Buddhist truths are true for me because something in me intuits their truth, not because of what’s been taught or what’s in books - what someone else has said. Truth has to come from the inside. Otherwise they are just thoughts, ideas, facts, information. The problem with this formulation is when the outside sources, undoubtedly someone else's truth on the same topic, clashes with my own internal truths.
Samsara is the physical world, the suffering world in which we live as a result of our delusions. It’s a basic concept of Buddhism, not difficult to accept once you understand the first noble truth of Buddhism that life is suffering. And once you have the first noble truth, you get the three other noble truths: 2) suffering is caused by desire; 3) there is a way out of suffering; 4) the eightfold path is the way out of suffering. So the goal of embracing the Four Noble Truths is to escape suffering.
I recognize a conflict in my desire to die, since killing myself would supposedly just return me into samsara. And in my next life, I don’t know how much of the knowledge I’ll retain or have access to from this life. That’s the big risk. I don’t know if I’ll have the experiences that will lead me to the search that I hold so precious in this life. I’m dealing with something totally unknown to me. Without any personal revelations on the topic, maybe I should just listen to what the Buddhists say in case they’re right.
I may as well live out this life for whatever that’s worth, hoping at the very least that I might be better off than if I killed myself. The thing is that I’m not trying to be better off, which might be a faulty endeavor at best, and I’m not making getting out of samsara a goal of my life. Living my life to achieve that end doesn’t make any sense to me, that has less worth than killing myself and being true to my nature. Getting out of samsara isn’t a human desire I have, it’s just sort of a Buddhist fact that I can accept, like fish in a river. Just go where the river flows.
Previous karmic matter is added with this life’s karma and regroups and is reborn into another lifetime of suffering, another realm of samsara. Each lifetime resonates with reflections, ripples and repercussions of previous lifetimes.
I totally disagree with a white EAS professor who said there is no connection between a person in one lifetime who creates karma, and the reincarnated person in the next lifetime, born with the karma. Why would anyone care about karma if the results of their actions in their lifetime affects a future lifetime, but they themselves have nothing to do with that future lifetime?
What is so undesirable about samsara is knowing that the suffering will repeat, lifetime after lifetime, until you attain enough merit to transcend it. It’s a personal stake that makes it so undesirable. Without that personal stake, it’s OK to kill yourself because when your karmic matter regroups, it has nothing to do with the “you” that you know was suffering. And if the regrouped karmic matter doesn’t like it, it can kill itself, too.
The problem is that I’m arguing for a “self”, and “no-self” is also a lynchpin concept of Buddhism. But the “unidentified karmic matter” just doesn’t square. Maybe it all makes sense from an enlightened point of view, but it gets lost in translation when communicated to unenlighteneds.
But for people who are unenlightened, the self is necessary. Actually, I don’t think I’ll hear any argument against that, it sounds like ego-identification of the self and unenlightenment can be definitions for each other. But to argue for continuity, there are some things we just know, some things we just can do, some things we’re just not afraid of. I think that’s the result of continuity, karmic leakage from previous lifetimes. Continuity of karmic matter is a necessary part of the self. What happens to us in each lifetime is not the only result of previous lifetimes, but what we are is also affected by what we were in previous lifetimes. Each lifetime is informed by previous karmic matter and information.
So anyway, if I did kill myself or actively let myself be killed, I’d be reborn into samsara with more negative karmic matter. A simple, linear equation that probably isn’t right, but all I have to go on for now, and if I die now and am reborn, there’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to continue this path, much less continue the path with less torment and obstacles than I have now. So blah, blah, blah I should count my blessings and realize how lucky I am to have the karmic matter I have now. Now that’s good shit!!
This lifetime is a grand opportunity, I know what I know. Still, it’s so hard. I’ve been trying. I’ve been running so many options. And the option I’ve been taking is to just let my life run its own way. There are so many ways to practice, there shouldn’t be much room for discouragement.
Monastic life isn’t necessarily an answer, even monastic rites and rituals may be attachments and delusions. I have confidence that these daily frustrations of trying to find the right way to the Way will not be in vain and someday I will be able to realize what it is I must be to fall on that path.
Tomorrow Spring Break starts and I head east. I’ll be on tour with the Can Consortium (steel drum band). I’m driving to New Jersey first to take Ching Ching to New York, and then I’ll meet up with the band for our first gig in Ithaca.
Oh yeah, I sold my guitar.
