February 22nd, 2009
novermber 22, 2003
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To continue with Nietzsche’s criticism of Buddhism:
Nietzsche preferred Judaism over Christianity. He saw Christianity as the full flowering of Jewish resentment (as exemplified by St. Paul, who because he couldn’t observe the Law, turned against the Law…). Likewise, he preferred Hinduism over Buddhism, which he saw as the product of an old, world-and-life-wearied culture/civilization.
Nietzsche looks at Buddhism as a pessimism.
Life is full of suffering. How to end suffering?
End the very source of suffering, life itself. Since suicide was believed to produce more suffering (through karma/reincarnation), this particular option is out of the question.
How is life manifested? Through desire.
You want to end suffering, then desire no more.
What is desire? The longing for something good/valuable, the possession of which will cause us pleasure or happiness.
We desire, we get what we desire, we want more. We desire, we don’t get what we desire, we get frustrated. Desire is like a black hole, it never gets filled. It always wants more.
In all honesty, what do we really want?
We want everything. We want it all.
Well, the news – old news, sad news – is that…
We can’t have it. Can’t have everything. Can’t have it all.
Suffering is the outcome of the frustration of desire. And desire is always frustrated. Desire can never but be frustrated. It is the nature of desire that it. will. get. frustrated.
We want life, but we will die. And so we suffer. We want health, but we grow weak and sickly. (I heard somewhere – don’t know if it’s true – that the possible peak of physical health of a human being is at the age of 25. From then on, everything goes downhill.) And so we suffer. We want beauty, but we grow old and ugly (inspite of all the cosmetics and burloloys we utilize). And so we suffer. We want wealth, but there’s inflation and devaluation, and all the other vicissitudes of earning a living. And so we suffer. We want stability, permanence, everlasting love and happiness, but everything changes. And so we suffer.
How to end suffering? By ending its source, desire.
Desire. No more.
Again: One ends suffering by desiring no more. Because desire only leads to its (inevitable) frustration, which in turn causes suffering. But if one desires no more, s/he doesn’t get frustrated even when s/he doesn’t come to possess/enjoy the good/valuable. And when one doesn’t get frustrated, one doesn’t suffer.
Desire no more.
But, a question, a little question:
What if… you can be god? What if it were possible to want it all and have it all (which is, after all, what you really, really want in your heart of hearts…)? Would you still give up desire? Would you still not want it?
Wouldn’t you want it?
Would you? Wouldn’t you?
Honestly…
Thus, it appears that the giving up of desire rests on this condition: that life is not given to us in its fullness/perfection. Unlimited desire + imperfect life = suffering/frustration. (We don’t have a perfect love, a perfect happiness, a perfect body, a perfect soul… “I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo, What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here…”)
But if life were perfect, what’s the point of giving up desire? Unlimited desire + perfect, unlimited life = no suffering/no frustration = perfect, unlimited happiness.
The giving up of desire is thus a product of the inability to accept life as it is, in all its imperfection. The giving up of desire is a resentment against life, and what she has to offer. For if life were perfect, the giving up of desire becomes meaningless. It only makes sense as a precaution to avoid frustration and suffering. The giving up of desire is resentment itself against frustration and suffering, which are a necessary part of life. For if one never experiences frustration and suffering, s/he will never give up desiring.
And yet, there is much that is attractive in Buddhism. Because it has a deep understanding and experience of suffering, it promotes compassion for all beings (without seeming to glorify suffering/masochism, which Christianity appears to do).
My problem is the seemingly concommitant extirpation of passion. Develop compassion. Lose the passion.
Again, why not passion and compassion?
In search of a Nietzschean Buddhism…
best regards,
ian