Heartbreak

Jeremy Davis7 said:This thread shouldn't be left to die in the archives!
There’s way too much good stuff in these comments and some old debates here that honestly deserve a second look!
Where's the mod? Taking a nap?
Look, I get it, modesty is a virtue, but show your face once in a while—it won't kill you.

😛

In Japanese, the word for "heart" is kokoro (心 - こころ), and it encompasses much more than just an organ; it refers to the heart, mind, spirit, feelings, core, soul, and thoughts.

The kokoro, heart-mind, means the whole thing—it represents the entirety of our being. It integrates the cerebral, the emotional, and the psychological into one cohesive unit.

I found this interesting passage (for those who read English):

Conversations about Clown and zen : a language of The Heart? Kokoro!

🙂

The heart probably holds such a massive role in religion simply because we can’t actually see it, yet we feel its presence constantly. There’s this direct, undeniable link between our emotions and how that muscle functions. You can hear it, you can feel it under your hand, and because it physically presses against your lungs, you sense it there too. You even hear it thumping in your ears through the pulse of your arteries.
All of this led early humans to believe the heart was the true epicenter of the psyche, while the brain—with its massive, tangled web of vessels—was dismissed as nothing more than a glorified radiator for the blood. That misconception, born from purely superficial observation, stuck around for ages, and you can still see its fingerprints all over modern religion. The major monotheistic faiths, like mainstream Christianity, have pivoted to explaining away these ideas as "just metaphors," whereas smaller groups, cults, and fringe sects continue to stubbornly insist on the old ways, despite everything we know to be true.

In reality, the heart is just a muscular pump. It isn't "sensitive" to pain in the way we think; pain is registered via chemical triggers, like a lack of oxygen. It has its own dedicated power source. It doesn't rely on the brain to function. As long as it gets enough nutrients and oxygen, and stays in a warm, moist environment, it will keep beating.


It's pretty fucking fascinating. Especially when you stop to consider how many people have been killed because of wrongheaded interpretations of how blood moves through the body... 😵

"The heart? Why would you even need a heart?
Hearts are impractical. They break far too easily..."

Dorothy, the Lead Woodsman

A heart doesn't just break...

boldsailor32 said:"The heart? Why would you even need a heart?
Hearts are impractical. They break far too easily..."

Dorothy, the Lead Woodsman

The heart weaves through passion, fueled by the burning embers of sin,
and from such depths, no hell could ever be more chaotic...

mistybison said:😛

In Japanese, the word for "heart" is kokoro (心 - こころ), and it encompasses much more than just an organ; it refers to the heart, mind, spirit, feelings, core, soul, and thoughts.

The kokoro, heart-mind, means the whole thing—it represents the entirety of our being. It integrates the cerebral, the emotional, and the psychological into one cohesive unit.

I found this interesting passage (for those who read English):

Conversations about Clown and zen : a language of The Heart? Kokoro!

🙂

👍

Hui Neng says:

“Thoughts spring from absolute truth, from our deepest nature. Even though we have six senses and four functions—seeing, hearing, feeling, and perceiving—not even ten thousand worldly phenomena can touch that true nature. True nature is always free.”

Everything that exists comes from a single, unified heart. This one heart that birthed everything is essentially like water. That’s why the heart can never truly be broken. Sure, the *image* of the heart might break, but at the end of the day, even that image came from the same unified source. Any breakage is just an illusion. 🙂

The Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng, puts it this way:

“True nature is inherently unmoving, yet it can produce ten thousand different things. None of those ten thousand things can ever be separated from true nature—from the heart.”

My take on that heart picture from placidjackal36.

placidjackal36 says: The heart is nothing more than a muscular pump pushing blood around. It doesn't feel pain—pain is just a reaction to chemical changes, like when oxygen runs low—it just has its own "power source." It doesn't need the brain to function. As long as you keep it fed and oxygenated, and keep it warm and wet, it’ll keep on beating.

Even tiny little babies "know" deep down that isn't🙂

The heart serves as the ultimate source of light

Sandra Richardson53 said:My take on that heart picture from placidjackal36.

placidjackal36 says: The heart is nothing more than a muscular pump pushing blood around. It doesn't feel pain—pain is just a reaction to chemical changes, like when oxygen runs low—it just has its own "power source." It doesn't need the brain to function. As long as you keep it fed and oxygenated, and keep it warm and wet, it’ll keep on beating.

Even tiny little babies "know" deep down that isn't🙂

Sure, physical touch matters a lot to babies. That's basically their primary way of communicating—through contact. It makes them feel better.

But I don't see how that refutes the fact that the heart is just a muscular pump. You aren't going to trip me up with that kind of rhetoric; I'm immune to those sentimental, heart-tugging stories. (I've dealt with enough hardship to develop a thick skin.)

placidjackal36 said:Sure, physical touch matters a lot to babies. That's basically their primary way of communicating—through contact. It makes them feel better.

But I don't see how that refutes the fact that the heart is just a muscular pump. You aren't going to trip me up with that kind of rhetoric; I'm immune to those sentimental, heart-tugging stories. (I've dealt with enough hardship to develop a thick skin.)

It doesn't refute it. That's precisely the point. But imagine how poets would throw a tantrum if they were forced to admit the heart is just a pump, especially when every infant knows that's what it is.
Touch? What on earth does touch have to do with the heart?

placidjackal36 said:I’ve reached that stage of life where my heart is essentially calloused over; I’m completely immune to those tear-jerking little stories designed to pull at your heartstrings. Honestly, does anyone even believe them anymore? You watch one of those sentimental commercials or read some sweeping, tragic anecdote, and instead of feeling moved, I just find myself wondering about the production budget or the sheer audacity of the melodrama. Is there truly anything left that can actually pierce through this layer of cynicism I've built up, or am I just destined to sit here, unmoved, while the rest of the world weeps over manufactured sentimentality?

It makes perfect sense within the scope of your particular worldview... though, if I'm being completely honest, I still can't quite wrap my head around it.

placidjackal36 said:Sometimes, you just have to endure enough suffering until you finally start to harden, don't you? It’s that slow, grinding process where the weight of everything just presses down on you until you develop this sort of thick, impenetrable skin—much like how steel is tempered by the heat, or how a person eventually learns to stop flinching at the inevitable. Is there any other way to truly become resilient, or are we all just waiting for the next blow to strike so we can grow a little bit tougher?

What is the point of all this suffering? I can already see the answer coming my way, but I suppose I have to ask anyway, don't I?

We aren't the ones creating suffering, so why bother asking what its purpose is...
Suffering is just an inherent part of existing in the material world. You might be able to mitigate it through wisdom or offset it by finding meaning, but you can't simply wish it out of existence.

The heart acts as a mother to the daughter, the brain. According to ancient Chinese philosophy, our internal organs share deep, familial connections with one another.

Casey Gomez2 said:Suffering is just baked into the very fabric of being in this material realm. We can’t exactly wish it away through wisdom, though perhaps we can offset it with purpose—but make no mistake, you can't ever truly eliminate it.

I find myself nodding along with that... but then again, you clearly have a familiarity with the Book of Law:

"Just do it, and no one will tell you no. For pure will, unburdened by specific intent, stripped of any desperate craving for an outcome, every single moment becomes perfect."

But placing WILL above PURPOSE... honestly, how is that even possible in the real world? If there isn't a sense of purpose guiding us, where on earth are we supposed to go? How can one move without a target to aim for? 😕

So, Andy, the question still hangs there in the air: why must there be suffering in the first place?

Dennis Rogers6 said:It makes perfect sense within the scope of your particular worldview... though, if I'm being completely honest, I still can't quite wrap my head around it.

What is the point of all this suffering? I can already see the answer coming my way, but I suppose I have to ask anyway, don't I?

Casey Gomez2 said:We aren't the ones creating suffering, so why bother asking what its purpose is...
Suffering is just an inherent part of existing in the material world. You might be able to mitigate it through wisdom or offset it by finding meaning, but you can't simply wish it out of existence.

Look, if we stopped comparing our lives by asking "who's having it worse," there wouldn't be any real suffering—just different ways of carrying the pain we're dealt.

Is it possible that everyone is hurting from something?
Is it possible that everyone feels their own pain is the heaviest?
And finally, could we ever just accept that our own agony is just as crushing to us as someone else's pain is to them?
If we did, would we still be "suffering"? Or would we just deal with the ache in some other way?
So, is suffering really just the fallout of a bruised ego?

............
If the heart were nothing more than a muscle acting as a pump, then every attempt at a transplant would end in a total disaster.
The fact that we humans love to lean on these cheesy phrases like "my heart and soul are aching" is just an open invitation for things like Reiki or whatever other "totally original" 🙄 money-making manipulation schemes are out there.

Casey Gomez2 said:It doesn't refute it. That's precisely the point. But imagine how poets would throw a tantrum if they were forced to admit the heart is just a pump, especially when every infant knows that's what it is.
Touch? What on earth does touch have to do with the heart?

Everything works fine as long as we recognize we're dealing with a metaphor. It seems like some people who pride themselves on being "rational" just can't wrap their heads around metaphors or "what the author intended." Well, sorry, but you're wrong. 🙂
Think about babies. They communicate through touch. Their vision is basically non-existent, smell is just starting to kick in, and sounds are just noise, but the warmth and softness of skin provides their sense of security. Ultimately, the world they came from—that soft, warm womb—is what they find most comforting. This entire atmosphere is brand new to them. 😁

Dennis Rogers6 said:It makes perfect sense within the scope of your particular worldview... though, if I'm being completely honest, I still can't quite wrap my head around it.

What is the point of all this suffering? I can already see the answer coming my way, but I suppose I have to ask anyway, don't I?

On an internet forum? Sure. I'm not some emotionless machine, you know.

Why the suffering? (I can guess the answer, but I have to ask.)

That's personal.

placidjackal36 said:Everything works fine as long as we recognize we're dealing with a metaphor. It seems like some people who pride themselves on being "rational" just can't wrap their heads around metaphors or "what the author intended." Well, sorry, but you're wrong. 🙂
Think about babies. They communicate through touch. Their vision is basically non-existent, smell is just starting to kick in, and sounds are just noise, but the warmth and softness of skin provides their sense of security. Ultimately, the world they came from—that soft, warm womb—is what they find most comforting. This entire atmosphere is brand new to them. 😁

On an internet forum? Sure. I'm not some emotionless machine, you know.

Why the suffering? (I can guess the answer, but I have to ask.)

That's personal.

I’ll take your point and flip it slightly: there are people who simply cannot grasp that metaphors aren't actual blueprints of reality, but rather completely processed patterns. And this processing isn't even done by the heart—which metaphorists love to obsess over so much—but by the mind.

Sometimes people retreat into a cozy world of metaphors, and sometimes they need that comfort so desperately that they start convincing themselves that these metaphors aren't figures of speech, but absolute truths. Eventually, they try to convince everyone else that the metaphor *is* the truth.

The heart is a pump. Period. Emotions are a function of the brain. Period.

^So, are you actually suggesting we should just dodge or completely ditch metaphors like "my heart yearns" altogether?

placidjackal36 said:^So, are you actually suggesting we should just dodge or completely ditch metaphors like "my heart yearns" altogether?

Absolutely not. Metaphors are essential tools for expression. They force the reader to engage with analogies. To actually think.
The problem is that people who lack the desire to think tend to take them at face value. Of course, there are times when a literal reading is necessary, specifically when a writer hasn't employed any metaphor. But believing that a metaphor is a literal truth is just as misguided as believing a text devoid of metaphor is itself a metaphor.
For those interested, I'd direct everyone to the threads on the pyramids and the Sphinx over in the History section, or similar topics on the main boards.

placidjackal36 said:Sure, physical touch matters a lot to babies. That's basically their primary way of communicating—through contact. It makes them feel better.

But I don't see how that refutes the fact that the heart is just a muscular pump. You aren't going to trip me up with that kind of rhetoric; I'm immune to those sentimental, heart-tugging stories. (I've dealt with enough hardship to develop a thick skin.)

Look, everything's fine, you just said the heart is *only a muscular pump*. And I was just saying it isn't, and that babies know that in their own way.

Touch—and specifically connecting with someone's heart—matters to everyone, not just babies. It’s great being immune to those tear-jerkers, but you don't want your heart to get too hardened either. Sure, you won't suffer, but the trade-off is that with a heart that stiff, you won't really enjoy life much either...🙂