But, what can you do about your suffering?

‎"The more we allow ourselves to be the servants of having, the more we shall let ourselves fall prey to the gnawing anxiety which having involves"

- Gabriel Marcel

every once in a while the feeling that i've gorged myself at the great dining table of materialism until my sides are fit to burst overtakes the desire and craving which, until this point, has driven me forward. i will stand in that modern cathedral - the retail outlet, money in my pocket, craving still present...and yet, i literally can not be bothered. a mixture of apathy and nausea to the whole process kicks in and i walk out, pockets empty, having failed my capitalist masters.
the real sickness though isn't the nausea i feel at those times towards the process. it's that i can actually afford to be stood in that store in the first place, and reach a stage where ultimately my apathy stems from over-consumption. the fact of it is that i simply don't know and never have known what it truly is to need something, to live hand-to-mouth worrying about how you're going to make it through the next day or even next hour.

we can dress it up as a modern problem by referring to it exclusively as consumerism and mention that society is precisely geared towards this mode of work,consumption, death, ad infinatum. certainly it's a valid point and one i could blather on about quite happily for hours (to no real avail, point or purpose other than liking the sound of my own voice) but of course we know the problem lies deeper than just product consumption. i think ultimately we're all just so busy running around looking to fill the empty gap in our lives - be it through products, drugs, sex, whatever - that we never pause and take stock to realise the ephemeral and fleeting nature of it all. we grasp and it's gone and we carry on blindly.

i think Marcel's quote nails it succinctly on the head - there's a gnawing anxiety, not only in the delusion that we don't have enough or that what we do have we must protect and defend (and herein lies the distinct disadvantage of private property - Proudhon knew all too well "property is theft"), but crucially in the deep down knowledge we like to mask and shout over that none of it actually ever succeeds in filling that gap.

if we're asking how to break free of such a servitude though, i think further comments from Kiyozawa hold sway paticularly for the nembutsu-sha -

"Demand not. Seek not. What discontentment can you possibly have? If you are discontent, isn't that a sign of distrust? Hasn't Heaven endowed you with all you need? Even if you feel that endowment falls short of your needs, can you find contentment in anything other than what Heaven has decreed? If you suffer from feelings of discontentment, you must further cultivate yourself  so that you may learn to be content with the Mandate of Heaven. It is base to demand from others. It is servile to seek in others. That is to despise the endowment of Heaven. Certainly, the Mandate of Heaven is unaffected by your ingratitude. But, what can you do about your suffering?"

- this opens up a whole other dimension because i believe Kiyozawa isn't just referring here to the material but also to the spiritual. it's not only in our wordly life that desire and attachment dominate as habitual tendencies, but are also carried over into our spiritual life (although i acknowledge the dichotomy between the two is an ill-founded one). attainments, progression, favour with the teacher, praise...all of these blind us to what Dharma can and does give us freely, beyond such petty chasings after. but that perhaps, is another topic for another post.

namu amida butsu

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