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1. Buddhists
emerge.
2. Because of
distress.
3. Buddhists
re-merge/end.
4. With the
ending of distress.
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A person becomes
a Buddhist if and when he or she decides to end his or her unpleasant
response to adversity.
It follows
that becoming a Buddhist is, in principle, temporary, a temporary refuge,
as the Sakya Buddha clearly explains in the ‘Sutta of the Raft.’ Buddhism
is a temporary REHAB operation. Some go into rehab and never emerge. For
those who don’t emerge Buddhism, specifically a Buddhist Centre, functions
as an asylum.
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1. The
buddhist program starts.
2. When
distress is signalled.
3. The buddhist
program ends.
4. When the distress
signal ends.
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The
Buddhist agenda is a sub-program (i.e. an emergency support programme) or
support algorithm. It activates to resolve the emotional response to
adversity experienced as various intensities of unpleasantness.
Essentially,
the Buddhist emotional-response-to-adversity-elimination program functions
as psychological or psychiatric intervention (or therapy).
The
Buddhist agenda is not designed to eliminate adversity. Since one person’s
ad’versity is another’s con’ or con’versity (i.e. boon).*
Legend has
it that the Sakya did not comment on the rise and fall of his
contemporaries, many of the top dogs (for instance, Bimbisara) coming to a
bloody end. The Sakya did not concern himself with the ‘horrible state of
the world’ but with the ending of one’s emotional response to the world.
* e.g. If, in a football
match, one side shoots a goal, one side experiences adversity, and responds
with various intensities of distress, i.e. unhappiness, agony, misery: with suffering. The other side
experiences con’versity and experiences the various intensities of
happiness, joy and so on.
The parable of the Raft
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