Right View continued

I tackled Kamma (basically, you get what you give) and Sila (honesty, moral ethical conduct). 

Now I think it’s time I tackle what is called “The three marks” pay attention because all of the dhamma (truth about reality) flows out of this.

I’ll start by describing how we implicitly think (it’s our own little caste system of great people):

-We are born in a great country, free of war and intense poverty, because we deserve it and are great people.

-We grow up with sane, loving parents, in a wealthy area, free of disease because we deserve it and are great people.

-Throughout childhood we worked hard to stay skinny and have a high IQ, we do good in school and look good because we deserve it and are great people.

-We date and marry an attractive partner, free of defects because we deserve it and are great people.

-We get a great, high paying career because we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps, are smart, worked hard and are great people.

-There is a permanence to our greatness and it is ultimately satisfactory.

-Unfortunate people are defective and deserve less.

This is how we implicitly measure people and I’m not exaggerating. 

Doesn’t something seem off about it? 

Where does the homeless man who manages to be completely honest fall into this scheme?

The physically unattractive woman in a wheelchair who overcomes depression and hopelessness?

Right View cuts through this illusion.

The reality of the situation is that non of us need any of the “great” things to be happy. This is the core of Right View: we are the result of a complex web of causes and conditions, non of our own doing and are free of a center that is permanent, independent and free of prior causes and conditions, and we are basically dissatisfaction itself. This is “suññatā” Pali for “emptiness” and is the core insight of Theravada Buddhism.

Let’s take each of these one by one: 

-A center: Where is this center? Is it our name? Our thoughts? Our biography? Our spleen? Our liver? Does it reside three inches behind our eyes? Is it awareness? What’s aware of awareness? All of these together? Where do “I” end and the world begin? Where is the clear demarcation?

No matter where you look or think about it there is no “self,” or center that is satisfyingly convincing to warrant what we normally consider “I”.

Whenever you look for this “I” you realize it is the product of dependent on causes and conditions apart from it: place of birth, biology, capacity- intelligence, capacity to work, upbringing or all the things we implicitly think are “free will” are dependent on contingencies outside of our control!

Or as Wittgenstein wrote “I is a shadow cast by grammar.”

-Permanence: one reason why it’s so hard to pin down an “I” is because everything is flowing and impermanent. Nothing sticks around long enough. If there is an “I” it’s more of a process than a thing. Yet we endow it with labels and thing-ness.

-Satisfaction: because we are made up of what is dependent and impermanent, there is ultimately dissatisfaction in everything. Birth ultimately ends in disease and/or old age and death. But even the day to day things we do are ultimately unsatisfactory, if only because they end. If you were to be truly satisfied as a average worldly hedonist you’d need to arrange reality to your liking, you would basically have to be a god.

(This ends post two on Right View, it’s implications to come, to be continued...)