There are probably a few ways you can reduce your reaction to pain, but I think changing or reframing your reaction is more the goal (again, at least in this context) than eliminating a reaction entirely. Buddhism is one framework out of many where people work skillfully with the desire that surrounds pleasure and pain - every breath I take is fulfilling an inevitable need, but I don’t need to be controlled by a resistance born of the idea that I won’t always be breathing, or an attachment to the idea of breathing for the rest of all eternity.
There are definitely people, particularly some western buddhists, who are similarly controlled by a desire to become completely free of the emotions and needs that encompass the human experience - within their own framework, this desire feeds their suffering.
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There are probably a few ways you can reduce your reaction to pain, but I think changing or reframing your reaction is more the goal (again, at least in this context) than eliminating a reaction entirely. Buddhism is one framework out of many where people work skillfully with the desire that surrounds pleasure and pain - every breath I take is fulfilling an inevitable need, but I don’t need to be controlled by a resistance born of the idea that I won’t always be breathing, or an attachment to the idea of breathing for the rest of all eternity.
There are definitely people, particularly some western buddhists, who are similarly controlled by a desire to become completely free of the emotions and needs that encompass the human experience - within their own framework, this desire feeds their suffering.