| Five Precepts 1. Don't willfully take life. What we cannot create, we ought not destroy. 2. Pay attention to what you say. Hurtful words, untrue words, words that set the world on fire: we would be better off saying nothing than saying such things. 3. Sex is a wonderful thing, so treat it with respect. Respect not only the act, but those with whom you have it. 4. Don't take what isn't yours. In fact, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is a pretty good summary of ethics. 5. Pay attention to what you put into your body. Some substances, some attitudes, can send us ages out of our way. Know when to say, "Thanks, but no thanks," even to yourself. (with thanks to Siddhartha Gautama) ©2008, John G Cunyus, All Rights Reserved www.JohnCunyus.com |
| Words, Images, and Layout ©2008, John G. Cunyus All Rights Reserved John Cunyus is freelance writer working in North Texas. His work may be viewed online at www.johncunyus.com |
| Three Marks of Existence: Dissatisfaction, Impermanence, Lack of Self According to Buddhist thought, existence has three marks: impermanence, dissatisfaction, and egolessness. This isn't a teaching that sits well with modern hearers. Many of us react by condemning Buddha as negative. Life should focus on positive truths, we believe. Yet the teaching is what it is. Why do we react the way we do? Deep down, in what we imagine to be our "heart of hearts," we wish it weren't true. Many of us would rather pretend life was something different. We partake in the cult of optimism, hoping against hope that someday, somehow, things will be better. However often those hopes are dashed, we would rather keep on believing than come to terms with an unpleasant reality. At least we think of it as unpleasant. Yet from a brutally honest perspective, Buddha's teaching is right on the nose. Life is impermanent. The only constant is change. Our jobs, our relationships, our circumstances, our bodies themselves, all are in perpetual change. Things in the natural world that seem permanent aren't really. The earth lasts longer than we do, yet even its forms pass a way over time. There is nothing in life we can hold on to, a fact that seems bleak and hopeless on the surface. Dissatisfaction is also a way of life. We are seldom content with things, at least not for long. When we do arrive at a place of contentment, we find it slipping out of our grasp before we even have an opportunity to enjoy it. No matter how much we buy, have, or make, there is always a gnawing unease beneath it. This unease makes the world go around in a sense. Only dissatisfied people keep pushing on to find a better way. Even so, the reality is inescapable. Egolessness, the Buddhist idea that there is no self, strikes us as the least likely conclusion of the three. After all, most of us have a strong sense of self. We know who we are. We live in a culture that celebrates, even worships, individuality. How can someone say there is no self, no ego? Buddha tells us that the ego is just an idea. In fact, it is a collection of ideas, memories, emotions, sounds, and sights, all clustered around our physical existence. When we dissect any one of those ideas, memories, and emotions, though, we find the thread unraveling. Am I the 45 year old man now alive or the 17 year old youth of memory? Is "John," my name, anything more than a particular sound associated with particular memories? One ancient meditation technique strikes at the heart of this sense of ego, so much so that it often comes with a warning label from meditation teachers: Don't try this exercise unless you are prepared for where it might lead. The exercise is simple. Ask yourself the question, "Who am I?" Then, negate every answer. I might answer, "I am John Cunyus." In response, my mind would point out that "John Cunyus" is just a sound. Well then, am I this physical person? This so-called physical person is an ongoing biological event that will one day end. Am I the thought-process behind it? Well, that thought-process too will end. And onward it goes. Buddha insists there is nothing in reality corresponding to our notion of self. The notion of self is itself impermanent. This impermanence is the source of much of our dissatisfaction. What possible benefit comes from reflecting on these three, unpleasant-seeming marks of existence? If we are content with life, then perhaps none. If we're not, though, then the three marks start us toward a deeper understanding. At some point, mental health comes from being able to see life as it is, without fooling ourselves. Genuine life is found when we know our actual condition, not when we convince ourselves things aren't as they seem. We don't grow in life by running away from our situation as it is, but by changing our relationship with our real situation. How does this happen? In Buddhism, it starts by understanding the role desire plays in the suffering that so often fills our days. We desire a world that doesn't change, at least when we are content. The fact that we don't live in such a world causes us to suffer. We desire a life that isn't full of dissatisfaction, at least on a material level. The fact that life isn't that way causes us to suffer. We desire a state where our sense of self is permanent, assured, unchanging. The fact that this never happens causes us to suffer. Is it easier to change the outer reality of life or to gain control of the desire to have what we cannot have? Making life permanent, removing its dissatisfaction, even establishing an immovable sense of self, these things are beyond our ability. Yet if we understand this, clearly, we can change our attitude toward it. Buddha challenges us to come to terms with our own desires. Wanting life to be something other than impermanent won't make it so. How will we relate to the impermanence around us? It's easy to misunderstand the Buddhist answer to that question. For instance, I love my children more than life itself and want only blessing for them. Reality, however, is that they will suffer in life, regardless of my desire. Someday I will either lose them or they will lose me. Would I be better off not having children, then, since I know that pain is unavoidable? No, I wouldn't. I have to learn, though, how to love without blinders. I have to learn to love them as they are, not as I wish they were. I have to learn to love without being attached to outcomes I can't control. Is it enough for me to love them fully in the present moment, doing the best I know how to do with and for them, fully understanding that sometimes things will go well and sometimes they won't? Can I love and then leave the outcome alone, since I can't control it? Or must I worry obsessively about matters beyond my control, even after having done my best? In this sense, the answer seems obvious. Wisdom points us back to this present moment as the only possible time to love our families, do meaningful work, and build meaningful relationships. And accepting life as it is, not as we wish it would be, makes building meaningful lives in the present moment more of a possibility, not less. Life is impermanent. As we commonly live it, it is dissatisfying. Nothing in life corresponds to our customary idea of self. Coming to terms with this certainly undercuts one of society's primary ways of understanding. Yet it also frees us to love without illusions, to work without getting hung up on outcomes, to be fully and freely alive in the here and now. Is it a brutal truth? Only experience can say. (with thanks to Siddhartha Gautama) ©2008, John G Cunyus, All Rights Reserved www.JohnCunyus.com |
