Suffering is the very nature of this world. That's not only the first noble truth proclaimed by Buddha but also an indisputable fact of life. Even the richest dude on this planet cannot escape suffering. Death, disease and aging are always guaranteed even assuming that financial and other difficulties didn't knock your doors first. All pleasure is like flicker, it vanishes in mere seconds. Pain, on the other hand, is everlasting and chronic which once again proves that human life is more optimized for miseries and sufferings, not pleasures and happiness.
Despite knowing all of this fully well, we keep on leading our lives as if we are going to live on till eternity and lead an enjoyable life. We do that due to that magical thing called hope which is always inside us. The idea is to beat suffering and everyone uses different ways to do it. The lowest beings use the lowly methods of snatching other's things or causing harm to others, doing so can increase their own happiness they think. But how can one derive happiness after causing more suffering to the very world which they are a part of?
Its all a part and parcel of karma, of course. The very fact that I took birth on a planet optimized for suffering must be my bad karma. What can I do to ensure that it doesn't happen in the next life? Probably do meditation and be more inclined toward spirituality, try and stay calm even in the face of mental turmoil? But that doesn't answer the more important question, why is there so much misery and suffering on this planet? Is it the case that gross and lowly spirits are dumped more on this planet than the others? Does the goodness or altruism of the average soul determine the suffering conditions on this plane? That might explain the simultaneous existence of human suffering and also (relatively more) selfish and gross minded people here.
What happens when we leave this plane? Do we get to take another birth and if yes then which planet? I recently lost my father and I'm wondering where his soul might be right now. Considering the kind of lovable and kindhearted soul he was, I'm sure he will be in a very wonderful plane. But I fear that my own life merits aren't so good, I'm not as good as him, so I wonder where will I end up. Will I ever get to meet him? I desperately hope so, I hope to meet him some day. And that hope is a lot more than the hope invested in this wretched life.
I always fathom about mysterious questions like these. For some reason, I don't feel the desperate need to getting used to this life while calmly ignoring these uncomfortable questions. Philosophy isn't some abstract or airy concept, it can get as practical as the near impossible to answer questions in the above paragraph.
Hope can act as a fuel to keep us going in life but it cannot bring back the loved ones we have already lost. That loss always stays like a dent or hollow inside us for as long as we live. What if I don't want to live this life without that loved one? Can't I just say "pass" and move on to the next life as if this were a computer game?
Trying to find answers to these questions is hard but probably not impossible. Most of us are acclimated to either an extremely religious right wing culture or an absolutely atheistic left wing culture. Occult science is considered taboo in the former and joke in the latter. What we need is the Buddha's middle path approach, we need to encourage more research and interest in Occult science. Imagine a world where you absolutely know who one was in their past life, a world where akashic records are maintained so you never lose your loved ones even after death!
Some might call these dreamy thoughts stupid but as they say, one century's magic is another century's science, isn't it? Great minds like Galileo and Copernicus were also laughed at when they were actually right. Who knows this might already be a reality on one of the other planes of existence than us.
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