Very nicely written - yet, I’m not sure modern philosophy - most of it - is really up to the task of understanding what the Buddha meant by “dukkha.” Often translated as “suffering,” in our therapeutic culture this tends to evoke a sense of some kind of emotional problem for which psychotherapy, or more likely, anti-depressant medication, is the solution.
Or perhaps, as the author wrote, a life of challenge and constant self surmounting.
But I think perhaps for modern readers, the Matrix - as superficial as it may have been in many respects - may provide a clue.
Do you remember how Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne) was trying to convey to Neo (Keanu Reeves) the strange, unsettling nature of his current experience? The sense that, no matter how pleasant, how fulfilled (through say, challenge and self surmounting activities) there was an UNDERLYING sense that something wasn’t quite right?
Now switch to “What Dreams May Come” - Robin Williams’ character has to descend into the dream world to bring his wife back - AND the challenge is not to get lost in the dream but to remain connected to waking.
Both of these conditions are very familiar to oneironauts - people who explore lucid dreams…. Dreams in which you know you’re dreaming.
When you begin this adventure, more often than not, you’re in the dream, and you suddenly have a sense ‘something” is off. What is it that is off?
Here is where modern attempts to understand Buddhism go wrong. Here’s the key - get ready for it:
IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE CONTENT OF EXPERIENCE
I’ve met and read Buddhist teachers - I won’t mention any, some are among the most famous today- who interpret the Noble Truths in terms of the content of experience. “It’s about suffering,” No it’s about dissatisfaction,” etc etc
It’s not about any of that. It’s the very subtle sense, underlying ALL experience, that this world is not what it appears to be, nor is this personality we label Lewis or Alan or Don or Jennifer what it appears to be.
Alan, I know you are a jazz musician. There are times when players can feel something is off in the group dynamics, but can’t figure it out. That might very roughly relate to this, but it’s still about the content, the “vibe.”
It’s what Vedantins refer to as “maya” - which doesn’t mean the world doesn’t exist or it’s ONLY an illusion, but rather, the way we take the world and ourselves to exist is fundamentally mistaken.
THAT is dukkha, or rather, dukkha is the phenomenological “feel” of what it’s like to live in Maya. So Maya or Avidya (Ignorance of Reality) is a description of the nature of things; Dukkha is more the “feel” of what it’s like to live in Maya, Ignorance.
Now we see this is utterly and radically different from almost all interpretations of Buddhism we’ve heard in the past century. We’re approaching a scientific inflection point where we may now begin to have modern tools to help us understand this better. When Anil Seth and Donald Hoffman and Bernardo Kastrup tell us our world is a hallucination, a computer interface, is only the “dashboard” of an infinitely greater Conscious Reality, they are getting close to what the Buddha meant than this idea that he was talking about some surface, psychological state.
In more religious terms, it’s what Paul hinted at when he spoke of all creation creating yearning for the return of Christ, or when Allah, as the Sufis love to say, spoke of himself as a “hidden treasure, yearning to be found.”
It’s the sense that there is a hidden treasure - one of infinite worth, far beyond any CONTENT OF EXPEIRENCE _ that is what dukkha is pointing to.
Hi folks - I see today and previously, my comments get read but I would LOVE to hear from folks.
This idea - that ALL of us, not just "mystics" and "yogis" (or characters in "The Matrix"!!!) have this underlying sense that there's "something more" (I'm dating myself, but anybody remember Peggy Lee singing "Is this all there is?") - this idea is so powerful to me. it's something not, I think, unique to Buddhism but in some way at the root of all problems in the world (seriously, I'm including Gaza, Ukraine, climate change, etc, all of it)
I'd love to hear from you if you agree or disagree, or even better, if you could share your own experience of this kind of strange, unsettling sense that there's something profound you're feeling you're missing - in in the midst of the most perfect day.
Hi Don, thanks so much for your comments! Really interesting to hear your thoughts about this sense that there's something 'off' about the world we inhabit. I definitely suspect that throughout history a good number of people have shared that view. Gnosticism, for instance, is arguably built on that very feeling.
I imagine, however, that a greater number of people have a sense not that the world is 'off', but simply that this isn't all there is. That is to say, they don't necessarily feel negative toward the world they inhabit, but simply suspect there's something 'more'. I imagine a lot of readers of FYH share that view - although the devil of course is in the detail: what exactly is the 'more' that some people intuitively feel there is?
Ah, I was hoping my badgering would be helpful rather than put people off.
Now, my wife tells me hypotheticals rarely work online but let’s try one - I think it would be a lot easier.
Also, this particular one - my favorite, from Tibetan Buddhist dream yoga - doesn’t work a lot because most people haven’t had the experience of being in a lucid dream that’s totally realistic. But let’s try. It’s fun if you get it.
There’s a phenomenon that’s been labeled “false awakening.” Here’s how it goes (Bertrand Russell allegedly had one more than 50 times in a row - it’s happened to me frequently about 3 to 5 times in a row)
1. You wake up, turn off your alarm, get out of bed, plant your feed solidly on the floor. Perhaps you go to the bathroom, wash your face, brush your teeth, and then go to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee (or whatever, meditate first, etc).
And as you go to pick up your coffee you think, ‘Wait, I’d like to have tea this morning.” And the coffee instantly turns into a cup of tea and you realize you’re dreaming. And you wake up again in your bed.
2. You get up, go to bathroom, go to kitchen, etc. You are assuming you’re awake. And you notice, across the table from you, there’s a monkey with a tea shirt on which says, “Hey dummy, you’re still dreaming.” And you wake up in bed.
3. Now you’re a bit cautious. You think, “Wait, I thought I was awake before, but i was really still asleep, dreaming.” So you do a bunch of “reality checks’ (that’s what they’re called in lucid dream literature). You jump up, and you land on the floor (in a dream you’ll often float if you try this). You pinch your arm - it hurts. You grab a book on the night stand. EVERYONE agrees in dream literature that you can’t read more than a few lines in a dream. You read a page. It’s been a few minutes, and as far as you recall, dreams are NEVER so clear in terms of reading, memory, time, etc. You even walk to the kitchen, noting all the landmarks on the way, and you sit down for your coffee, no monkey, no tea, ok, “I’m awake!!”” And suddenly Don Salmon walks in (who Lewish has never met) and says, “Oh my goodness, Lewis, maybe there IS more to dukkha than I thought. YOU’RE DREAMING!!!” And you wake up back in bed.
4. This is where Dukkha comes in. So you’re in bed. The reason this is different from all the previous false awakenings is, you’ve done EVERY test you can think of and you can’t think of anything else. You realize, “There is NO way at this moment I can tell if I’m awake or dreaming.” I wrote this in David Bentley Hart’s substack - and he’s quite amenable to Tibetan Buddhist and Vedantic yoga, though being an Orthodox Christian theologian - and he simply said, “At some point you’ll be in a state of much greater clarity and you’ll know you’re awake.” But he’s wrong (and has no experience of lucid dreaming). In fact, in some lucid dreams, the clarity is almost infinitely greater than in most people’s waking state. SO that’s not a factor.
This is where you get the weirdest, uncanny feeling, you don’t know what state you’re in, and by the way, even after you DO re enter the waking state, it may be 4 or 5 minutes before you’re fully convinced you’re awake.
The thing is, virtually everyone who has spiritually awakened reports that looking back on their unawakened lives, they realize they were ALWAYS aware of something almost exactly like false awakening; they realized they THOUGHT they were living in a physical universe, in which consciousness was a speck.
But what happened when they awoke was what the Lankavatara Sutra refers to as “a turning about in the deepest seat of the being” in which they viscerally KNOW they are living in a conscious, radiant universe which is literally MADE of consciousness, Being, and Bliss (Sat Chit Ananda)
So the hypothetical is - imagine you think you’re awake but are really dreaming, and you have a sense something is amiss.
Now that an increasing number of scientists are actually declaring (like Bernardo Kastrup, Neil Theise, Donald Hoffman, Nobel Prize winner Anton Zeilinger, Michel Bitbol and many others) that in fact we DO live in a world created by and permeated by Consciousness (or Chit Shakti - Intelligent, Conscious Energy), it’s possible to add one more hypothetical - assume these scientists are correct. And assume the Buddha was correct. If so, then EVERY desire, every sense of discontentment, every instant you sit in a chair doing nothing and feel even remotely bored, there is something in you telling you there is something fundamentally off about the way you perceive the world and yourself - that it is possible to turn around in the depths of the heart and SEE G*d in and as everything!
Sorry, I know it would be much better if I wrote briefly. I’ll try harder next time (Like Mark Twain apologized after writing a long letter: “I’m sorry, if I had more time, I’d write a much shorter letter”)
Aha, the author clicked like. So I’m going to be a bit mischievous and ask again for comments. Especially disagreements (I love arguments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evPZ-0UhL1E - is it politically correct to note that even as a non religious Jew, I have found over the years that my fellow/sister ethnic Jewish friends are among those who love arguing the most - there, have I inspired anyone to argue?)
(And maybe I should add - this is the first time on Adam’s substack I’ve actually come out and ASKED for comments….anyone……anyone…..Ferris?)
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! World without end! One HUGE cause of suffering is limiting ourselves to what I term "binary thinking." Most things are NOT either–or but rather partake of each other. Like that yin–yang symbol. It may seem paradoxical but THAT is the nature of reality. THANK YOU!
Very nicely written - yet, I’m not sure modern philosophy - most of it - is really up to the task of understanding what the Buddha meant by “dukkha.” Often translated as “suffering,” in our therapeutic culture this tends to evoke a sense of some kind of emotional problem for which psychotherapy, or more likely, anti-depressant medication, is the solution.
Or perhaps, as the author wrote, a life of challenge and constant self surmounting.
But I think perhaps for modern readers, the Matrix - as superficial as it may have been in many respects - may provide a clue.
Do you remember how Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne) was trying to convey to Neo (Keanu Reeves) the strange, unsettling nature of his current experience? The sense that, no matter how pleasant, how fulfilled (through say, challenge and self surmounting activities) there was an UNDERLYING sense that something wasn’t quite right?
Now switch to “What Dreams May Come” - Robin Williams’ character has to descend into the dream world to bring his wife back - AND the challenge is not to get lost in the dream but to remain connected to waking.
Both of these conditions are very familiar to oneironauts - people who explore lucid dreams…. Dreams in which you know you’re dreaming.
When you begin this adventure, more often than not, you’re in the dream, and you suddenly have a sense ‘something” is off. What is it that is off?
Here is where modern attempts to understand Buddhism go wrong. Here’s the key - get ready for it:
IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE CONTENT OF EXPERIENCE
I’ve met and read Buddhist teachers - I won’t mention any, some are among the most famous today- who interpret the Noble Truths in terms of the content of experience. “It’s about suffering,” No it’s about dissatisfaction,” etc etc
It’s not about any of that. It’s the very subtle sense, underlying ALL experience, that this world is not what it appears to be, nor is this personality we label Lewis or Alan or Don or Jennifer what it appears to be.
Alan, I know you are a jazz musician. There are times when players can feel something is off in the group dynamics, but can’t figure it out. That might very roughly relate to this, but it’s still about the content, the “vibe.”
It’s what Vedantins refer to as “maya” - which doesn’t mean the world doesn’t exist or it’s ONLY an illusion, but rather, the way we take the world and ourselves to exist is fundamentally mistaken.
THAT is dukkha, or rather, dukkha is the phenomenological “feel” of what it’s like to live in Maya. So Maya or Avidya (Ignorance of Reality) is a description of the nature of things; Dukkha is more the “feel” of what it’s like to live in Maya, Ignorance.
Now we see this is utterly and radically different from almost all interpretations of Buddhism we’ve heard in the past century. We’re approaching a scientific inflection point where we may now begin to have modern tools to help us understand this better. When Anil Seth and Donald Hoffman and Bernardo Kastrup tell us our world is a hallucination, a computer interface, is only the “dashboard” of an infinitely greater Conscious Reality, they are getting close to what the Buddha meant than this idea that he was talking about some surface, psychological state.
In more religious terms, it’s what Paul hinted at when he spoke of all creation creating yearning for the return of Christ, or when Allah, as the Sufis love to say, spoke of himself as a “hidden treasure, yearning to be found.”
It’s the sense that there is a hidden treasure - one of infinite worth, far beyond any CONTENT OF EXPEIRENCE _ that is what dukkha is pointing to.
Hi folks - I see today and previously, my comments get read but I would LOVE to hear from folks.
This idea - that ALL of us, not just "mystics" and "yogis" (or characters in "The Matrix"!!!) have this underlying sense that there's "something more" (I'm dating myself, but anybody remember Peggy Lee singing "Is this all there is?") - this idea is so powerful to me. it's something not, I think, unique to Buddhism but in some way at the root of all problems in the world (seriously, I'm including Gaza, Ukraine, climate change, etc, all of it)
I'd love to hear from you if you agree or disagree, or even better, if you could share your own experience of this kind of strange, unsettling sense that there's something profound you're feeling you're missing - in in the midst of the most perfect day.
Anybody?
Hi Don, thanks so much for your comments! Really interesting to hear your thoughts about this sense that there's something 'off' about the world we inhabit. I definitely suspect that throughout history a good number of people have shared that view. Gnosticism, for instance, is arguably built on that very feeling.
I imagine, however, that a greater number of people have a sense not that the world is 'off', but simply that this isn't all there is. That is to say, they don't necessarily feel negative toward the world they inhabit, but simply suspect there's something 'more'. I imagine a lot of readers of FYH share that view - although the devil of course is in the detail: what exactly is the 'more' that some people intuitively feel there is?
Interesting stuff to chew over!
Ah, I was hoping my badgering would be helpful rather than put people off.
Now, my wife tells me hypotheticals rarely work online but let’s try one - I think it would be a lot easier.
Also, this particular one - my favorite, from Tibetan Buddhist dream yoga - doesn’t work a lot because most people haven’t had the experience of being in a lucid dream that’s totally realistic. But let’s try. It’s fun if you get it.
There’s a phenomenon that’s been labeled “false awakening.” Here’s how it goes (Bertrand Russell allegedly had one more than 50 times in a row - it’s happened to me frequently about 3 to 5 times in a row)
1. You wake up, turn off your alarm, get out of bed, plant your feed solidly on the floor. Perhaps you go to the bathroom, wash your face, brush your teeth, and then go to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee (or whatever, meditate first, etc).
And as you go to pick up your coffee you think, ‘Wait, I’d like to have tea this morning.” And the coffee instantly turns into a cup of tea and you realize you’re dreaming. And you wake up again in your bed.
2. You get up, go to bathroom, go to kitchen, etc. You are assuming you’re awake. And you notice, across the table from you, there’s a monkey with a tea shirt on which says, “Hey dummy, you’re still dreaming.” And you wake up in bed.
3. Now you’re a bit cautious. You think, “Wait, I thought I was awake before, but i was really still asleep, dreaming.” So you do a bunch of “reality checks’ (that’s what they’re called in lucid dream literature). You jump up, and you land on the floor (in a dream you’ll often float if you try this). You pinch your arm - it hurts. You grab a book on the night stand. EVERYONE agrees in dream literature that you can’t read more than a few lines in a dream. You read a page. It’s been a few minutes, and as far as you recall, dreams are NEVER so clear in terms of reading, memory, time, etc. You even walk to the kitchen, noting all the landmarks on the way, and you sit down for your coffee, no monkey, no tea, ok, “I’m awake!!”” And suddenly Don Salmon walks in (who Lewish has never met) and says, “Oh my goodness, Lewis, maybe there IS more to dukkha than I thought. YOU’RE DREAMING!!!” And you wake up back in bed.
4. This is where Dukkha comes in. So you’re in bed. The reason this is different from all the previous false awakenings is, you’ve done EVERY test you can think of and you can’t think of anything else. You realize, “There is NO way at this moment I can tell if I’m awake or dreaming.” I wrote this in David Bentley Hart’s substack - and he’s quite amenable to Tibetan Buddhist and Vedantic yoga, though being an Orthodox Christian theologian - and he simply said, “At some point you’ll be in a state of much greater clarity and you’ll know you’re awake.” But he’s wrong (and has no experience of lucid dreaming). In fact, in some lucid dreams, the clarity is almost infinitely greater than in most people’s waking state. SO that’s not a factor.
This is where you get the weirdest, uncanny feeling, you don’t know what state you’re in, and by the way, even after you DO re enter the waking state, it may be 4 or 5 minutes before you’re fully convinced you’re awake.
The thing is, virtually everyone who has spiritually awakened reports that looking back on their unawakened lives, they realize they were ALWAYS aware of something almost exactly like false awakening; they realized they THOUGHT they were living in a physical universe, in which consciousness was a speck.
But what happened when they awoke was what the Lankavatara Sutra refers to as “a turning about in the deepest seat of the being” in which they viscerally KNOW they are living in a conscious, radiant universe which is literally MADE of consciousness, Being, and Bliss (Sat Chit Ananda)
So the hypothetical is - imagine you think you’re awake but are really dreaming, and you have a sense something is amiss.
Now that an increasing number of scientists are actually declaring (like Bernardo Kastrup, Neil Theise, Donald Hoffman, Nobel Prize winner Anton Zeilinger, Michel Bitbol and many others) that in fact we DO live in a world created by and permeated by Consciousness (or Chit Shakti - Intelligent, Conscious Energy), it’s possible to add one more hypothetical - assume these scientists are correct. And assume the Buddha was correct. If so, then EVERY desire, every sense of discontentment, every instant you sit in a chair doing nothing and feel even remotely bored, there is something in you telling you there is something fundamentally off about the way you perceive the world and yourself - that it is possible to turn around in the depths of the heart and SEE G*d in and as everything!
Sorry, I know it would be much better if I wrote briefly. I’ll try harder next time (Like Mark Twain apologized after writing a long letter: “I’m sorry, if I had more time, I’d write a much shorter letter”)
Aha, the author clicked like. So I’m going to be a bit mischievous and ask again for comments. Especially disagreements (I love arguments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evPZ-0UhL1E - is it politically correct to note that even as a non religious Jew, I have found over the years that my fellow/sister ethnic Jewish friends are among those who love arguing the most - there, have I inspired anyone to argue?)
(And maybe I should add - this is the first time on Adam’s substack I’ve actually come out and ASKED for comments….anyone……anyone…..Ferris?)
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! World without end! One HUGE cause of suffering is limiting ourselves to what I term "binary thinking." Most things are NOT either–or but rather partake of each other. Like that yin–yang symbol. It may seem paradoxical but THAT is the nature of reality. THANK YOU!
Thanks you Billie, glad you enjoyed it!