.

Which would be a mistake.

inkaStepa wrote:Does it ever make sense to suffer? I mean, is it possible to train yourself to get over things without time as a factor (like a mind over matter thing)? Would a zen master ever experience PTSD for example...or is that more of a biological response thing?

Certainly.

"Marpa was very upset when his son was killed, and one of his disciples said: “You used to tell us that everything is illusion. Is it not so with the death of your son? Is not that an illusion?” And Marpa replied: “True, but the death of my son is a super-illusion”."

Chogyam Trungpa, Practice of the Tibetan Way

Okay, so the point is to not get caught up in things?

By illusion, do you mean the idea that everything is ultimately a mental concept?

inkaStepa wrote:Okay, so the point is to not get caught up in things?

By illusion, do you mean the idea that everything is ultimately a mental concept?

Everything IS a mental construct. Yes.

Death.

To sleep, perchance to dream; ah there's the rub.

inkaStepa wrote:Okay, so the point is to not get caught up in things?

Well, that's certainly one way of viewing it. Although, also the undoing of things one has already been caught up in.

inkaStepa wrote:By illusion, do you mean the idea that everything is ultimately a mental concept?

That's quite a complex subject, but shouldn't lead to a kind of philosophical idealism, as that would be an incorrect view for Buddhists. Illusion - maya - is far more expansive and pervasive than mere mental concepts. It extends beyond (conscious) conceptual thought. More than emotion, habit, memory, and the things one might typically be cognizant of. It involves deep unconsciously held obscurations too, going back years and lifetimes (and aeons).

i think the answer is-

"When Simon Cowell dies"

inkaStepa wrote:Does it ever make sense to suffer? I mean, is it possible to train yourself to get over things without time as a factor (like a mind over matter thing)? Would a zen master ever experience PTSD for example...or is that more of a biological response thing?

This is really interesting because it is, in fact, what I do.
If someone dies, or something bad happens to me, I might sit there and think about the scheme of things, and think to a few years in the future when I might be so totally over it I wouldn't even be able to remember the point at which I had gotten over it. And then I think - why not skip the bit in between and just be over it.
As said above, it's nothing to do with being unemotional, it's more like being in tune with your emotions, or to give example, the exact opposite is to be so emotional that you can barely control yourself or your life and become a victim of circumstance.

Unfortunately there is no guarantee of liberation from dukkha by merely ceasing to be human. Death of the physical body results in a recycling, and other worlds or lokas are pleasurable if you make it to bliss realms and pure abodes, but not so nice if you're in hell realms.

Although, conversely, there is every potential for liberation from suffering while in human incarnation. It is considered a precious thing to attain human incarnation, despite the seeming pain.

Even dwelling in the heaven realms and god realms do not ultimately bring suffering to an end; they are temporary too.

A significant part of suffering can be attachment. Physical pain aside, when we lose something that we attribute a value to possessing, that is suffering. Unfulfilled desires can be suffering.

What is suffering? Who is the one experiencing suffering? Is it not just a bunch of neurons generating a sensation called "suffering".

Spearthrower wrote:... Animals might experience pain, distress, anxiety etc but only humans 'suffer' because they are aware of their existence.

It seems to me that higher animals (at least) are well aware of their existence. I'd say that all the ape family including humans have "self awareness". As a dog owner I'm sure my dogs have self awareness too and they can certainly experience suffering. Not just physical pain but psychological suffering. I've seen dogs exhibit virtually all the same range of emotions attributable to humans.

I think it is important to look deeper into phrases such as "self awareness" because they hold lots of preconceptions.

What exactly is "self-awareness"? It implies there is a "real self" to be aware of. Loosely speaking I am a Zen Buddhist and analysis of self just shows "smoke and mirrors" - no real self. Just a lot of preconditioned input/action responses. Certainly no such thing as a soul or other entity that could be described as an distinct individual. The closest thing to a "real self" is a mental construct or a model of a "self" which is used as a basis for modelling and planning actions. This is perhaps too deep to try to explain in the context of this thread.

I understand and fully agree with what you say. While my dogs clearly have a "me" concept they seem highly unlikely to have any concepts of the duration of life or any concepts of the transition from young to old to dead. They seem to live in the present without such concepts. They can plan ahead of course at least by several minutes and plan strategies to acquire something desirable such as a bone to eat. But I doubt their though processes extend much beyond that when regarding time and their own changes.

Spearthrower wrote:I always think of the word 'suffering', within the Buddhist context, to be distinctly human. Animals might experience pain, distress, anxiety etc but only humans 'suffer' because they are aware of their existence. This is how I have had it explained to me by monks and practicing Buddhists, anyway. So if this is the case, is it not then an essentially human characteristic? Would not removing it also remove a quintessential aspect of our humanity?

Except suffering extends to all sentient beings, which includes not only animals but countless other realms too, plant and mineral kingdoms right up to devas and god beings. So you get tremendously powerful, blissful, supremely conscious and self-conscious beings who nevertheless have not fully cut through illusion, and hence suffer, or at least they will do.

Spearthrower wrote:That's where I am driving - the end of suffering may well not be best described as a liberation, unless of the type where ignorance is bliss.

Well, either subtly or grossly masking suffering, or attempting to nullify existential pain would indeed be ignorance, if it's made unconscious. But the 'ignorance is bliss' state, however seemingly pleasurable, does not uncover the nature of mind. E.g. new born babies dwell in an ego-less state of absorption, where they lack cognizance of many things, but these states still contain the seeds of dukkha.

It does get subtle and complex. For example, the boddhisattva path, where the commitment to liberation is neither ignorant of suffering, nor a denial of the conditions that lead to suffering. In fact, quite the opposite, at least according to the Buddha.