After sharing my contemplations about value with Neecha, she offered me another homework assignment she thought might help me push my thinking a bit further. She told me to go and think about the 8 worldly conditions, how do they work, and what do they mean for all of us suckers who have already been born in this world? Before we get to the HW, a little Buddhisty Background might help:

Lokka-Dtamm Pbat AKA the 8 Worldly Conditions

In the Lokavipatti Sutta, the Buddha outlines 4 pairs of conditions that are built into the fabric of this world, that are inescapable. The pairs are:

• gain/loss
• status/disgrace
• censure/praise
• pleasure/pain

As factors in the world are always changing, each of us, at some point in our lives, experience both sides of the pairs. We gain and then we lose, experience pain then pleasure. In fact, with careful examination, it becomes clear that these factors are also always changing, they are like tall/ short, defined in relativity to their partner.

Because these conditions come as an ever-changing pair, a wise person can see that having just the good side is impossible. There is no need to cling to the desirable and resist the undesirable they arise together, based on each other, in their due turn. And so…that wise one, “knowing the dustless, sorrowless state, he discerns rightly, has gone, beyond becoming, to the Further Shore”. Which, in the Buddhist world, is as close to happily ever after as any of us are going to get ;). Without further ado …

The Homework*

The Wrong View — Tony’s Pizza and the lie that the thing I want (at any given time) is absolute instead of relative (changing).

There was a pizza place I used to love called Tony’s. I went once and I thought it was the best pizza ever. I went back again and it sort of sucked, but I gave it a pass, I figured it was a one-off suck. So, my imagination had me return over and over thinking Tony’s was a thing I could have, I could claim, I could control and repeat. Each time I went searching for the perfect pizza, each time judging if the pizza was better or worse than last time, each time suffering disappointment because I had a goal, a reference point the new pizza didn’t live up to.

The problem was I took my first visit to be the perfect snapshot and imagined that was the true Tony’s  and then compared every other visit to it. My imagination (number 4) smoothed over the fact that my first visit was a composite of many factors (my hunger, my past pizza experiences, the ingredients, the table, the cook, my mood, etc); I didn’t understand that Tony’s was not a monolith, an unchanging experience that could be repeated, exactly at my whim,  so I kept putting in the effort of going and suffering the disappointment of pizza less excellent then the pizza I had before (and had come to expect).

The Concept — More food and the realization that sensation, value and meaning are relative; they come about in relationship/contrast.

Last week I was having a problem with my teeth (an endless source of enlightenment) and it caused food to taste different –sweet and metallic. I was eating this chicken meal I usually like and it tasted horrible.  All of a sudden it hit me-taste is not in the food. Taste arises based on conditions, those that effect me (like dental problems) and those that effect the chicken (like freshness). My sense of taste is not freestanding. I had misunderstood the Tony’s of my mind to be a real and permanent form rather then one subject to conditions.  

Last time I was at the hot springs I contemplated something similar —  water that felt hot when I got in got “cooler” as I was used to it or maybe it got “hotter” if I stayed in too long. But the water was basically the same numeric temperature across my visit.  Cool water felt freezing when I jumped in after the hot water and hot water that had been comfortable burnt when I jumped in after cold water.  

The 8 Worldly Conditions and The Suffering of the Situation—  

I began thinking about the 8 worldly conditions by considering wealth and poverty i.e. gain/loss (actually I tried poking at all of them and wealth and poverty was the clearest to me). I saw pretty quickly that wealth is not an absolute figure, it floats somewhere between 0 and infinity relative to my past experiences and to cultural norms.  Eric and I started out from school pretty broke and each year since have earned more and more. Each time we earn more we think, “we are rich”, then a little later when we make even more we think, “man back then we were poor”. Last year we saved a ton of money (lets call it $10k), this year we haven’t even come close (lets call it $5k) so now we are so stressed. In the past we would have celebrated $5K but because of the $10k, which we were so happy about last year, we suffer with the sense of decline this year.

Comparison is actually the source of suffering and of joy in our lives. It is why $5K is rich/ poor, chicken tastes yum/ “off”, and Tony’s Pizza is such a joy/disappointment. The 8 worldly conditions are part of the fabric of our world so comparison, and its suffering and joys are built-in (actually–I am starting to think that it is comparison that enables us to even experience the world. Without it, a thing is unnoticeable– when I was in Miami I was watching a rain storm and I realized I could only see the rain against the skyline, or on the ground. Without a comparison, all I could see was grey) .The big lie (thanks imagination, #4) is that we can keep improving and having only joy while avoiding pain. But this world is impermanent, things will arise, but then they will also cease — nothing stays peachy forever. Even more fundamentally however is there is no peachy without crappy. Tony’s could only be the best pizza because I had tried worse and it could only fall from grace because once it was the best. I remember how ecstatic I was when my kidney stone passed –I can barely describe he sense of relief, but if I hadn’t had extreme pain from the stone I wouldn’t have had relief. The joy, the yummy, the relief, the sorrow, the gross, the pain — its can’t even arise on is own, it is conditional.

In the act of enjoying something, like pizza, we sow the seeds of our suffering, of our later disappointment when the restaurant declines or the striving and work to repeat the experience. Tony’s at its best, my $10k, my jury summons avoidance*( blog story) they all have a shadow self. Its almost like built into each thing we like, there is already what we don’t like, but we’re not paying attention to that part while we are still filled with enjoyment.

My best example is when I get a potted plant I get the pretty green leaves and the dirt –its 50/50. Just because I only look at the leaves it doesn’t mean the dirt is not there. When the dirt spills on the floor suddenly I notice it, but it was a danger all along. It was the cost of bring the plant home.