The Problem of Suffering (1)

Enlightenment Made Simple

– Chapter 1 –

When Life Doesn’t Work

The ignorant stumble through life, goaded by the senses, addicted to passing pleasures and blind to the true goal of life.
– Katha Upanishad

I’m pleased to present the first chapter from the book “Enlightenment Made Simple” by Rory B Mackay, which is now available for purchase in paperback and ebook.

This first section of the book deals with the problem of and solution to human suffering, laying out the purpose and necessary of Advaita Vedanta as our time-tested means of liberation.

This chapter follows on from the Introduction.

I’d like to introduce you to Mike.

Mike is in his mid-fifties and the first thing he does each morning is reach for a vodka bottle. A functioning alcoholic, Mike has to force himself out of bed to work at a job he hates. If he wasn’t reliant on the income he’d most certainly quit in a heartbeat. Not that he truly believes he can do (or deserves) much better.

As a child, he was filled with dreams for the future. An imaginative and introverted kid, Mike lived out multiple lifetimes in his head. Life seemed full of exciting possibilities. He yearned to set off and travel the world, exploring each and every continent with wide eyed wonder. He wanted to be an artist, an inventor, an engineer; and felt certain he could change the world in some way.

Of course, life didn’t turn out quite as he imagined.

He struggled at school, having little aptitude for the classroom curriculum. He also suffered a degree of social anxiety, although it wasn’t called that back then; he was simply dismissed as being shy and awkward.

Often subject to bullying, Mike developed low self-esteem; something that only got worse as he hit adolescence. Rather than staying on to finish his final year, he made a break from school the moment he was old enough.

His dreams of childhood fell by the wayside and he took the first job he could find. Life became a matter of simply getting by; turning up at the office for another day of drudgery, trying to get along with colleagues he didn’t particularly like, and endeavouring to make himself seem more impressive than the lowly image he had of himself inwardly.

Nevertheless, he worked hard and eventually moved through the ranks of his accounting company. He went from renting apartments to eventually owning a small house of his own.

Dating wasn’t easy. He felt he had to bluster his way to impressing the ladies; too afraid to let them see what he truly thought of himself. During his teenage years, he’d learned to craft a persona; a social mask he presented to the world; an idealised version of who he wanted to be. Over time, he became pretty good at it, too; projecting what he thought others wanted to see.

After a number of failed relationships, he eventually found the woman he would marry and, for a time, was happy. He had a good, if unfulfilling, job, he had a decent house and, best of all, somebody to love and support him. A year after they married, his first child was born, and then another, two years after that. He liked being a father even if he didn’t feel particularly prepared and confident in the role of parent; doubly so when it became clear that one of his kids had learning needs and required specialised education and support.

Mike already knew that life rarely remained rosy for long. Every upside seemed to come with an inevitable downside and, after a time, his relationship with his wife deteriorated as the strain of parenting took a toll on their marriage.

He began seeking solace in alcohol. Several drinks at the local bar would dull his emotions and he began channelling his discontent into gambling—and, worse, by hitting on women.

At first, it was simply a way boosting his self-esteem; which it most certainly did when they reciprocated his advances. Of course, he never had any intention of actually cheating on his wife because he didn’t see himself as that type of person. One evening, however, after a few too many drinks, that’s exactly what happened.

Although he desperately tried to keep it a secret from his wife, she knew something was up and, as a result, their marriage deteriorated rapidly.

This only increased Mike’s reliance on alcohol and he began having an affair with a woman from his office. Although he hadn’t set out to hurt anybody, least of all his wife and kids, that’s what happened when the truth spilled out one day and his wife learned of Mike’s infidelity.

Mike tried to defend himself and justify his actions as the product of stress at work and his admitted reliance upon alcohol.

His wife, however, wouldn’t hear a word of it. She immediately left him, taking the kids along with her. Perhaps most heartbreaking of all, when the kids learned of their father’s betrayal of their mother, they wanted nothing more to do with him.

Now alone with nothing but his dreary job and an empty house, Mike’s addiction to both alcohol and gambling has only worsened. He’s given up hope of finding love again because he decided that, at least in his current state, he had nothing much to offer anyone.

Life, he concluded, is nothing but a succession of disappointment and failed dreams. Even when he did have everything, he still managed to mess it up because he simply couldn’t control his own mind and its compulsions and addictions. He’s now unsure what life might hold for his retirement other than loneliness, self-pity and alcohol.

Samsara: A Universal Problem

It’s a sad story and one that’s not at all uncommon.

While the details differ from person to person, the nuts and bolts are the same. We all want to be happy and complete. With that in mind, we set about trying to make life work for us.

We desperately try to get what we want and avoid what we don’t want, with particular emphasis on attaining security and pleasure; only to find that life rarely plays a fair game.

For all the victories we attain, we’re likely to experience just as many failures, if not more.

There’s simply no getting around this fact.

We want life to be a certain way but, in spite of all the motivational slogans in the world, our ability to force circumstances into alignment with our wants and desires is limited at best.

We are, after all, simply human beings. We are not God; we didn’t create the stars and galaxies and the world with everything in it. While it’s true that we have a degree of volition and control, it’s always limited because, simply put, there are trillions of factors, both known and unknown, over which we have no control.

Mike’s story is the story of samsara: the worldly suffering experienced by human beings across time, the entire world over.

A Sanskrit word with no direct English equivalent, samsara refers to the cycle of lack, desire, attachment and suffering experienced by virtually every human being you’ll ever meet.

A samsari is somebody who seeks happiness outside of him or herself. Acutely aware of an inner sense of lack and emptiness, and driven by various attachments and addictions, compulsions and neuroses, the samsari pursues happiness by manipulating the things of the world; by trying to force reality to conform to his or her personal demands.

It’s a futile task, because in a world of duality, there can be no gain without loss, no pleasure without pain and no happiness without sorrow.

Indeed, the universe didn’t go to the immense bother of existing simply to cater to the desires and whims of the little humans living on one particular rock in space. Our preferences and predilections don’t, unfortunately, factor into the cosmic equation.

Even if they did, the objects of the world are inherently impermanent. They don’t last. Nothing stays the same indefinitely, for life exists in a constant state of flux. What seemingly brings happiness one day can just as easily bring sorrow the next.

What’s worse, try though you might to hold onto things, there’s ultimately no way to escape the fact that everything in the phenomenal world is finite and time-bound. In other words, every gain is subject to eventual and inevitable loss.

You must think I’m real fun at parties, right?

Hear me out, though. It’s not until you accept this inherent downside to life that you can overcome your dependence on external objects and experiences for your happiness—and, therefore, begin to break free of samsara.

The First Human Pursuit: Security

It’s important to understand what drives human behaviour. The Vedantic scriptures, about which we’ll learn more in Chapter Four, outline four basic human goals or life pursuits. You might think of it as an ancient take on what psychologists today call Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Let’s take a look at the first two goals of human life: security and pleasure. While there are another two, higher goals, many human beings will never actually move beyond these two primary motivating factors.

In common with all forms of life, whether human, animal, vegetable or mineral, our primary goal relates to security and basic physical survival.

The urge to survive and, hopefully, thrive is common to all lifeforms.

Nobody has to tell you that it’s a good idea to stay alive. Above all else, you want to be alive and to avoid physical harm and danger. All beings know that they exist and, unless there’s something terribly wrong, given the choice, they want to continue living.

Anything that contributes to our basic survival and material needs falls into the category of this first life pursuit.

That includes having food to eat, shelter and warmth, clothes to protect us from the elements and the avoidance of anything that might endanger our survival, including injury and illness.

Obviously, as a child, it falls upon our parents to provide these things for us. When we reach maturity, however, we begin taking care of such necessities ourselves.

That’s why our early years are focused on education which then, with a little luck, prepares us to enter the workforce, find employment and make the necessary money to provide for our worldly needs.

This corresponds with what the Vedic system outlines as the student or educational stage of life. The culmination of the educational stage leads into the householder stage, in which we are traditionally expected to settle down, find a spouse and start a family.

In our example, Mike had these bases covered. It might not have been a job he enjoyed, but he nevertheless had employment and didn’t have to worry about his basic material needs. He also got married, had kids and provided for them, thus moving from the educational to the householder stage of life.

Until you’ve taken care of your basic security needs, not least having a roof over your head and food to eat, you won’t be in a position to progress to the subsequent life pursuits.

The Second Human Pursuit: Pleasure

When basic security is no longer an issue, one’s attention naturally gravitates to the second human pursuit: pleasure or enjoyment.

Indeed, for those who don’t have to worry about basic survival, pleasure often becomes the most important aspect of living. For some, life becomes an exercise in hedonism and getting the most amount of pleasure for the least amount of effort.

Many of us are blessed to live in affluent countries with no shortage of comfort and luxury. All forms of entertainment fall into the category of pleasure pursuits; whether it happens to be television, cinema, music or theatre. It’s worth noting that the entertainment and hospitality industries are among the most prominent and profitable on the planet.

What constitutes pleasure obviously varies from person to person. One person’s idea of enjoyment—say, gaming or mountaineering—may well be a source of misery to another. Our pursuit of pleasure is, therefore, an individualistic choice determined by our temperament, culture and our personal likes and dislikes.

Once our friend Mike had taken care of his need for employment, money and a roof over his head, his attention turned to pleasure. He sought a partner and found pleasure through relationships and starting a family.

Of course, some of his attempts at pleasure seeking weren’t altogether healthy, for he succumbed to excessive drinking, gambling and womanising.

The way we pursue these first two goals, security and pleasure, can most certainly be imbalanced and unhealthy. Some people obsess over money and security while others fixate on pleasure and enjoyment to an unhealthy degree, perhaps becoming addicted to alcohol, drugs, sex or food. All things have the potential to become problematic when taken to excess.

It’s for that reason that we’d all do well to observe the next and, arguably most important, goal of human life.

The Third Human Pursuit: Dharma

When you’ve taken care of both your material needs and your desire for comfort and enjoyment, you may begin wondering if there isn’t more to life than simply surviving and gratifying the senses.

That’s when the third human pursuit begins to take prominence: the desire to live according to a sense of morality and ethics; and a commitment to doing the right thing by oneself and others.

This life pursuit is called dharma in Sanskrit. A word with no direct translation, dharma has a number of different meanings depending on the context. With regard to life goals, dharma means the desire to contribute something back to the world; to do what is right and proper in each situation and to live with integrity. A simple translation of dharma might be “virtue”.

Part of Mike’s problem is that, while he had no problem pursuing goals relating to security and pleasure, he didn’t have a complete enough understanding of dharma.

Indeed, some people are so invested in their own desire for wealth and enjoyment that they actively violate dharma. Rather than doing the right thing in a situation, their desires and compulsions are so strong that they end up hurting others and perhaps even themselves just as long as they get what they want.

A thief, for instance, is so focused on the first two life goals, wealth and pleasure, that they pay scant regard to dharma. Quite the contrary, they wilfully violate dharma; something that always brings undesirable consequences.

All but the most damaged of human beings have an innate understanding of dharma. We know what is right in any given situation based upon mutual reciprocity, or how we expect others to treat us.

For instance, we know that it’s wrong to harm others because we, ourselves, do not want to be harmed. We know that it’s good to be honest, kind and straightforward because we, in turn, expect others to behave that way toward us.

Dharma, then, relates to a sense of shared values.

That’s why we’re naturally inclined to follow established rules of conduct and behave with integrity, honesty, kindness and compassion.

All our goals, whether they relate to security or pleasure, should be governed by a commitment to dharma.

When we live by dharma, we won’t go about lying, cheating and harming others. Instead of living solely to gratify our own wants and needs, we live with generosity and consideration for all beings. We see it as our imperative to give at least as much as we take from life and to do what we can to make the environment around us a better place.

If Mike had followed dharma, he would have done something to tackle his alcohol and gambling addictions and would certainly never have cheated on his wife.

The virtuous, dharmic person doesn’t simply act out their desires and whims without question. They first make sure that what they want is, in fact, the right thing to do.

In that respect, following dharma protects you and others and keeps your life on track. By acting with integrity and pure intent, and living in harmony with your own highest nature, you generally avoid the negative consequences that come from causing harm and injury to oneself and others.

By living with dharma, we grow as human beings and develop psychological and spiritual maturity. In time, we hopefully become primed for the fourth and final human goal, which will be the focus of the remainder of this book: enlightenment.

Chapter 1 Summary

We all want to be happy and complete. Most people seek this happiness and completeness by attempting to manipulate the world into alignment with their personal likes and dislikes.
Samsara is the cycle of lack, desire, attachment and suffering experienced by virtually all human beings.
Samsara comes from seeking happiness outside of ourselves.
Unfortunately, life doesn’t factor our personal wants and desires into the equation. Furthermore, everything in life is subject to duality, change and finitude.
That’s why seeking happiness outside of ourselves is a recipe for continual frustration, disappointment and sorrow.
There are four basic human pursuits that motivate our lives, desires and wants. The first three are security, pleasure and dharma.
Once our basic survival and security needs are met, people tend to focus on pleasure, entertainment and enjoyment.
The third, and arguably highest, life pursuit is dharma. Dharma means a commitment to doing the right thing at the right time in the right way. It means living with compassion, kindness and consideration for others; and being willing to contribute to life rather than being a constant taker.
We all have an innate and intuitive understanding of dharma. Not everyone behaves according to dharma, however. Some peoples’ desires and aversions are so strong that they are willing to violate dharma in order to get what they want. This always leads to problems and suffering, for oneself and others and the world.
By living in alignment with dharma, we grow as people, psychologically and spiritually, and become primed for life’s final and ultimate goal: enlightenment.