By Kate Savage
Here is a quote from Gregory Kramer’s book A Whole Life Path: A Lay Buddhist’s Guide to Crafting a Dhamma-Infused Life that I used in my talk on the precept against misusing sexuality. The recording of my talk on November 5, 2021 can be found on the Dharma Talks page of this website.
The Human Predicament
You and I are so sensitive. Virtual clouds of nerves wrapped in skin, we are drawn to or repelled by every touch. The slightest changes of light trigger responses in the eyes; the slightest changes of air pressure alert the ears to the unexpected. Molecules from afar touch the nose; those nearby touch the tongue. Electrochemical changes in the brain register as thoughts that touch the mind. And when what contacts our senses is perceived as another person, neural and hormonal processes that evolved with the brain itself activate. All these things are happening right now, as you read these words.
Your sensitivities and mine are meeting right here.
This is how we meet the whole world. Placed in an environment in constant change, we organisms seek air, food, safety, and the comfort of others. Affection and loneliness, competition and fear, anger and isolation join the sharp and soft touches of the material world. But that world is out of our control. Hungers drive us, but we can’t have what we want. The fragility of the body assures a constant flow of pleasure and pain, injury and illness, aging and loss. We feel belonging and isolation, protected and traumatized. This sensitive life culminates in our own death and the death of those we love.
The body-mind’s sensitivity is the seedbed of longings and their occasional gratification. The entire organism tenses against the world’s sensory and social onslaught, hungering in vain for stability and settling instead for temporary pleasant stimulation. We interweave with others to satisfy cravings and enhance protection; relationships and groups also become loci of action. Pings of pleasure cause a reflexive grasping as we struggle, individually and collectively, to hold on to what we like and avoid what we don’t like.
This tension forms into a core sense of self, an “I” or a “we” that would be protected and satisfied. The self’s appetite keeps us off balance as it clings to one thing (or person or group) and then another. Gripped by its project of satisfaction and becoming, the body-mind is blind to the fact that its suffering is self-inflicted.
There are no moments, no events, no interactions, no relationships that do not affect the body-mind. Every thought and action, here and now, combines with all we have done and said to determine the direction and tenor of our individual lives and society as a whole. Learning, memory, and family and cultural conditioning collude to form how we perceive the world. There is no moment when we, as individuals and as a society, are not navigating the body-mind’s responses to the world, because every moment conditions the next.
The question is, how are we navigating these responses? If we choose to let wisdom guide us, our responses are intentional and our movement through this life is conscious. If we choose to ignore our power to learn, our responses are habitual, and our movement through life is unconscious. Depending upon which choice we make, there is suffering or there is peace; there is cruelty or harmlessness.