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94 lines
4.7 KiB
Markdown
94 lines
4.7 KiB
Markdown
% On Dukkha
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I experience no dukkha.
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=======================
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What is dukkha? It is one of three marks of existence, according to Buddhism. It
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means unsatisfactoriness or suffering, in the sense of an axle of a horse cart
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chaving against a poor hole, which is the origin of the word. Overcoming it is
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the whole idea of Buddhism, experiencing it is why the Buddha started his quest
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in the first place.
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I am not using a semantic trick. It is not an exaggeration, not a koan, nothing
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like this at all. I mean it, straightforward. **I experience no dukkha**.
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This is extremely weird. If I followed some common descriptions of
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enlightenment, then achieving it ends dukkha. Thus, if I do not experience it, I
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must be fully enlightened. I, however, do not agree with this and decided to dig
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deeper.
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Maybe I'm just mistaken? The other two marks of existence, anatta (no-self) and
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anicca (impermanence) are easy to misunderstand, too. So I got myself the
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Visuddhimagga, the (perhaps) greatest scholarly work on Buddhism, written by
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Buddhaghosa around the year 430. It describes, essentially, everything there is
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to the practice. All teachings and methods presented in a systematic
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fashion, including all the details and proper sources. I worked through the
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whole thing, memorized everything of merit, tested it against other people.
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I understand what dukkha is. I see it in other people, quite clearly. I cannot
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find it in me.
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The teachers cannot help me anymore.
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Not By Happiness
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================
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> In the Dhammapada it is suggested that, in order to achieve deliverance, we
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> must be rid of the double yoke of Good and Evil. That Good itself should be
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> one of our fetters we are too spiritually retarded to be able to admit. And so
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> we shall not be delivered.
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>
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> -- Emil Cioran, De l'inconvénient d'être né (english translation)
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Of all the things I believe or consider reasonably likely, one thing stands out
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as being extremely unusual. It is not [Trivialism], the [3 Jewels] or
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[Nondualism]. Those all have respected proponents or, at least, worthy arguments
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going for them.
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Tibetan Buddhists make me sick. Their culture is infested by messages of love
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and happiness. That which they call enlightenment is mindful heroin. It
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extinguishes their mind, leaving them, as the Actual Freedom folks call it,
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"happy and harmless". This is the worst state to be in.
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Let me illustrate the point. They are wrong about the meta-physical nature of
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the world. Choosing between love and hatred is like argueing whether it would be
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better to be eaten by Nodens, the Lord of the Great Abyss, or Nyarlathotep, the
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Crawling Chaos. It misses the point completely that *you are fucked either way*.
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Believing in any moral value misses the point that the universe is fundamentally
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empty and uncaring, that it has no goal, no judge and no purpose. If you care
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about happiness, piety, dignity, justice or freedom, then you fail to realize
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*where* you are! You are like the pagans living in Dante's Limbo, living quite
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happy lives, maybe not even aware that they are *missing the point of Creation*!
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Clinging to a life, no matter how happy, traps you further in Samsara.
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> I've yet to have an experience of any kind - game playing, sexual, food,
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> travel - where I said, 'This is the most fun I could ever possible have in my
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> entire life. I couldn't imagine, for one second, this being more enjoyable.' I
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> never said that.
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>
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> -- Gabe Zichermann, talk on Game Design
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I actually did. I managed to do exactly this, multiple times in fact. The last
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time I reproduced this, when I put down a video game controller and felt as
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happy as I ever could possibly hope to be, yet still unsatisfied, I knew it
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wasn't just a fluke. There's an upper limit to happiness, I can reach it any
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time and it still doesn't make the sucking stop.
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This was the turning point for me. I realized that I couldn't just "solve my
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problems" and live a happy life. I realized that it was fundamentally impossible
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for me to do so. Not officially, not consciously, but psychologically, I became
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a Buddhist this day.
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This feeling, this essential unsatisfactoriness, which Buddhists call dukkha, is
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what I think makes some people get the idea of enlightenment and others not. If
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you never felt it, you will not understand what it's all about. I don't know
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what actually makes the difference, what is necessary to feel it. Maybe you need
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to have lived a carefree and fulfilled enough life for long enough to max out
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your personal happiness (like the Buddha or I did) or maybe you need a special
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kind of mind to have the patience to actually optimize for happiness and fail,
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and have the clarity to realize it. I see no reliable pattern in the kinds of
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people to feel it, but if you do, welcome to the path. May it be your last.
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The best prisoner is the one that loves their chains.
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