PT "Mourn them do not; Miss them do not."-Good advice or bad advice?

Maybe the Jedi should have a stricter screening process so people like Anakin won't get in. Or at least stick to the boy will not be trained, instead of caving to Obi Wan.

 

the worst part of what Yoda says is in the very same movie he tells Chewbacca he'll miss him.

 

I think that depends on what you think the character means when they say that, in the context of those situations.

I think Obi-Wan said he'd do it without the jedi council's approval either way, so what are they gonna do?

 

In that context, I think he meant 'I'll miss being with you'. He's not going to force Chewie to be with him, or try to prolong Chewie's life.

 

What's wrong with trying to prolong someone's life? So all people on Earth who have a healthy diet and go see doctors are on the path to the dark side? How about rescue teams who save someone from drowning? Or firemen who rescue people from a burning building? All "playing god" and potential darksiders? Let's all just never see a doctor and get treatment again, because they might "prolong life". I get it, all doctors are potential Sith then.

 

You didn't answer the question, if a mentor says to you, "Don't drink alcohol." Do you think he means, "Never drink." or "It is ok to drink, just do it in moderation."?

And I have said before that there is a bit of a disconnect between what the Jedi say and how they act.
Yoda can show sadness and he said he would miss Chewie. But he says to Anakin that he must not miss or mourn someone.
Either it is a case if the Jedi being a bit like, "Do as I say, don't do as I do." Or the writing is inconsistent.
In AotC, Mace was fine with letting 20+ people die to deny Dooku an advantage but later Yoda is unable to let 2 people die to deny Dooku escaping. Either Yoda's actions were not the proper Jedi way or something is off.

I don't follow? Yoda feels that both Sith must die, Anakin and Palpatine. Obi-Wan does not want to kill his friend and pupil but Yoda insists that he must, that Anakin is gone, only Vader remains.
I see nothing in Yoda in the OT that suggest he changed his mind and Vader and Palpatine does not have to be killed. They must, no matter how Luke feels about it.

Except Luke does not fight to stop Palpatine from killing his friends. He starts to fight because he is angry and his hate has reached the point where he can stop himself. There is no plan from Luke here, no way he can save his friends. They are doomed no matter what he does.
Vader makes an offer that if he gives up, gives himself to the dark side, then his friends could be saved. But a) that assumes Palpatine would agree with it, which is by no means a given. And b) that they were even alive and c) Vader meant what he said.
So Luke isn't really given the choice to do something bad to prevent their loss. He is given the choice to give in to his hate and murder just to satisfy his bloodlust. And Luke knows all that will do is to make him Palpatine's slave. So he backs away, both from that knowledge but also his love for his father overcomes his hate.

Again, the Jedi deny some emotions.
A Jedi can not marry and have children and remain a Jedi. So romantic love and love for your children, a Jedi can not have that, period.
Same with love to your own parents or siblings. Those are removed by taking children very young, likely before any such bind has been formed.
To me, the Jedi don't come across as people that say "We will train you to have sufficient control over these certain emotions that we will allow you to have them and trust that you will act responsibly."
Instead they come across as, "No Jedi can handle these emotions so we will ban them and if you want to have them, then you can no longer be a Jedi."
To bring it back to alcohol analogy, I don't see the PT as saying "It is totally fine to drink, just don't get drunk or become addicted." Instead I see them as saying "Never drink!".

I mean, if the Jedi thought that a Jedi could handle having a family and also be a Jedi if they had been trained in control of those emotions, why would they ban it?
No, they instead think that the risk is simply too great, that no amount of training can make a Jedi handle these things safely and so they are banned.
Take Anakin in TPM, he had an attachment to his mother, very normal for a kid his age and esp with his background. He also missed her and was afraid to loose her. Again very normal but to the Jedi, big warning signs. And initially, they made the call that Anakin was not to be trained, they felt that he was too far gone. No amount of training could get rid of these dangerous attachments.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

I'm sure the Jedi care about each other and do feel sadness for a loss. but there is obviously a level to how much that can consume you. id argue i think with Anakin it was that he just had a vision of the future. something the jedi probably have an understanding of and to what it means.im sure this isn't a first time thing for a jedi in hundreds of years. so for anakin it could become a self-consuming obsession to save someone that might not be able to be saved.

 

The problem, as I see it, is that the movies simply don't have the time to delve much into the Jedi philosophy. The Jedi echo sentiments found in a lot of different philosophies - Stoicism, Buddhism, etc - regarding attachment, loss, feelings, etc. What we get in the movies is mostly the "ten second snippet" version, and yeah, that can be hard to process, and it can come off as insensitive. You have to remember that we are getting the tiniest glimpses, the briefest discussions, of a philosophical regimen that the Jedi are trained in for YEARS. I guarantee Jedi training doesn't consist of Yoda simply telling you "Don't worry about death - next!" and "Stop caring about material attachments. Now for your next lesson..." If you are genuinely interested in these ideas, there are some great books out there on, for example, Stoicism, and other similar philosophies, including some written specifically around STAR WARS.

Want to see a great example of how "too much attachment" can lead to fear, pain and suffering? In this case,for billions? Well, the movies give us Exhibit A, Anakin. Anakin is so afraid of the pain he will feel should Padme die that he is willing to do anything to spare himself that pain. And I think that is clear - he tells himself he is doing this "for Padme", but he is really doing this for HIMSELF, out of terror of what it would be like for HIM to lose Padme. And to spare himself that pain, he is willing to betray and murder friends, teachers and allies, willing to flat out hands on murder children, and willing to sell an entire galaxy into slavery, oppression and tyranny.

For that matter, take Luke's attempt to rescue Han and Leia in ESB. Is it brave? Yes. Do we naturally sympathize with him? Of course. BUT... this was a trap. Vader didn't care about Han, Leia, or Chewie. He wanted LUKE. If he killed Luke, or captured him, odds were pretty good that the Empire was going to go right on ruling the galaxy. Yoda is suggesting that rather than race headlong into a trap, where odds are Luke will fail and be captured/killed, he should honor what his friends are fighting for, look at the big picture, and continue to train until he is ready to face Vader. That is TOUGH. However, it isn't WRONG. And what exactly does Luke accomplish? If you really think about it? He nearly DOES get killed (I am convinced that when Luke drops away from Vader he has no idea he isn't going to die). Han is not rescued. Leia doesn't escape because of Luke. Luke put the entire galaxy at risk for...nothing, really.

I'd respectfully suggest that the perspective the Jedi have is that one must recognize that life is all about change, that we are all mortal, and that undue attachment leads to a lot of fear and suffering. That does not mean one should be an unemotional robot, that one should just "do nothing" . It suggests balance, and maturity, and perspective. I think the movies do a DECENT job of suggesting much of this, but they do, at times, suffer because they can't delve deep into the philosophy, which can, in snippets, suggest insensitivity.

 

I completely disagree with this idea. Luke does accomplish a lot, though he, to quote Hawkeye Pierce, "screwed up in reverse". When he shows up on Bespin, Vader loses nearly all interest in his captives. He just wants them off the field so he can focus on Luke. This gives Lando the chance to move to free them and help them escape. Yes, Han is still in the carbonite, but he's really better off in Jabba's clutches than in Vader's.
Next, by facing Vader in that way, Luke gets a needed dose of humility. He was good at that time, but he still had ego problems. This gave him the perspective he needed, and showed in ROTJ. Plus, he was given knowledge his trusted teachers had withheld from him, supposedly for his own good. This also gave him a better perspective on things, and enabled him to refuse both Palpatine's choice (turn evil) and his mentors' choice (kill Vader), and take the alternative that was ultimately successful (bring Ani to his senses). Plus, when Luke refused to join Vader on Bespin, this started the process that made Vader start to re-think his own position.
Consider: if Luke had kept to the "big picture" and stayed away, what then? It's a certainty Leia & Chewie would die, and Threepio would be destroyed. Han would still be a prisoner, but Luke wouldn't try to help him until the Empire had been fully sorted out, a process that would take years, if then. Vader would have no impetus to try to reform, and Luke would have no urge to save him from the Dark Side. Sure, maybe in the end, Luke leads the war to a successful end and destroys the Empire, but it'd cost him his soul. He'd have let his dearest friends die, needlessly, and condemned his own father to Sith Hell. As I've posted elsewhere, that burden, much more than the contrivance in TLJ, would've driven Luke to renounce the whole Jedi Order and told Ben & Yoda where to go and what to do when they got there.
Luke's choice was the correct one. It didn't work out the way he intended, but it did work. And he proved that attachments, while they can be a source of great evil, are also a source of great good. It's perspective that matters, not utter rejection.
Besides, Irvin Kershner was right. If Luke hadn't gone to the rescue, the audience would've hated him for being such an ungrateful so-and-so.

 

The thing with mourning and missing is there's two sides to it. Someone can do those things for their own sake, because they've been left without their companion. And one can also mourn for the sake of the deceased. Both are normal and ok for us regular people, and are part of the healthy process of grieving.

The Jedi believe when one dies they transform into the Force, which is something to rejoice, so there's no need for the latter. And with their lifestyle of non-attachment there should be no need for the former.

Seeking a repeatable, permanent sense of pleasure from impermanent things, and an aversion to losing them is attachment. Seeing something as a source of lasting joy without having to posses it is non-attachment. If one can develop the skills to overcome the fear & the pain of personal loss through training, they can accept uncontrollable change and death as a part of life.

Yoda's advice is right, for a Jedi. Even, and especially, for an anomaly of a Jedi like Anakin who is also part 'regular person'. In fact, after hearing enough to understand the basic circumstances: that Anakin feared losing someone he was close to, I'd say that's exactly how Yoda tailored his advice to him, and it fit the situation accordingly with the info given to him.
At the end of the day though, this is about Anakin fearing the loss of his pregnant wife. If he'd given Yoda all these facts and details, the advice still would've been the same but with the added ultimatum of choosing the Jedi way or leave the Order. Which also would've been right. It's Anakin's responsibility to pick one or the other. He wants a foot in both worlds, attachments and all, but they don't mix.

The advice naturally strikes us as extreme, that's how it strikes Anakin. But that's not even his issue; he has convinced himself that Padmé's death is set in stone, and is only there for info on how to circumvent death - regardless of how Yoda delivered any of his advice. Yoda could never give him the help he wanted, so it was an impasse. The fault of which lies with Anakin's secrets, greed and fear. Not any coldness from Yoda. I think his advice was phrased just fine, carried adequate empathy and was tailored quite well. Label it what you will, but it's what Anakin needed to hear and follow. If he'd overcome his fear of loss he could've prevented the whole shebang. That was the solution.

The fault I see with Yoda (and Mace in the AotC deleted scene) is being too confident/trusting that Anakin would choose the right path. (Which of course he does in the end, but that's another matter). Yoda does seem to be questioning that certainty later on.

And of course nobody, not even Anakin, knew he was friends with the Sith Lord.

It was Obi-Wan's responsibility while training Anakin to make sure he was integrating the Jedi way, but he seemed to have swept Anakin's struggles with attachment under the rug. Perhaps arrogance in assuming that since Ani is a Jedi (and the Chosen One, at that) he will of course choose the right path was their oversight. But it's still equally on Anakin here, he needs to live according to the Jedi way, which requires certain sacrifices, or leave.

Ultimately, I'd say it's not so much Anakin left his meeting with Yoda feeling un-empathized with, he left feeling the Jedi weren't going to give him what he wanted. He didn't want empathy he wanted cheat codes.

Does this sound like he was butthurt that Yoda didn't empathize with him enough?

Anakin was confusing his attachments and wants with compassion. Thus, in his eyes, making the Jedi seem to be lacking in compassion, not caring about others. Palpatine knew exactly how to manipulate Anakin with his line about "a life of significance, of conscience." After all, if the Jedi cared about others, they'd use the Force to cheat death, right?
But like in his speech about the Jedi being "encouraged to love", Anakin has blurred a few things to suit himself. He wants this power for his own personal needs. Sure, he left feeling "un-empathized with" in his own, confused, self-justified way, but not in the conventional way, as proposed in this thread.

Anakin doesn't seem to be integrating the Jedi outlook, it's not taking. Should he have been taken aside and given special treatment, knowing his difficulties? May be. But how receptive would he have been? This is the impasse. Ultimately he needed to choose the Jedi way or the highway.

Well, exactly. This scene illustrates the rift between Anakin and the Jedi: their upbringings. I think the only addition that might've made a difference was if Yoda had a similar experience to share with him, and how getting over the fear of loss made the visions stop and the person didn't die. But as per their lifestyle and training, they typically just aren't going to have stories like that.

But again, in TCW, Obi-Wan tries to have a talk with Anakin about Padmé and shares his personal experiences of once harboring feelings for Satine, but it's just not on the same level. Judge for yourself how open Anakin is to Obi-Wan's advice

I'd say it's more like indulged his p.o.v. And told him what he wanted to hear. Which to Anakin might have seemed like empathy.

This is a good example of how Yoda advises Anakin and how he advises other Jedi; showing he gave a tailored approach to Anakin, understanding his background. Having been raised in the Jedi Order from a young age, it's safe to assume Ahsoka wasn't fearing the loss of someone she was attached to. The advice Luke received about his visions was also tailored to his circumstances.

Is Yoda suggesting to Anakin to just do nothing and let them die?
First, he's instructing Anakin to be careful when sensing the future, tread with caution. See if the vision is rooted in fear/attachment before proceeding. The ultimate aim of his advice is to save the person's life if possible, but if the vision is clouded by the fear of loss it may be best to do nothing instead of acting on it and creating more problems. This was the hope held out by Yoda. This should've been enough, but for Anakin it wasn't. He wants more, even though he knows he shouldn't. He's convinced the death is inevitable and only wants a way around it, for his own sake.

Luke proved the Jedi were right through his eventual non-attachment to his father.

Even Han matured when he became able to step aside if Leia loved somebody else.

How do they lack unconditional love?

Anakin's attachment was conditional that she be alive. In AotC he agreed with her not to act on their love. But later, once they married and were together, he couldn't lose that.

Luke's love for Anakin was conditional in that he return to the light side. When he threatened to turn Leia, Luke stopped loving him and wanted to kill him, just after swearing to Kenobi that he could never do that very thing. Until he saw that condition and subsequently let it go, finally loving Anakin unconditionally.

Luke essentially made very similar mistakes, based in attachment. Yet ultimately seeing first hand where those mistakes would lead him.

Were Yoda & Obi-Wan not justifying their hiding the truth from him, and pushing him to kill his father if necessary?

Luke overcomes hate and anger by losing his attachments. Fear, hate, anger, negative destructive emotions arise from one's attachments being taken away or threatened.

Attachments are not emotions. They are the clinging to a person/thing that can elicit certain desired emotions, or even the clinging to the emotion itself.

More like overcome.

Not something they are to dwell upon or act on. Something they train themselves to nip in the bud by eschewing attachments.

Attachments are a no-no. Becoming attached to one's parents, spouse and children is natural and likely bound to happen. Especially the parent/growing child relationship. Attachments are a liability to Jedi however, because of their responsibilities and powers. Maybe some could handle having a family, but not all, so they seem to have decided to make it a blanket rule. It's a sacrifice they make for the Force, the order and the galaxy.

It's not so much that they caved to Obi-Wan; from my understanding, the majority of the council ultimately decided to induct Anakin because of the confirmation of the return of the Sith which increased their interest in Anakin with his possibility of being the prophecied Chosen One.
And if we go by the Microseries, he was Knighted without undergoing the official trials because the demands of the war required as many Knights as possible. He hadn't "faced the mirror" as Even Piell says. He eventually did on Nelvaan, but kept it to himself. I imagine the official trials include going over that sort of thing with one's mentors.

 

it was absolutely awful advice, shockingly so.

He was basically telling Anakin not to be what he is, 'Human'.

Now that could be fine to some species, maybe even the little green species like Yoda that seem to have two emotions: giggling at their own jokes, or ultra serious.

The human condition is a complex thing and any counsellor worth their salt would not say to anybody not to mourn, the psychological stress of that is not worth thinking about.

There is a BUT...

Yoda and the council kinda saw this happening and didn't want to train him, he was 'too old' for them to mould him to their doctrine.
You then have the'who then ultimately is to blame'

1. the Jedi and their dogmatic attitude to things
2. Obi-Wan's 'I will train him if I must without the approval of the council'
or:
3. The most logical conclusion: Anakin himself, Anakin was old enough not to allow himself to 'chase' Padme knowing the position he was in. It was akin to a catholic priest/monk confessing feelings for...well whoever. Anakin was not 'cut out' to be a Jedi...so while Yoda's advice certainly got a raised eyebrow from me, the Jedi order are entitled to impose those rules on others, if you don't like it...leave.

 

I think that's if you assume Yoda means not to mourn them at all. Considering we see Yoda himself, I think, express grief at the loss of other jedi. I think it's more in regards to Anakin not being consumed by his mourning.

 

That may be a good way to look at the scene, and might be plausible.

When I watch the scene, though, I take him at his word he means: do not mourn. Period.

Yoda: mourn them do not, miss them do not, attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed that is.

Nowhere, in their conversation, was there any kind of sympathy for him. Which makes it sound to me, like mourning itself is a big issue.

 

Yeah, it’s pretty terrible advice, and nobody actually follows it. The Jedi mourn Qui-Gon. Luke mourns Obi-Wan, Yoda and Anakin.

Mourning is a very healthy and natural process. You shouldn’t dwell on your grief, but letting it out and expressing it is essential to moving on.

 

Based on that I think the jedi clearly are shown to grieve and such, I think it's an understanding that makes more sense than: The jedi are emotionless, toxic robots who support emotional suppression. That's not in the movies.

 

We establish in AOTC that Jedi are allowed to leave and are given free reign to follow their passions... even start a movement to secede from the Republic in Dooku's case. Anakin is clearly a person who wants things he shouldn't have. He wants Padme, but he also wants to be a Jedi. He can't have both and we see the fall out of that situation.

That's the point though. The Jedi preach one thing and then do another. It makes them seem hypocritical and thus unlikeable.

 

I think the Jedi are in the right mind when it comes to their faith. Negative emotions lead to the dark side. They did not exist for hundreds of years by winging it. Anakin was a person who couldn't control his emotions and he destroyed them. So to say the jedi are toxic and emotionless robots i think is unfair. Its like teaching someone how to control their breathing in deep under water swimming, while just before hand making sure to remind them the importance of breathing on our lives and lungs. And what would happen to them if you don't breath in large diagram detail.

Stay focused on your mental state. Because if you stuggle, you will drown. And when you are ready, You will know when its time to come up for air.

 

I have said, many times, that the SW movies don't have the time, or the inclination, to "deep dive" into Jedi philosophy. They have a LOT of other things to achieve. Given that, I think it's reasonable for folks to have questions or concerns about that philosophy. I also think it falls to the creative team to give us ENOUGH of the philosophy to understand the important points. Whether or not they succeeded on that front, I am not sure, given that we continue to get into things like the quote above (which may be less a real question/comment than playful trolling - I am not sure).

The Jedi have no problem with trying to save someone's life. After all, they do it, all the time. The questions however, arise over why you are doing it, and what you are willing to do in the name of "saving someone's life".

When it comes to Anakin and Padme, I have always felt that what motivates Anakin is less a desire to save Padme than a desire to spare himself the agony he would feel if he lost her. You may think that is a distinction without a difference, but I would beg to differ. I think it is especially crucial when we see the lengths to which Anakin goes - and understand WHY he goes to those lengths. I harp on this a lot because I think some who defend Anakin portray his actions as somehow altruistic or motivated by love, whereas I believe they are motivated by fear for himself.

When Anakin says, by his actions - "To save Padme (really, to spare himself), I am willing to betray the Jedi, betray the Republic, murder kids, slaughter a room full of basically helpless politicians, slaughter my former teachers, mentors and friends, overthrow galactic democracy, and ally myself with an evil dictator"...um, yeah, he is going way way way way too far. Do you have any doubt, any at all, that Padme would be horrified if she was offered this bargain?

To summarize -

"This woman is sick, I am going to take her to the doctor" ... Jedi response: Cool.
"Bandits have kidnapped the senator, we are going to try to rescue her..." Jedi response: Cool.
"This woman is in grave danger; I may put my life at risk to save her"... Jedi response, in many contexts: Cool.

"This woman is sick, the only way I can try to save her is to kill an entire preschool class with my lightsaber" Jedi response: "Er, NOT cool"
"Bandits have kidnapped the senator, I am going to abandon my post and sell the galaxy into slavery to save her" ... Jedi response "Er... remember all those talks about Balance?"
"This woman is in grave danger, I am going to put your life at risk, and his life at risk, and actually all YOUR lives at risk, to save her...I;ll save her no matter what it costs..er...all of you..." Jedi response: Hold on now.

 

I have said this before but to a Jedi that was taken in say age two and is now 18. He or she has lived pretty much their whole life in the Jedi order. It is all he/she knows. How easy would it be to turn your back on all that?
Where could they go? Back to the family that gave them away and that they likely have no memory of and no connection to?

Also, it keeps not making sense that the Jedi ban marriage, family and children for active Jedi but are totally fine with ex-Jedi getting married and having kids.
There is apparently such a great danger for a Force user to have attachments but that danger is seemingly gone as soon as that Force user hands in their Jedi membership card.
Just because you leave the Order does not mean you loose your Force powers.

Yeah, I got a sense of "Do as I say, don't do as I do!" from the Jedi.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

I think that may be a reason the Jedi make it hard to leave. Because the Sith will try to recruit them if they leave.

 

That's another issue with the Jedi; they essentially brainwash kids. I imagine it is hard to leave the Order simply because none of them have any concept of what life is like outside the order. Which is another reason why the Jedi come across as unlikeable when you start to think about how they actually behave.

My rebuttal to that would be that HOW you say something to someone matters. Imagine saying your exact quote to someone, in a matter of fact/dismissive tone, after their mother drowned and they're worried their wife is going to drown as well.

You can remind someone, in a very caring way, that when people die they do return to the force and their energy still remains with us, just like our memories of them. Or you can do what Yoda did in ROTS and come off as dismissive.

 

Is that the point? Because the jedi never in any of the movies have promoted emotional suppression. Never. Not once. Not a single time. This perspective of the jedi isn't presented in any of the movies. So, this view of hypocrisy isn't based on information from those movies.

 

You forgot a few of points:
"I haven't seen or heard from my mother in years. I'd like to know if she's alright." Jedi response: "No."
"I'm having dreams that my mother may be in danger. Since Jedi can see into the future, I need to take this seriously." Jedi response: "Ignore them and maybe they'll go away."
"I think I'm falling in love with a senator, whom we saw fight valiantly for her people and come to our aid." Jedi response: "She's a politician (true) and she can't be trusted (absolute lie)."

 

The Jedi literally sit in an ivory tower. The entire point is they have become out of touch.

 

Anakin never admits he's fallen for her to Obi-Wan. Also, she's a human, so I think similarly in not trusting someone.