In which Wolf discusses one of the weird ways we trick ourselves into putting off the most important things in our lives. Watch this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/UQDEMONx7I4
In my last video I mentioned that I consider Buddhism to be more a philosophy than a religion. A big part of why I think this way is that Gautama Buddha, the name of the supposedly historical figure who later became known as The Buddha, didn't seem concerned with matters of the afterlife, or reincarnation, or where we were before our birth, or where we go after our death. The Buddha was super focused on what can be done about human suffering in the here and now.
So here's another Buddhist parable I love that captures the urgency of dealing with your life, as it is, right now.
A monk was troubled by Buddha's silence on the "fourteen unanswerable questions," which include queries about the nature of the cosmos and life after death. He meets the Buddha and asks him for the answers to these questions, and says that if he fails to respond, the monk will renounce his teachings.
The Buddha pauses, and then starts by stating that he never promised to reveal ultimate metaphysical truths such as those. Then he says...
"It's just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives immediately bring him with a surgeon to remove the deadly arrow.
But the man says, 'Stop! I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a priest, a merchant, or a worker.'
He goes on, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me...
until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short...
until I know whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-colored...
until I know his home village, town, or city...
until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a long bow or a crossbow...
until I know whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark...
until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was wild or cultivated...
until I know whether the feathers of the shaft with which I was wounded were those of a vulture, a stork, a hawk, a peacock, or another bird...
until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was bound with the sinew of an ox, a water buffalo, a langur, or a monkey...'
He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.'
And the man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him."
I see so many people in the world wasting their precious life energy on things they can't know and can't do anything about, and letting their lives right now slip away from them. I've sometimes called this "holy apathy", with people treating this life like some sort of rehearsal for another life yet to come.
And I'm not only talking about organized religion. I have friends and relatives who go down conspiracy theory rabbit holes, or new age ideas about lizard people and twelve strand DNA, or even the holy church of the all-consuming video game.
Do any of them seem more fulfilled for these pursuits? Not really, because they're always betting on the future that hasn't quite arrived and (though they'll never admit it) may never arrive. They're sacrificing what they have now: their real relationships and wonderful difference they could be making in to prophecies given by prophets who— let's face it— have an awful track record.
The Buddha basically told the monk that he was wasting his precious remaining time demanding answers to the unanswerable, and that doing so was like insisting a poison arrow remain lodged in your body: it increases your suffering and shortens your existence without yielding anything positive. Buddha's teachings were about getting the arrow out without delay.
Personally, I think it's the ultimate teaching about dealing with procrastination. Every time you put off something important and real and immediate for something trivial and intangible and remote, it's like demanding to know what bird's feathers were used to make the arrow.
Really, why should you care? What about THE DAMNED ARROW?
But what do you think? Let me know in the comments, and if you’re serious about thinking better and helping others as well, check out my unique software for problem solving and creating real improvement at FlyingLogic.com.
See you tomorrow!