Commercials, a museum of "if only" thoughts

I'm watching TV (too much) lately. It's a strong negative in my concentration practice, but there is a sliver of a silver lining. It's like visiting a museum of all the "if only" thinking that I am learning to give up.

Gil Fronsdal has a fairy tale that talks about all the if only thoughts we have.

The jewelry commercial reminds me of all the "love is forever" stories. And the stories that "if you really love someone, it means...".

The car commercials reminds me of the "you deserve it" story. Gil Fronsdal talks about the time the car salesman said, "you deserve an air conditioner." (Back when AC was not standard).

The food commercials remind me of "indulge, revel". Reminds me of Thanissaro's comment on "obey your thirst"... A dangerous but common slogan of life.

So many commercials are aspirational. Whispering, "you deserve more, more". Like the new iPhone.

Then there are the guilt commercials. About germs and laundry detergent.  "Is it really clean unless you..."

---

I like to remind people how much can be done with so little. Buddha was 2600 years ago. Christ was about 2000 years. They didn't even have clean water. Medical knowledge was very rudimentary. Communication was verbal... You had to walk to the next town to learn what someone might be teaching. Famine was commonplace.

With that said, modern life has way more temptation. Commercials and ads are virtually unavoidable. We are whispered, "more, more, more" all the time, and all over the place. And it's much easier to just show the good side (i.e. lie by hiding drawbacks).

There is a culture of commercials, to suggest that you can have all the upside with none of the downside. And maybe none of the work either. Get rich quick, get rich for free.

I am thankful I am somewhat innoculated/vaccinated against that line of thinking.

Rope, Wind, Escape, Binge

It's interesting to be coming off this long flu recovery. I've been sick for about 2 weeks. One week of fever. One week of cough and low energy. I am also here in Kansas where it's getting cold. And that cold is sapping energy and effort for me, too.

 

But I see this pattern! And I'm excited to finally see the pattern. Rope. Wind. Escape. Binge.

 The first two are things that happened to me (external), but that I'm a willing participant in, somehow. I feed it. I let it take over and dominate my narrative... because then I can get the escape. And then that creates urges that I then either succumb to or grab. The urge to escape. And the use of binging to escape.

I'm excited to finally see the pattern. Old me sort of saw the pattern, but loved to justify it and make up stories. Stories that I deserved these shiny (but shitty) escapes. Stories that this is normal, justified. Stories that I was doing better than other people so that's okay (shitty behavior justification machine). I still make up those stories, but a part of me is very good at watching me make up those stories. So I'm able to see these patterns. That's a big step in discernment, insight.

I also have to admit that I'm pretty lousy at remembering to use alternatives. Isn't Jhana something I have developed? Jhana is a good "instead"; it is a wholesome and heedful escape, into concentration, with equanimity. But I decide to wallow in Netflix or chess or porn. Which disquiet the mind but, moreover, are exhausting (not restorative, not restful). I can do better. I hope I can remember that I can do better.

The time the Bhikkhus did not delight in what the Buddha said

 In The Island (pg 97), there is a passage of the time the Bhikkhus did not delight and rejoice in the teachings of the Buddha. I have referenced it several times in helping me understand how against the stream the Buddha's teachings were. At the end, with full insight, all self identification, philosophizing, and metaphysical framework-ing has to melt away.

“He directly knows water as water ... the All as All. .. Nibbāna as Nibbāna, he does not conceive [himself as] Nibbāna, he does not conceive [himself] in Nibbāna, he does not conceive [himself] apart [or coming] from Nibbāna, he does not conceive Nibbāna to be ‘mine,’ he does not delight in Nibbāna. Why is that? Because he has understood that delight is the root of suffering, and that with being [as condition] there is birth and that for whatever has come to be there is ageing and death. Therefore, bhikkhus, through the complete destruction, fading away, cessation, giving up and relinquishing of cravings, the Tathāgata has awakened to supreme, full enlightenment, I say.” ~ M 1.3-194, (abridged)

At the end of the discourse the reader is treated to a rare finishing touch: “That is what the Blessed One said but those bhikkhus did not delight in the Blessed One’s words.”

It is said that the group of monks whom the Buddha was addressing were formerly brahmin priests and that perhaps this dismantlement of the conception of ‘being’ was too threatening for them to take. In addition, in other situations, even though the deconstruction of the sense of being that the anattā teaching provided might have been approved of, this was not always the end of the matter. For, no matter how hard the Buddha tried to convey that the teaching on anattā was not a  philosophical or metaphysical position, but rather skilfull means to free the heart, the teaching was regularly taken in the wrong way – and, not surprisingly, it has been repeatedly misconstrued in the intervening centuries