Weltanschaung

The Philosopher’s Stone

zenothestoic@protonmail.ch

Tag: Suffering

  • Under the Bodhi Tree

    Under the Bodhi Tree

    He considered St John of the Cross lucky – a dark night is one thing, but many years of purgatory quite another. And so, ignoring for a while the faith into which he was born, he determined to put to the test the simple teachings of an ascetic monk born in Nepal over two millennia ago.

    What was he seeking, this modern man, this follower of an ancient and revered path? He sought freedom from suffering. It was that simple. And stripped to the core that is what Buddhism claimed to offer. Quite possibly he also sought a vanishing, a snuffing out. Nirvana itself.

    If asked whether he sought enlightenment, he would be puzzled and somewhat reticent in his answer. An ascent to a state of bliss was one thing. But to become enlightened hinted at attributes to which he felt neither entitled nor worthy. He would settle quite happily for relief from pain and leave enlightenment to those saintly souls who possessed the qualifications to make such a goal attainable.

    He had always had an intellectual and analytical disposition and there perhaps was his undoing. Some 30 years previously, during a particularly dark period in his blighted existence, he had taken on the serious task of discovering why it was that he was so cursed. The Book of Middle Eastern Faery Tales seemed to provide no answer and certainly no practical remedy for misery. Glorious as the language was and charming as he found some of its stories, no one appeared to be offering relief from suffering. Not in this world anyway.

    In sharp contrast, the ancient Nepalese holy man and his band of followers offered far more practical help. In the here and now. Sit and meditate they said, and it didn’t sound very complex.

    There was considerable other material in the Buddhist canon which, as with the Book of Middle Eastern Faery Tales, had grown over the years, as adherents added their own interpretation and complexity to what had once been a remarkably simple doctrine.

    Those many years ago, he had assumed that all this extra baggage perhaps had some meaning. He came to realize more recently that it did not. It was all very simple really and it boiled down to doing unto others. A few simple rules, a few ethical guidelines written on a tablet of stone or spelled out as noble truths.

    He had tried being good, as most of us have done, and partially succeeded although not to an extent he felt particularly satisfied with. He understood though that a release from suffering could not be attained from a position of pure evil or unpleasantness. He did his best, and off and on over many years he sat and meditated.

    In earlier days he assumed that the task of meditation involved some magic, some esoteric secret that could only be learnt from masters in remote mountain caves or perhaps in blossom filled monasteries on Honshu. And he visited such places whenever the opportunity arose. And from those visits he gained much solace and there was indeed a magic which seemed to emanate from the beauty and order he found there.

    On a bright spring morning at the Meiji Shrine, priests in traditional garb chanted and methodically beat an immense brass gong. Quite what the ceremony entailed he never discovered, but he was at home. As he was in any sacred place, be it a Benedictine Abbey, or a remote Buddhist shrine sitting atop a mountain on an island off Hong Hong.

    Peace, he felt such a depth of calm and wonder in such places. But on his return the outside world always spoiled it for him – the drudgery of mortgages and bills, careers and responsibility.

    One day he had had enough. In a period of extreme blackness he set aside the trappings of modernity and sat. And meditated. For many hours each day, over many weeks.

    And he began to see what the Buddha had meant. Following his breath, he let his mind go blank and his body relax. And peace would descend, after a while.

    He saw no visions, no gods. No dramatic revelations came to him. He felt neither omniscient nor omnipotent.

    And yet the world receded and all that was left was his own consciousness. The darkness left and his soul floated.

    So far, he is able to claim no permanent change. The dark night returns to be dispelled anew each day. But it can at least be banished, if only for a while.

    A release from suffering as promised by the ancients? Maybe. One day, perhaps. The path may be a long and winding one, the cure not instant. But there is joy in a retreat into silence. A journey through quiet hours away from modernity and aggression. Days filled also with music and country walks, birdsong and singing.

    A voyage into the soul, a search for god or reality. Not a path for all but he determined to continue along its way. The end was not in sight but he decided to trust that there was one.

  • On Good and Bad

    On Good and Bad

    If I am a judge, then at whose appointment? And by what right?

    A fly ensnared in a web’s steel embrace. How should I judge the spider that feeds on its essence.

    The bird that feeds off the spider; is it loved by its prey I wonder. What is good, what is bad. Who or what is the arbiter. And from what perspective.

    Rock worn over eons by wind and rain has a simple consciousness of sorts. Is it good, the wind. Or bad. And the rain; by whom shall it be judged, that destroyer of rocks. And what will that judgement be.

    The black hole, slayer of stars and galaxies. Is there any who will judge it, and by what standards. Good, its behavior, its actions. Or bad; who will say. What the rules.

    And the human species. Out of ingredients pillaged from stars, like all else, its focus survival. Driven by evolution, selfish genes. Carbon and some water come to life takes over a rocky planet and devours it. Pushing all else aside, killing to grow and prosper.

    Where in the food chain do we sit. On whom or on what do we prey. Food – a simple transfer of energy. From sun to plants and from thence to animals. Dog eat dog as they say. Sitting on the same food chain as the fly and the spider, we kill to survive and eat. Are we good or bad; who is to judge?

    For the unaware, survival is all. All thoughts, all actions driven by instinctual urges. It need not be so but few understand in their rush for more.

    A warlord rapes, pillages and steals. A business man in like fashion bribes and cheats to feed an empire designed to ensure his survival. Are they wrong these people? Bad?

    A monotheist condemns the heathen for his disbelief. Seeks the survival of his meme. Blows down tall towers in great cities. Kills and maims for a muddled dream. Good or bad and who is to say?

    Are we judges, should we adjudicate?

    Our small package of atoms will tomorrow or the next day be dispersed to re-appear in some other guise. Will we side with spider or fly. Should we condemn warlord or business man. The monotheist, the rock, the black hole – judged good or bad. And on what grounds.

    All may seem to be perspective. Birds and spiders, flies and black holes. Each has a view. Even the man who blows down tall towers in distant cities.

    Yet the emergence of higher sentience may have brought new rules. May have created judges capable of seeing through the thick, impenetrable veil of self interest.

    The abolition of suffering for all sentient species – a new banner for a better age.

    There is hope but enlightenment is the price of entry. Awakening no less, often preached and yet still so distant.

    Will we rise to the challenge. Or remain bound by the chains of evolutionary conditioning. Will we make a better world for all, a different universe. Or will the wheel of samsara never be broken.

  • All Victories are Pyrrhic

    All Victories are Pyrrhic

    Whether or not you win a conflict, something will have been lost.

    I have written a series of articles about a Pig, a Salesman and a Snob. Who happens to be one and the same person. He is also a bully who needs to get his own way at all costs.  The bully has been thwarted but he keeps on coming back for more. Like a punch drunk boxer he is determined to remain in the ring, determined to keep punching despite the pointlessness of his endeavors.

    He has been held at bay. His bullying has lead him nowhere except to destroy relationships all around him.  And do the “victors” feel any better?

    There are no victors in conflict. No victory can be obtained in this petty conflict nor the Armageddon of nations at war. Ruined lives are the inevitable result of conflict.  There has to be a better way of resolving our differences than anger. Anger can so easily and so often does escalate into physical violence.

    In petty domestic situations, the police may eventually have to be called upon to stop the Pig harassing his neighbors.  In international politics, disagreement usually leads to missiles, tanks and occasionally poisoned gas if you happen to be an unlucky Marsh Arab.  Or Jew.

    How can we behave better? How can we bring ourselves back from the brink?

    In the case of the petty dispute between two of my neighbors, I am suggesting arbitration. Passing the whole sorry matter over to a third party and letting them decide the rights and wrongs. But of course both sides will have to agree to be bound by the decision and to enter arbitration proceedings in the first place.  Let us hope that the Pig sees the good sense in this solution.

    It matters not who “wins” and who “loses” since lives will have been wrecked or lost in the process of the battle.  In the international arena, six million Jews will have been wiped out, or a race of Marsh Arabs. In the domestic setting, two sisters have been torn apart and seem unlikely to speak again.

    It doesn’t really matter who is at fault. People suffer. The Pig is suffering too. Grossly overweight and bombastic, he has a weak constitution. He is a veteran of war with neighbors, he wields his mighty cosh with pride. But win or lose, the Pig has caused devastation all around him.  His mighty will has been challenged and he stands on the top of his heap issuing hollow threats.

    If the Pig finally admits defeat what then? Will anyone feel any better? Will the world be a better place? Will either sister feel any happier? Will anything worthwhile have been achieved?

    I would venture that the answers to all of the above are “no”.

    Or perhaps I have no Viking blood? Perhaps some still worship Thor and the gods of war? Perhaps to some conflict is glorious and victory, Pyrrhic or otherwise, is worth the sacrifices involved?

  • The Shameful, Avoidable Horror of Dementia and Old Age

    The Shameful, Avoidable Horror of Dementia and Old Age

    We would put an animal down; surely we can offer the same courtesy to a human?

    I have become deeply shocked and saddened by recent conversations with one of my siblings who is involved with care of the elderly. The sheer inhumanity meted out to the elderly and those with dementia beggars belief, particularly if you end up in the wrong care home.

    My sister looked after my two elderly parents for almost a decade at their own home, during which my mother’s dementia became extreme. Eventually, dementia kills you since the brain is no longer able to process the autonomous functions which normally run the body.  My father, by no means so bad, nonetheless suffered a severe decline in his mental abilities and lived in fear. Unspecified, generalized fear. My mother too suffered periods of intense anxiety.

    At the end of my mother’s decade of dementia, the doctors said there was nothing they could do for her.  The recommendation was to stop feeding her or giving her liquids, since she no longer had the required functions to swallow and digest. At the end she was left, literally croaking out the last gasps of her life, aided, if I remember correctly, by a little morphine at the very end to easy her pain.  But only at the very, very end was she offered morphine.

    What kind of an end to life is that? How can we allow it? An animal would have been put down long before it got to the stage that it could not swallow food or drink. Surely my mother deserved the same mercy and yet anyone offering her that coup de grace would be imprisoned for the rest of their life.

    After my mother’s death, my father lasted another 6 months or so. He lived in abject fear of being left alone in a room and would shout and howl if you left him for more than a few minutes. His mental health had always been very fragile and at no time more so than in those last terrible months.

    My sister, her husband and their children looked after my parents night and day with great devotion and care and love. They were fed and watered and given every comfort and company they could want. They were taken out most days on outings.  I shall always be thankful and amazed by what my sister did and the care she gave.

    Imagine now, given those same disabilities, being abandoned by your family and being locked up in a care home.  That is the lot of so very many of the elderly and of course, many do not have family to care for them anyway.

    A typical story is as follows.

    An old lady is in tears. She has severe dementia. She is terrified and crying for her husband who has, in any event,  predeceased her by two decades.  She is in a care home where, with the best will in the world, it is hard to give the comfort and attention so badly needed by those with dementia. Or indeed, the aged in general.  She is isolated in her room with no one to visit her except my sister.  Staff can all too seldom spare the time to talk or comfort. She is given no sedatives, no anti depressants, nothing to easy her terror.

    She will live in abject misery and horror until her systems shut down and she dies from hunger and dehydration.  She is alone, deeply alone and in abject misery.  And deep , deep mental pain.

    That old lady is me, she is you. Her’s is the fate that awaits so very many of us. You may well end your life like this.

    Euthanasia, mercy killing is what most of us would want under such terrible circumstances and yet it is denied us. And so we are locked away to die. We are locked up, in a room, with little or no company until we can no longer swallow. Until we literally “croak” our last. And I use that word advisedly. The end for such people (for you and I maybe) is literally a “croak” from a burnt and parched throat.

    What kind of end is that?  Surely to god we have the same right as an animal to a peaceful and painless end to such suffering?

  • If God could be killed, it’d be dead already

    If God could be killed, it’d be dead already

    I have been following  Qualia Research Institute and Qualia Computing.  My attention was recently caught by an article on  personal identity views.

    I quote from the Abstract:

    Personal identity views (closed, empty, open) serve in philosophy the role that conservation laws play in physics. They recast difficult problems in solvable terms, and by expanding our horizon of understanding, they likewise allow us to conceive of new classes of problems. In this context, we posit that philosophy of personal identity is relevant in the realm of ethics by helping us address age-old questions like whether being born is good or bad. We further explore the intersection between philosophy of personal identity and philosophy of time, and discuss the ethical implications of antinatalism in a tenseless open individualist “block-time” universe.

    I believe that you may well have to have a tendency towards existential anxiety to be interested in such matters. I have that and I am interested. However I am also wary of endless thinking, endless philosophy.

    I have no qualm with “thought experiments” per se ( which have lead to many scientific breakthroughs) but I believe the matters contained in this article are fruitless in terms of speculation unless they can be tested and acted upon.

    I like these guys, I like what they have to say. But I would like to see some action. I would like to see some progress towards the “Abolition of Suffering“.

    I therefore responded as follows on their website:

    While I am interested in your article and indeed in your website as a whole, has the time not come to cease to speculate and to actively progress and investigate how to measure and improve qualia?

    You and I and everyone around us (or most of them) are living as “closed individuals”. I do not believe anyone other than a mystic or tripper has witnessed any other type of existence.

    And once the meditation or psilocybin trip is over, even those individuals return from unified consciousness back to the state of “closed individual”.

    So what needs to be done to eliminate suffering?

    Can the beneficial effects of psilocybin be prolonged indefinitely? Can some other method of increasing our joy and decreasing our pain (permanently) be found?

    I am not sure that any of the theories you describe above represent any law of physics. I am not sure that any such theory gets us any further forward.

    We need to take practical steps and hope that these will confirm or refute such theories.

    I am done with theorizing. I want progress.

    Perhaps I should become a psychonaut.

  • Dementia – A Carer’s Survival Guide

    Dementia – A Carer’s Survival Guide

    Starting out on the brutal, tragic and savage journey into dementia and caring for those suffering from it (I mean suffering both mentally and physically) one, in all probability will not be aware that “dementia” is simply an umbrella term for a vast and cruel range of hideous and debilitating symptoms.

    It is not purely memory loss, there is the added savagery of profound confusion, difficulties in communicating, disorientation, weight loss, depression, persistent fear, skin infections, seizures, hallucinations, paranoia and the susceptibility to frequent urinary tract infections thus causing yet more confusion– the list is seemingly endless.

    Added to all these symptoms the lives of the entire extended family are shattered, robbing them prematurely of the people they know and love.

    Despite all this turmoil I can say, hand on heart, that it is possible somehow to love, cherish, live and enjoy life after the death sentence diagnosis – you have got to, what else is there?  An immeasurable amount of patience is paramount to peace, calm and success whilst caring and a level of understanding of what a person is suffering is crucial.

    They are definitely “still there” deep, deep down, terrified and desperate for love, care, kindness and nurture.

    Each glimpse of their former self, their character and laughter is cherished and longed for and these moments sadly become further and further apart as the disease progresses and takes hold but never totally impossible to find and coax to the surface at any stage of the petrifying and lonely journey, even if it’s just in a glint of the eye.

    Anything that can help ease the stress and distress for all parties concerned is to be grasped with open arms.  Music is a very strong, useful and available tonic, and even if not enjoyed previously, it can jolt the brain into reducing symptoms of anxiety, agitation and aggression.

    It can prompt laughter and is something that can be a rare shared pleasure whatever the genre.  It is both comforting and enlivening for all, it can induce memories and movement for all to revel in.  Somehow words to long lost songs and ballads can be brought to the forefront, sung and danced to with joy, gusto and fleeting pleasure.

    There are so many “little things” like this that can make the life of the sufferer and carer easier, more bearable, more pleasurable and now seem so obvious to me I forget that others perhaps would overlook them or not realise to what tremendous degree they can help.  Guilt, for no apparent reason, has a massive and oppressive presence in a carers lot!