The Sick Bear
I have rejected this thought every time it has crossed my mind but what if Ukraine had let the sick bear in?
My last post featured the Buddha’s first sermon from a book by Stephen Batchelor. The theme haunts me. It is the age old question of “to be or not to be”? To save you the trouble of looking up the Buddha’s first sermon in my last post I will repeat it here. It is worth repeating many times anyway:
At the conclusion of the Buddha’s first sermon on The Four Noble Truths the “dharma eye” of one the five ascetics, Kondanna, is said to have opened, which led him to utter the phrase “whatever is subject to arising is subject to ceasing.”
The Fourfold Task
1. Suffering (dukkha) is to be comprehended. “Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, sickness is dukkha, death is dukkha, encountering what is not dear is dukka, separation from what is dear is dukkha, and not getting what one wants is dukkha.” By contrast not paying heed to these dimensions of life, we become enamored, seduced, and captivated by what is agreeable, which leads to cycles of reactive and addictive behavior that keep us trapped, frustrated, and afflicted. Comprehension by contrast, encompasses the totality of what has happened and what is happening: it is to embrace a life permeated by both pain and pleasure, suffering and joy.
2. The arising is to be let go of. We are creatures who react as we come into contact with the world through our senses. If what we meet is pleasant, we react with attraction; if it is unpleasant, we react with aversion; and if it is neither pleasant nor unpleasant, we react with restlessness or boredom. To these reactions we could add guilt, self-doubt, vanity, inadequacy, anxiety, conceit, paranoia, expectation, wishful thinking, and so on. Such reactions are entirely natural. They are neither good nor bad. Strictly speaking, they are not even personally ours. They are simply what happens when an organism interacts with its environment. They are what arises.
3. The ceasing is to be beheld. This facet of the fourfold task is to “behold the ceasing”, which is equivalent to becoming aware of nirvana. Here is the classical definition of nirvana. “This is the ceasing: the traceless fading away and ceasing of reactivity, the letting go and abandoning of it, freedom, and independence from it. It is immediate, clearly visible, inviting, uplifting and personally sensed by the wise.” One can become aware of nirvana whenever greed, hatred, and confusion are momentarily inactive, irrespective of whether one self-identifies as a Buddhist or practices meditation. To behold and thus become aware of nirvana means consciously to affirm and valorize these moments when you see for yourself that you are free to think, speak, and act in ways that are not determined by reactivity. Nirvana is a space of moral possibility, the gateway to an active and ethical life.
4. The path is to be cultivated “and this is the path: the path with eight branches: wise view, wise thought, wise speech, wise action, wise livelihood, wise effort, wise mindfulness, and wise concentration.” The goal of the fourfold task is to lead an integrated life. It is perhaps for this reason that cultivating the eightfold path is presented as the fourth facet of this task, even though it is already implicit in the other three. Logically, an integrated life is the outcome of having embraced the imperfect world, let go of reactivity, and beheld reactivity’s ceasing. From this still and empty space, one then responds with intuitions, thought, intentions, words, and acts that are not determined by reactivity. In practice, though, the moment in which reactivity ceases is also the moment that allows a wise view (the first branch of the path) to emerge.
The above is from Stephen Batchelor’s book After Buddhism, Yale University Press. Quotes from the Buddha’s teachings are in quotation marks.
As difficult a concept as non-reaction that this sermon raises it continues to resonate with me regarding Ukraine. What if they had let the sick bear in? “Whatever is subject arising is subject to ceasing”. How bad would it have been compared to the worldwide suffering that has occurred with no end in sight. There is no way I can answer this question because now it is irrelevant, the war has happened, it is happening. Perhaps though it is good to think about the question and learn from it.
My wife and I have been married for almost 40 years, we have three daughters, and we are a fully committed couple. We have been through a rough patch this year and I am mortified to say that I have reacted badly and lost my cool more than once. Actually we both lost our cool. As embarrassing as these episodes have been I sense that a certain clarity has come from them for both of us. A modicum of suffering yes but no bloodshed, no destruction and thus obviously not comparable to Ukraine.
Reaction then depends on the circumstances.