Life

             

“Birth is suffering; aging is suffering; sickness is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow and lament, pain, grief, and despair are suffering; association with the unpleasant is suffering; dissociation from the pleasant is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering—in brief, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering.” 

-Dukkha, the First Noble Truth.            

                                                                                                                  

To live is to suffer. Life is an endless wave of suffering. Sitting at the table with a coffee in hand, you find your brain flooded with dozens of issues and problems you need to deal with. Maybe it's a relationship that's on the rocks or a pet that needs to go to the vet, but you know that paying that bill means you might be short on rent. Even though the coffee you're drinking is likely to keep you awake all night, you still need to consume it to survive throughout the day. You're doing something you don't like just to make ends meet. And it is one of the moments when we ask ourselves, Why are we doing any of this? Can we live a life of meaning when it feels like the world doesn’t make any sense?

Nothing in life really matters. Eventually, we’ll all die. One day we’re born, one day we die. We know and understand everything that happens in between, but we have no knowledge of what has happened before or what will happen after. As a result, it’s really difficult to say what exactly the meaning or importance for us being here is. If we can’t tell how we came or where we came from, how can we know why we are here? All of these thoughts begin with one simple question: why? In many different religions, a deity made the entire universe and put us all in it, and whatever we do on this Earth will be used to determine when and how we spend eternity afterwards. All the religions of the world, all our scientific discovery, but yet the question “why” is one that we still cannot answer.

“Life is nothing more than a trip from the maternity ward to the crematorium.”

-Alan Wilson Watts

 Let’s take the half-full, half-empty water glass. Does it matter? Full or empty, good or bad, nothing matters. We will all die anyway. A billion trillion years later, our homeland, which we call earth, will be demolished by the expanding sun. We’ve come this far to calculate how much time human civilization is left with.

There is a book called Ikigai; the word ‘Ikigai’ means the purpose for which one gets up in the morning, in Japanese. It’s a state of well-being that comes from pursuing your purpose in life. Ikigai is a traditional Japanese thought. Several have described ikigai as a way of achieving a better and more fulfilling life. It’s the feeling of a life worth living. The state of ikigai commonly comes from devoting yourself to activities you like. The kind of activity that brings the sense of fulfillment. And this satisfaction comes from that activity’s connection to your larger sense of purpose in life and what you consider the meaning of existence. Ikigai is different from momentary pleasures. Ikigai produces joy, something more long-lasting, something worth living.

 

We humans have created things that give us a sense of purpose in life. We can’t avoid these: schools, taxes, bills, etc. We have created our own sufferings, which help our lives to have a purpose and keep on going. Suffering is quite difficult to deal with, but it could come to an end. Not death. Letting the attachments and desires go away, one can break the cycle of craving. When all cravings are gone, your soul is free from suffering, which eventually creates a state of enlightenment where you’re awake to the true nature of reality. This state is peaceful.

 

You can live a life that is more meaningful by letting go of the idea of a fixed permanent self, ego. The idea of 'me’ is just a collection of everchanging thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Once acknowledged, you're able to support your journey throughout the entire course of life. Your mind is the source of everything you will ever produce, and therefore you need to cultivate ethical and mental self-improvement practices. If you have thoughts filled with harmful intentions, work on changing that. How you speak needs to be aligned with the right intentions; speak with purpose. More importantly, you should speak truthfully and kindly. Words are one thing, but actions have always been the real test of intentions. On the path of life, you have to engage in actions that are not harmful and ethical. Don’t steal, kill, or engage in sexual conduct. You have to make a livelihood as you advance through your path. You’ll have to engage yourself in doing ethical work that you like to do. As you go down the path of life, you’ll understand that... nothing really matters. And yet you will convince yourself that everything matters.

Zadeed Haque

ID:24301071

ENG-101, Section-20

BRACU, CSE-Summer 2024