Buddhism - Vermillion

In Buddhism, the human condition is to suffer.  Our desires and attachments keep us grounded in a continuous cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth.  Buddhism teaches us that these things we crave are actually empty of the great importance we place on them.  The cartoon we watched in class illustrates this idea well.  The child goes to kindergarten, then grade school, then high school, then college, then graduate school, then enters the workforce, then climbs the corporate ladder, and finally reaches The Goal.  Except the goal is an arbitrary thing that doesn’t actually bring meaningful change to your life.  All of this labor, all of this craving has been toward something that in the end doesn’t actually matter.  This is how Buddhists see the human condition: the things we believe we desire so badly don’t make us happy.

The Buddhist solution to this condition is to realize the true nature of the world, yourself, and your cravings that can’t be fulfilled.  This allows you to reach nirvana, or the end of all suffering.  Essentially, the true nature that Buddhism espouses is that reality is what it is, and all of the turmoil we perceive is of our own creation.  Even death is of no consequence.  If you have succeeded in shedding your earthly cravings and have reached enlightenment; you reach nirvana and cease to be.  If you haven’t, then you’ll be born again and keep existing, and therefore suffering, until you get it right.  There is no great mystery or puzzle to life; the goal is to accept the world and your own existence for what it is and nothing more.

To reach this solution, Buddhism teaches people to master themselves through the eight-fold path.  You must have the right views, the right intent, the right speech, the right conduct, the right livelihood, the right effort, the right mindfulness, and the right concentration.  Every part of the eight-fold path is designed to help us suffering humans let go of the cravings that make us miserable.  Not only must we want to be free, but we must live a life that allows us to be free.

I’m on the fence when it comes to Buddhism.  There are parts of if that speak to me, but overall it doesn’t quite gel with my personal logic.  The biggest hurdle I face with every religion I study is that deep down in my heart of hearts, I don’t believe in an afterlife.  I’m quite convinced that my death will be the end of me, my consciousness, my soul, or what-have-you.  Reincarnation is a tough idea for me to swallow.  The idea of nirvana is only slightly easier to accept. Despite my reservations about the ideas of Buddhist death, there are things about the Buddhist life that I truly admire.  My favorite idea is that of the Zen Buddhists being like daruma dolls: the weeble and wobble but don’t fall down.  I crave the ability to react and return to a state of calm without being overwhelmed.