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Prisoner
Plato (429-347 BCE) was born an aristocrat, a
member of one of Athens' most powerful
families. Plato was on the way to becoming a
composer of tragic dramas when his life was
decisively changed by meeting Socrates (470-
399 BCE). Many have noted that the sheer
brilliance of Plato's writings strongly suggests
that even if he hadn't met Socrates, Plato
would nonetheless be known to us— that
there would have been four great writers of
Greek tragedies, that Plato's name would be
joined to those of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides.
1. There is dukkha.
2. Dukkha is caused.
3. Dukkha can be eliminated by
eliminating its causes.
4. There is a method, a way, to
accomplish this.
There is dukkha.
Often, indeed usually, dukkha is translated as
"misery," or "suffering." Many scholars of
Buddhism point out that this is mistranslation
because it is an incomplete rendering of the
concept of dukkha. Words like "suffering"
and "misery" tell only a part of the story of
dukkha, and not the most dangerous part at
that. Dukkha involves not only pain, yes, but
it also involves also the pleasure that keeps us
hooked into the cycle of pleasure and pain. It
is the cycle of pleasure/pain, of joy/sorrow,
that constitutes dukkha. Pleasure and joy are
the "fun" side of dukkha that keeps us in the
game, they are what keeps us buying tickets
on the roller-coaster ride of agonies and
ecstasies that is life as we experience it. The
point here is of extraordinary importance: we
are deeply invested in the conditions of our
dukkha; for all the noisy lamentations that go
on during the "down" sides of the cycle, we
jealously and fiercely defend (to ourselves
and to others) the cycle itself. "Mine!"
Is this making sense?
Dukkha is caused.
For a moment, I'll be a bit crude. You've seen
the bumper-sticker, you've heard it said
often enough: "Shit happens." Dukkha is
unlike shit in this crucial sense― it doesn't
just "happen." Dukkha, it is said, is caused.
This may sound like a trivial point, but in fact
it is momentous: because dukkha is caused, a
coherent strategy can be invoked to end it.
The claim that dukkha is caused elicits in the
mind a spirit of inquiry― what causes it?
We'll consider these causes in more detail
soon. For now, they may be stated simply:
dukkha is caused most fundamentally by
ignorance; it is maintained through cravings
and aversions― cravings and aversions in
regard to an understanding of life that is
rooted in ignorance. And in regard to both
elements of the causes of dukkha, you are the
principle actor.
1. Everything in experience is
transitory.
2. Everything in experience is dukkha.
3. Everything in experience lacks
permanent self.
We’ve already covered the
second characteristic― that everything you
experience is bound up in a cycle of dukkha.
So let’s look at the first: that everything we
experience is transitory. The Buddhist
assumption is that change, not permanence, is
the reality we experience. The problem is
that we humans have a misdirected tendency
to seek well-being in terms of permanence
rather than the change that is the only
reality we encounter. The "things" we
encounter in experience are better described
as events. And we tend to translate those
events into things through a process that has
been called "reification." Reification from the
Latin word for "thing"― re.
Epicurus
Epicurus lived from 342-270 BCE. His
philosophical training center, or school, was
originally set up (the year was 306) in a
garden in Athens, and came to be called "the
Garden." Epicurus lived in what is known
as the Hellenistic period, which dates roughly
from the death of Alexander the Great in
323 BCE until about 200 CE.