So my spiritual journey started off with secular mindfulness, which then lead me to Buddhism. One of the first things that Buddhism explains is how the Buddha came to be and the resultant teachings. Any human encounters three things: Suffering, Ageing and Death. Suffering can be reduced by following the Noble Eightfold Path, the Buddhists’ moral code. This moral code includes ethical living, deep self-knowledge through meditation and service to all, as we are all interconnected. Other keywords introduced are: attachment, grasping and impermanence.
Boom! Suffering? Hang on a minute, I’ve not signed up for this. I started the spiritual journey looking for The Truth. Oh, and a side dish of perpetual bliss, please!
Buddhists try to quash the pessimistic reputation some people assign to it. Buddhism is joyful and it’s not just a case of Life’s A B*tch And Then You Die. They point out that the real meaning of the Sanskrit word for suffering is insatisfaction or thinking how things should be. Control freaks beware!
Suffering, Ageing and Death. Hmmmmm.
Abraham Lincoln is attributed to the quote: “The only two certainties in life are death and taxes”. Well, I’ve never seen a two-year old filling out a tax return so that leaves…
Side B: Phobias (Flowered Up)
Pantaphobia. He’s behind you. Oh no he isn’t. Oh yes he is. Apologies, only the British readers who know panto(mimes) may get this joke. Pantaphobia is a fear of everything.
A person may say “I’m scared of water” (aquaphobia) but this generally means that they are scared of drowning. Another may say “I’m scared of heights” (acrophobia). They are not scared of heights per se, rather they are scared of falling to their death. The same could be said for arachnophobia – a spider could induce a mortal bite. In other words, I believe that there is only one phobia: thanatophobia, the fear of dying (I have yet to find the link to, say, nephophobia and siderophobia – the fear of clouds and stars respectively – so maybe my theory is flawed).
Underlying fears express this in a similar way. Why do people dye their hair or get facelifts? Why do women become cougars or men become sugar daddies? Dear of ageing, which equates to fear of death. Even our daily actions propel us to survive and avoid death. Buying food, going to the doctor if we’re sick, paying the electricity bills etc.
I had started looking for The Truth and I found it years later when spirituality, science, philosophy and psychology all converged to The One Truth. Holistic.
It was interesting to observe along the way the use of the words ‘truth’ and ‘fact’. Look up on a book platform titles with “The Truth About…” and you will find topics from fishing to childcare, financial markets to The Titanic, dogs to Mafia bosses. Not counting all the books in the self-help, spiritual, personal development and psychology categories that advise one thing whilst the next one advises the opposite.
Throughout the articles, I will refer to the five themes and conclusions as unwrapping the gifts. These were the eureka moments when a timeless pearl of wisdom clicked and the lightbulb went on. They are in logical as opposed to chronological order.
Unwrapping gift n° 1
THE ONLY TRUTH IS THAT THE PHYSICAL BODY DIES
Woah, bit of a depressing gift. However, the denial of death causes suffering. Once we receive gift n° 1, we head off in different directions. We adopt a wildly hedonistic lifestyle only for our pleasure or, at the other end of the scale, an ascetic one. We become saints or sinners. Depressed or living a meaningful life. Or a little bit of all, depending on the day.
As gift n° 1 is the only one truth – the only statement that every human on the planet can agree upon, scientists, spiritual and religious people, philosophers, agnostics, atheists, whomever alike, the remainder of the gifts – even based on common wisdom – must be subjective.
(Photo credit: PDPics on Pixabay)
