No craving means no suffering

Lanka Jayaratne

The Buddha’s preachings repeatedly describe man as being bound and fettered to suffering. According to the Buddha, it is the desire for pleasure with which man is bound to the external world that forms the fetter. Desire is a very strong fetter which chains man to the external world and thereby to the ever recurring cycle of births and deaths.

People world over seek peace and happiness. This is the reason why people go in search of the truth that leads to the cessation of suffering. As the Buddha explains the unhappiness comes from cravings. That is pleasure that money can buy, power over others and most important of all, the thought that you would live forever. The desire for these makes people selfish, and think of themselves and not worried about others whatever happens to them.

The only way to avoid this restlessness is to get rid of the desires that cause it. This is something very difficult to achieve, but when a man achieves it, he reaches a state of perfection and calmness. However, by endless anxiety in seeking pleasure, all the energies get sapped and as a result man suffer more than he enjoys in seeking pleasure in this phenomenal world.

The Buddha’s preachings repeatedly describe man as being bound and fettered to suffering. According to the Buddha, it is the desire for pleasure with which man is bound to the external world that forms the fetter. Desire is a very strong fetter which chains man to the external world and thereby to the ever recurring cycle of births and deaths.

This strong fetter has six strands emerging from six sense faculties, the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and the mental faculty. The last mentioned faculty is regarded as the sense that unifies all the other faculties.

These sense faculties are called ‘indriya’ in Pali. Indra means king, since these Indriyas (senses) act as lords or masters and dominates, we obey them. These senses are aroused by way of greed.

The enjoyment of pleasure that comes through the five sense-organs are called ‘Sensual bliss’. The ignorant man (pruthajjana), the one who does not know the evils of sensual pleasure spends a great deal of time, energy and money in the endeavour to obtain as many pleasant objects as possible. Sometimes this chase after pleasant experiences leads one to negative forms of behaviour such as alcoholism and drug addiction. All these cravings are to satisfy one’s desire for pleasant experiences. It is like drinking salt water when one is thirsty. If one drinks salt water to quench the thirst, it only increases the thirst. We not only crave for pleasant experiences but also crave for material things. It is said the desire for acquiring wealth or keeping in possession is involved with three major sufferings. The first is the problem of getting them. Second is the suffering of protecting it. Finally, the suffering of losing them.

The Buddhism also speaks of another human tendency with regard to sense pleasure, i.e. dwelling on past sensual pleasure while neglecting the present. The past sense objects have already passed and changed, but we become attached to the memories and thus experience anguish.

Enjoyment of sense objects generates conceit of ‘Seyyamana’, ‘Sadisamana’ and ‘Heenamana’. When we think that we have a greater share of sensual pleasures than others, we develop a superiority complex i.e. Seyyamana. We develop equality complex i.e. Sadisamana by considering ourselves equal to others. By thinking of ourselves as being less fortunate than others in the enjoyment of sense pleasure, we develop the inferiority complex i.e. heenamana. Therefore, by using the measuring rod of sense pleasures to quantify status, we become more and more self centred and suffer the consequences of all possible complexes.

As a whole one may ask the question whether craving alone is sufficient to explain suffering. The answer is no. There is more to it that goes deeper than craving. There is something which in a sense is the foundation of craving. That is ‘avidya’ or ignorance.

The ignorance is not seeing things as they really are, or failing to understand the reality of experience or the reality of life. All those who are well educated may feel uneasy by being told that they are ignorant. In this context it would be of much importance to understand what ‘ignorance’ means according to Buddhism. Without the right conditions, without the right training and without the right instruments we are unable to see things as they really are. All these facts about the world in which we live in are known and observed only because of these special condition. When we say that ignorance is a failure to see things as they really are, which means as long as one has not developed one’s ability to concentrate one’s mind and insight so one is ignorant of the true nature of things. We fear when we see a shape of a snake in the darkness by the side of the road in the night. It could be a tree trunk. Yet the ignorance makes us to quicken our steps and reach home perspiring in panic. If there was light, there would be no fear and no suffering as you would know what was there. It’s your ignorance that makes you panic.

In Buddhism we speak about ignorance regarding the fundamental cause of suffering. We take our body or ideas or feelings as a self, as a real independent ego. Once we have this idea of self we have an idea of something that is apart from or different from ourselves. Once we have this idea of something that is apart or different from ourselves, then it is either helpful or hostile. It is either pleasant or unpleasant to ourselves. From this notion of self we start to crave. Once we believe in the real existence of ourselves, that ‘we’ exist in reality, independently, apart from all others, apart from all the physical objects that surrounds us, we crave and develop desire and want those to benefit us and we are averse towards those which do not benefit us, which cause damage to us or are unhelpful to us. Because of this failure to see that there’s no permanent self, desire and ill-will inevitably thrive. Branches of craving/desire, greed, ill-will, anger, hatred grow bearing the fruits of suffering.

How can we eliminate suffering? One can put an end to suffering by defeating the cause of suffering, i.e. by eliminating craving, ill-will and ignorance. In dealing with the truth of the end of suffering, the first obstacle that we have to overcome is the doubt that exists in one’s mind whether an end of suffering is really possible. Whether one can really end suffering or whether one can really be cured. It is in this context that confidence or faith plays an important role in Buddhism. When we speak of confidence or faith we do not accept it blindly. We speak of faith in the sense of recognising the possibility of achieving the goal to end the suffering. The belief in the possibility of being cured is an indispensable prerequisite. Here too people may say, ‘how can I believe that the end of suffering is really possible when I have never experienced it?” As we all know none of us would have experienced radio waves were if not for the development of radio receivers, and none of us would not have experienced microscopic life if not for the invention of the microscope. So here too, as regards the possibility of the end of suffering and the possibility of attaining Nirvana, we ought not to reject the possibility of attaining Nirvana outright simply because we have not experienced it, simply because we have not seen it for ourselves. We ought to be on guard against dismissing the possibility of the complete end of suffering or the possibility of attaining Nirvana simply because we have not experienced it ourselves. Once we accept that the end of suffering is possible, then we could follow the steps to achieve it.

The Buddha described Nirvana as the supreme happiness. To understand Nirvana one has to experience it through meditation.