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Why the Buddha was a winning loser
The Buddha was top dog (i.e.
the winner) at defining suffering (Pali: dukkha) and its causes and proposing
the means to its elimination, to wit: ‘One thing only do I teach, suffering
and the release from suffering.’ Suffering, as it is now understood, happens as
self-generated warning (Guide & Control) signal that instructs an
individual that she or he is experiencing a systems failure and is running
the risk of being eliminated. His solution, based on his understanding of the
emergence of suffering, was simple in principle. “Eliminate life (by stages,
then completely) and you eliminate suffering (which is caused by life).” Meditation as therapeutic coma Though his view was correct with regard to his
personally biased premisses, his solution was fundamentally irrelevant,
specifically for winners (at the game of life); winners being those striving,
quite naturally, for systems success. The Buddha, the winner at escaping from life, i.e. striving to get out, i.e. at ‘freedom from’, had
naught to say about the basic function of life, namely ‘getting in’, i.e. at ‘freedom
to’, by generating (and becoming) new alternate cognisable realities, i.e.
new life. In short, the Buddha was an expert (or ‘winner’) on
dealing with the decay (i.e. ‘losing’) side of life.
About the far more urgent and important question/urge of how to
generate/create new life he had nothing to say. His followers, somewhat like those of Jesus, and
there were armies of them, were composed of losers, of the bewildered, the
sick and the dying. And like Jesus, advice for winners and the means to
winning he certainly had not. Consequently, those who are experiencing
systems failure and its unpleasant signal, namely suffering, are well advised
to stay well clear of the Buddha, i.e. the life =
suffering prophet and his dharma-for-losers. Suffering is eliminated by
becoming a winner and experiencing the self-generated Guide & Control
signal of joy and its many delightful variations. |
