Over the last few weeks I have been re-reading some of my Buddhist class books and have found something that really helped me. Buddhism seems to be a lot about paying attention to the moment. If the moment has to be thinking, then guess what, pay attention to thinking. Ok, so I tried that and well it worked. When I get to the point I am thinking about something that I can’t control, or thinking about the past of future, I just say thinking. Though often it sounds like a judgmental concept, like STOP THINKING, it shouldn’t be that way. I am getting better on just understanding that I am thinking and moving along with life. I am most grateful to have teachers that have allowed me to work through these problems and continue in life as it should be, happy.

What is the definition of dukkha? According to the website Orientalia, dukkha is “suffering, misery, being a necessary attribute of sentient existence; the first of the Four Noble Truths. Dukkha is sorrow and suffering stemming from the blindness to non-permanence and the lack of true understanding of its reality.” I take heart into what the last part of this definition says about dukkha, that it is a “lack of true understanding of its reality.” According to this definition we must understand what reality is in order to realize the misunderstanding of reality, a concept that we also spent a lot of time in class indulging on, and as we now know, for good reason.

The nature of reality is different for every sentient being. This is because we all have subjective experiences of this reality from our sensorium. Whenever something occurs and we react to it, we are experiencing it through the smell, the touch, the eyes, and anything that brings input into our mind. In the prospective of neuroscience, science has said that this sensorium experience is true as our mind is the ultimate decider of what is reality, and makes up the experience of the consciousness through the interactions of outside world in a conglomerate operation of world and mind interaction. In this prospective we can say that it’s not the object in the world that causes the experience of the objects, but the interaction between object and mind. This interaction sounds very familiar to another topic that we talked about in class, the concept of interdependent co-arising which is very important idea to understand in order to cause an ending of dukkha in one’s life.

Interdependent co-arising (ICA) is the understanding that nothing exists without the relationship between all other things. The smallest bug, if not existing when it does, changes the form of reality and causes everything else to change in some way or form. It also means that our relationship of reality in our minds changes at every moment, due to the changes that are all around us and in our experience of our self.

Defining reality is a long about way of saying that it is different for every person and different at all times, a process, and experience of the moment. With this understanding now we can go back to explaining what dukkha is.

As reality is different for every person, and so is dukkha. At every moment in the experience of life, reality changes and so does dukkha. Dukkha is the resistance that is applied to life, the resistance to change that occurs in reality which happened regardless of if we want it to or not. This resistance causes us fear, hate, greed, and suffering. According to one of my papers I wrote for class, I defined dukkha to be “everything that we hope will last but indelibly will end. Dukkha is the lie that we tell ourselves in order to believe that the things that makes us happy will forever exists.” As I wrote this definition earlier in class, I would like to change my definition to be, dukkha is the un-satisfaction in life. How I came about to this definition was through the experience of a dream where I was able to come face to face with my fear. Looking back at this dream and into the meaning behind it, this fear I found was the experience of another cause, the cause being the unsatisfied feeling of life. The unsatisfied feeling of not living for ever, the fear of dying, the unsatisfied feeling of losing love, the fear of a breakup, the unsatisfied feeling of the moment of reality, the fear of all life. Reality changes all the time and in the famous words of Forrest Gump, “It happens.” Reality just happened and trying to control this reality, trying to control change, does nothing but cause reality to still happen. This resistance and un-satisfaction that we feel in result causes us to feel fear, this aspect of dukkha.

When I think about this unsuccessful resistance that we call dukkha, I think of the real life situation of drowning rafter:

A rafter falls into the water off of a boat into a dangerous river. The rushing river goes in one direction and the frantic rafter tries to fight the current in order to get back to where he once started because he believes he will be saved. The more the rafter tries to fight the river, the more he becomes tired, and because of impossibility to win this fight with the river, the rafter sinks to the bottom in exhaustion and dies.

A rafter falls into the water off of a boat into dangerous river. The rushing river goes in one direction and the calm rafter accepts the circumstance and relaxes placing his feel facing downstream to protect the rafter from danger. The rafter calmly moves to the side of the river and steps out of the water, alive, and accepting of the situation.

The Buddha’s teaching is the practice of understanding dukkha and the ending of dukkha. From what I have defined, the journey of enlightenment, or understanding of dukkha and the ending of dukkha is different for each one of us. The Buddha said that, “if you find the Buddha, kill the Buddha.” What I believe is meant by what the Buddha said is that each one of us have our own path to understanding dukkha and ending it, and that not ones persons path is the same as another’s. We must all be with our own fears, our own anger, our own happiness, and the moment.

In my blog I have had a reoccurring theme where I place “/end dukkha” at the end of some of my posts to empathize the meaning of action. I do this because it because the forward slash means to act, to not just wait and hope for the future, to end dukkha now, and to accept reality as is now in this very moment. I want to end this class with that prospective, that life is not about waiting, it’s not about really even acting, it’s just about being with what is. What is…is reality and we are all a part of it. With this understanding we can all be together with reality, understanding it and let it happen. With this prospective we can…

/end dukkha

I think this image really tells us about something about the idea of life and things. Putting things to good use is very important. I never really understood why people think its important to preserve their items through history, like wealth. I mean look at the Egyptians and how much they obsessed over bringing their things with them after they died. I think its important to help others with what you have and to be productive.

Here is my post:

Today in class we had a nice little discussion about Interdependent Co-Arising and how engaged Buddhism works with this.
When looking at ICA and knowing it to be true, you can see that every action, every reaction, every “good” and “bad” thing is caused by everyone. Everyone can be held accountable for every other persons actions. How crazy does that sound? Well its true.

I was thinking about war. Well being in the military it kind of comes with the territory, but doesn’t mean I agree with it. Ok so what causes this bad war stuff to happen? Greed of course! I want something, power, money, oil, resources… so I come take it. Are we not all responsible for that? If we are apart of a nation that goes to war, then are we not responsible for the people the war kills? Kinda makes ya guilty… but also makes you happy, because with all the bad there is plenty more good (at least I think so).

Think of all those people who are happy, who love life, and just gleam inside…I take pleasure in knowing I caused part of that.
ICA you are my friend. “

My dear Lee Adams,

I was checking up on your web log and i wanted to let you know that I found this particular log interesting. I decided to read a little more about it in today’s greatest depository of knowledge… wikipedia. I agree that we are connected to everything in the world and our mutual existence is what defines our existence. That is, our perception of existence is an indicator of our own existence. I think therefore i am. (that statement probably needs a little philosophical clarification, but it’ll do for now:) ). However, i disagree with the article i read. (Here is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prat%C4%ABtyasamutp%C4%81da ) I disagree particularly with the degree that it says we are connected or impacted by even the littlest thing. From how i interpreted the article it made it sound as if everything in existence had the same and equal impact on your life, or that the connections are of equal strength.

I can’t think of any real sound argument to defend this view i’ve taken except for experience. I would confidently argue that there have been and are people, events, and snowflakes that have made more of an impression on me than others. The article also stated “everything depends on everything else. A human being’s existence in any given moment is dependent on the condition of everything else in the world at that moment, but in an equally significant way, the condition of everything in the world in that moment depends conversely on the character and condition of that human being” This from my interpretation is an admission that existence may be mutually exclusive, that we can exist and be a source of existence, which i guess is not really a contradiction, but merely looking at the argument of IAC through someone elses eyes and observing how your existence has impacted them… i digress.

But my main point was the magnitude of the impact that something has on you. I do not believe it is universal.

anyways
The real reason your article drew my attention was your reference to war and all the associated images of Sylvester Stallone going to town on bodies. While I agree your description of the causes of war is, sadly, true more often then not i would caution you about some of your wordage and if i may i would like to “enlighten” you with my associations of the words you used.

Greed of course! What is greed? Greed is defined as an intense selfish desire to have something. You know my opinion on what it is to be selfish so i will tell you what i think it means to be greedy and in doing so justify the statement, you made, to myself.

Greed is more than being selfish. While selfishness is a concern for ones own self-interest, which is an amazing and important thing so long as it is rational self intrest. Greed over steps these bounds. Greed is not rational. Greed wants the unearned. It is irrational to think that obtaining something unearned, undeserved, and from that, presumably, illegitamatly, will satisfy this “emotional” whim, greed.

A rational man holds true to the right of self determination and therefore would not seek to deprive another man of his right to exist as he should. (eventually i will have to explain why that is the rational thing to believe… to you and myself)

I want something, power, money, oil, resources… so I come take it.

There are three kinds of people in this world:

The producers
The parasites
The looters

The parasite and the looter are very similar except in the role and percieved strength of the perpetrater. The parasite is passive and weak and pathetically relies on others to survive. The looter is aggressive and uses coercion to perpetuate his existence by forcibly taking the products of the producer. This is the kind of person or entity you describe as the perpetrator of “bad” war.

I will not allow myself to be held be associated with, or held accountable for that kind of existence.
… so don’t even try… im warning you…
Thanks for the chance to think.

I hope that wasn’t too painful to read

Aaron

Aaron-

Though I do agree with you that ICA is very hard to agree with at times, I mean who wants to think that we are all accountable for everything around us, even those bad things that happen to good people, I do think that it makes sense that at some degree this is true. In all instances ICA does come into play and in some degree either us, or those before us that are connected to us are responsible for what “good” and “bad” that is in the world. In this sense, all things are neither good or bad, they just happen and when the effects cause reactions, those reactions are interpreted by us at that moment to be positive or negative… damn polarities.

I don’t really like to put labels on people like some philosophers do. I don’t think people can be put into static grades of what they are. A person could be a producer at one time, and then a so called parasite in another. At one moment this person is a producer because he works at McDonald’s, providing a service for people (not a very sound one) and also making the parasite and maybe some looters some money. In the next moment the person leaves his job and does the same thing to his wife, his children, or who knows. I think that a person is neither good nor bad internally. To me, people are people, and its the experience of the moment in which causes the person to be a specific way. With anything that person may have done in the past, reciprocation may take place that are long lasting and destroy other peoples lives. That is why its important for individuals to make sound judgments, to really think before acting and make the most reliable action they can. Thinking before acting can do a lot in life.

All of this is very complicated and still I have a lot of questions about it. The whole polarities of good and bad and positive and negative really are hard to get past. We even have the polarities of sound and unsound, who’s to judge those to set them as the correct and non correct choices? In a long way about going about it, there really is no correct action, just the action we take but hopefully producing a outcome that helps peoples lives by ending dukkha.

In order to end dukkha we notice The Three Root Poisons:
Desire (greed)
Hatred
Ignorance

Greed in obtaining and holding onto things that are not fixed, as everything changes.

Hatred for things as things do not cause us to hate, but our perception of those things is what causes it.

Ignorance in the understanding of those things that cause us greed, hatred, or delude us of our existence.

A good site to read more about this on is: http://buddhismteacher.com/three_poisons.php

All in all I think that if we accepted people as they are, and people accepted others for the same reasons, it would end a lot of the suffering in the world. Our differences are what makes us unique and what causes us to be so creative and have different prospective on the nature of reality. Understanding how things are is a journey that each one of us must take and I am still on this journey. Thanks for your help.

I was thinking about war. Well being in the military it kind of comes with the territory, but doesn’t mean I agree with it. Ok so what causes this bad war stuff to happen? Greed of course! I want something, power, money, oil, resources… so I come take it. Are we not all responsible for that? If we are apart of a nation that goes to war, then are we not responsible for the people the war kills? Kinda makes ya guilty… but also makes you happy, because with all the bad there is plenty more good (at least I think so).

Think of all those people who are happy, who love life, and just gleam inside…I take pleasure in knowing I caused part of that.

ICA you are my friend.

I think that relationships with words are important in communicating with people. The polarities describe things we like, dislike and things like that. With these same words that we used to talk with others, to express our love for them, we also separate ourselves. We cause hate, greed, and war over polarities, wrongs and rights. It may be our dire need for relationships and the delusion that we are not all some how connected with one another that theses words are needed. What do we do with those words that can not be described, those feelings of internal love, the feelings of hearts exploding from passion? Maybe there is no polarity.

There must be a difference between thinking and thinking about nothing. I mean we are still alive and well when we are not thinking of stuff, but isn’t life just a little better when we just relax and open our minds to what is? I know mine is. I am then able to enjoy life, to just care for people how they are, not how I want them or what I want to get from them. I think thats my biggest teacher, the teacher that says worry to death, because you have something to fix and if you dont fix it, then it will fall apart! Oh GOD! Truth is, nothing will fall apart, the world keeps on going around and around, and maybe things wont be exactly how I want them, but isnt that better? Its like asking yourself, if I was god then what would happen? I don’t think the world would be as great as it is today if that were true.

Now, I dont think of myself as a horrible person in any sense, and I don’t think of myself as amazing either. I think of myself about average. I love myself for who I am, and I do care about others, but I also have a lot of traits that just support the whole dukkha that we are all trying to survive from. Sitting and meditating on this, I can see it and I know what I am doing that is causing at least some of it. Its the steps of learning to end those things which is hard. I struggle to just let things be and I so very much want to.

In the learning material for this week we had a nice quote that helps to understand what I mean. I read it and thought that it applied very well to this entry.

Our minds have the ability to be self-reflective What we seek is the unborn, unvanishing and unconfused nature. Not to overthrow convention, but rather to take them for granted. Zen is a way of liberation for those who have mastered the disciplines of social convention, of the conditioning of the individual by the group. Zen is a medicine for the ill effects of this conditioning, for the mental paralysis and anxiety which come from excessive self-consciousness.
Watts

How true that is. Over thinking things is like a paralyzing disease which stops anyone from enjoying what is in front of them. I hope to in the future to extend my knowledge of where this comes from, and end it as I would like to end dukkha.

Pride may come before the fall, but rarely does someone without pride reach heights from which they may fall. – Aaron Wilson

I think that he really does reach the understanding of the polarity of pride. There is pride in which we describe how we are, what we believe in, and those things we are glad to be apart of. This pride we have can help us and it can also destroy us depending on the situation. Its all about the moment. What makes pride helpful to the world or destructive? I think that its our intentions with what we use pride. Do we use our pride in arrogance to destroy others, or do we use it to boost those around us and to give life to those who seem to have no hope. I would not say that I am a prideful person, but I am proud of my friends and how they treat others, I am proud of my teachers who have helped me though life to be a better person, and I am proud of my life.

/end dukkha

Perception is every thing. So you are having a bad day, ok that sucks. But why? Most people don’t ask this question, and if they do they don’t ask it to truly understand it. We look out at what affects our lives and what seems to make it a bad day, but we forget a big part of the picture, well maybe all the picture… ourselves. It is through our senses, our perception and how we take the situation that either makes it the worst situation. Our minds are capable of so much fear and destruction. There is though a good said to this, when we have a good day we could say the same thing about the situation. We are capable of so much beauty and love. So what does this say for those who say that one person can change the world. How true that is, we can change the world as we see it, and sometimes help others to realize the beauty inside themselves. That is the goal of love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs72v-2zjsg

Recently I have been reading about what is considered by some to be the second brain. Though if we were thinking of a second brain we would probably guess of anyplace but our stomachs, but sure as hell, our stomachs contain many neurons as well as 75% of our serotonin on our bodies. Eat that depression!, get it… eat that? HA. Anyways truth be told our stomachs have been known to send (not receive) information to our brain and yes, somehow able to communicate.

I remember when my mother talked about indigenous tribes in Papua New Guinea and how when they were on missionary trips the people would accept Jesus into their stomachs. How on earth did they ever understand the concept that their stomachs had something to do with their emotional well being? Maybe there is more to this than just starvation (jungle areas do provide a lot of food), maybe we shouldn’t disregard all our extremities, and maybe our body is important? It brings a whole new aspect to being respectful to yourself, your body may have feelings too ya know…

Over all I think that maybe through thousands of years of studying and meditation through Hindu and Buddhist practices, maybe somehow they know a little bit more than the average westerner on knowing ones self (if there is a self). We should maybe take in account of this not to the extreme, but at least respect the idea.