cessation

[This is a bit bodged together for now due to tiredness.]

I will combine the third and fourth noble truths. The third is that the cessation of suffering is the cessation of craving; the lowering of dvar.

The fourth is how the buddha taught to go about this:

“Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it is this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration”

I will write separate articles for each of these as they require some explanation. The overall gist is that they all improve your brain chemistry in a direct and measurable manner, and you need to do them *before* you need them. They need to be habits of thought that you have trained your mind to; you can’t just use them like a fire extinguisher. And they are all just facets of the same thing, in many ways.

Our evolutionary drive for survival is the strongest of the lot, so you cannot hope to lower global-dvar while you are in fight or flight mode. It does not matter if the danger is real or imaginary; to your self or to your self-image. Even wanting to scratch an itch is a fairly hard hurdle to train your dvar against. Easier, lower-stakes targets are the place to build your muscles, and then you have less urge to scratch in the first place.

Right view:

Understanding how all this fits together and how you evolved to feel good if you make other people feel good. It is an evolutionary prerogative to protect the species; it’s as simple as that. (Almost) every action you take to help another person will reward you with dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. If they criticise you or things turn out not-as-planned, you know you acted in accordance to your better side, so you can hopefully sleep soundly.

Right intention:

This is the internal projection of the aforementioned charity. Just having a good intention has a similar effect on your brain chemistry as doing a good deed. This might be hard to intuit, but how about the opposite? Having an intention to take somebody down or do them harm will tend to tie your stomach in knots and you will suffer because of it. You will install bad mods.

Right speech:

This is an extension of the above. Swearing is fine; talk to your audience. It’s nothing so superficial as words: it's intent. Do not gossip. Do not play people against people. These things will all eat you up and if you try to manipulate you will always be mind-reading instead of living life.

However it is also talking about accuracy of facts. Do not fake knowledge because it will come and bite you in the ass. Karma! But also do not lie with selfish intent, do not partake in hate-speech, do not rage on twitter. They will all harm your sim, and harm you, not to mention harming others. I openly admit that this is just my interpretation and invite all feedback if anyone has ways to change or improve it.

Oh, and remember to listen. I'm working on this one.

Right action:

Behave in a way that helps yourself and your community. Do not kill, steal or abuse. You will become a filtered reality of greed and hate. Do not partake of intoxicants too much. How I partook of intoxicants, and how much better I feel for not doing so any more. These things will all spike your dvar, which will cause you suffering and hurt others in turn.

Right livelihood:

Do not sell weapons, kill living beings, sell intoxicants, or sell poison, I believe he said. Better yet, do the opposite. Try to find a way to earn a living where you are helping people. You will sleep better at night and have a better sim. Personal experience would also say to avoid high-pressure jobs because they will drive your global-dvar right the way up and normal life will become bland and uninteresting. And I think poison can be extended to poison of the mind, which is so common in our connected age.

Right effort:

Try toward all of these things. Try to be a good person who recognises that their brain chemistry improves when they are honest and help others, but do not neglect yourself. Do not go in for austerities too much, and do not go in for baubles either. Neither of them will satisfy. You are walking the middle path, and sometimes you will stray to one side or another. That is ok, so long as you know your effort is earnest. Nobody is perfect.

Right mindfulness:

Be aware of how you feel throughout the day and in as many situations as possible. I love how often the buddha says ‘a bhikku will be mindful when he defecates’. Try to observe yourself. When you have a certain thought, does it make you happy or sad? Even if it’s a thought that makes you happy at first, if you take it too far, how do you feel then? How does this person make you feel? Why? How do you make yourself feel? Why? Just keep an eye on it; you don’t need to try to change it. This is building knowledge and equanimity.

Right concentration:

The buddha meditated for hours every day and night until the day he died. He managed his dvar actively. He told his followers that it is a simple law of nature that if you expose yourself to sense-pleasures, your dvar will spike and you will begin to crave. But eating too much ice cream will also make your dvar spike to other things. I keep mentioning ice cream but actually my upgrade confirmed that ice cream was ok, so I don’t have this problem. But if I had a beer? Oh no no no. Never again. 

The buddha had likely upgraded so many times that every pleasure was to him as ice cream is to me. The way you upgrade, gradually or suddenly, is through the meditation techniques he laid out, and through the ones I laid out in the regulating dvar page. 

Remember that dvar is global and will always spike. It is how we learn. It is natural and not bad in-and-of-itself, but you need to manage it with regular practice of right concentration.

/jb202508252010