Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: It's summertime. The livin' ain't easy (video)

Monday, July 31, 2023

It's summertime. The livin' ain't easy (video)

Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Dhr. Seven, Jen Bradford, Wisdom Quarterly; Lana Del Rey ("Doin Time"); Leonardo DiCaprio (The Beach)

A young Leonardo DiCaprio goes to Buddhist Thailand in the movie The Beach, scenes shown to Lana Del Rey's version of Sublime's "Doin' Time"

B*tch, please! Life has NO meaning. Let's party.

It's summertime, and the livin' ain't easy. Life still has no meaning! What is my passion? How will I make profits to have enough money to think about these deep questions in Buddhist and formerly-Buddhist:

Thailand (South Siam),
Sri Lanka (Serendip),
Bali (Indonesia),
the Maldives (the country closest to becoming New Atlantis due to sea-level rise),
and on other beaches around the world?

That phony Christopher Howard came up with a great title, Turning Passions into Profits, but what is my passion? This monk wrote a better title and book called What the Buddha Taught.

According to that, I could figure this all out. I could set off on the Vimutti-magga, The Path to Freedom. I could get on the Visuddhi-magga, The Path of Purification, too.

We have to find a way to stop plastic debris ocean pollution: about.cleanomic.com/bags

Who cares what the Buddha said? He's not the Creator

I care. Here's why. Let's say we spend our whole life searching for the "meaning" of life.

Then, say, one day far in the future, science, religion, some genius, or the whole world comes to agree that the ANSWER to "life, the universe, and everything" is 42.

So what? What did it help? We'll say, "What the heck's that supposed to mean?" Then we'll go in search of the QUESTION. After a long time, we may find it, 10,000 generations from now. It was, "How many roads must a person travel?"

So what? What did it help? Nothing! The meaning of life wasn't the thing to be pursuing. That wasn't the problem, and it wasn't going to lead to the solution. All of our popular metaphysical/philosophical questions are dumb for the same reason.

The Buddha explained this beautifully in a powerful simile: Say a person gets shot by an arrow and seeks out a doctor. The doctor, seeing the arrow, goes to pull it out. But the person, being philosophical and a questioning sort says, "Wait a minute. Before I let you take it out, you have to answer some questions first."

"Really?" the doctor asks. "What are the questions?" "Well, for one thing, who shot me? Why did he shoot me? What did he shoot me with? What poison? What is this arrow made of? Yada, yada, yada."

"Let me take it out or, better yet, let me tell you how to take it out." "Hell, no, not until I get some answers."

"Well, even if I could answer, and I probably could, you would die long before you understood any of that stuff. Let's take it out, you live, and if you want, you pursue those fruitless things that won't even matter when you're better." "Hell, no! I need answers first." "Then it was nice knowing you," the doctor should say.

The Buddha is like the doctor in this simile. He provides the answer to the real problem. But we don't want to hear it. What's the problem? Suffering! Why do we suffer? Craving rooted in ignorance of how things really are. Is there a solution? Yes. What is it? The end of suffering (nirvana). How do we arrive at that direct realization? Broadly speaking, by the Ennobling Eightfold Path. "What's that?"

Now that's a good question. That question will lead us out of suffering. Then this whole thing will be like a dream (maya, an "illusion") when we awaken (bodhi), and the result will be blissful peace (nirvana). The Truth will set us free. So let's pursue the Truth and stop wasting time with questions like:

"What's the meaning of life? How did it all begin? Where did the ocean come from? Is the universe infinite or finite? What happens when we die? Will I be reborn? What was I in the past? What will I be in the future? Blah, blah, blah."