Noah Levine is an imposing-looking man with a shaved head and lots of tattoos. He wrote about his sketchy youth in his memoir, Dharma Punx—and the title of his new book, The Heart of the Revolution, positions him as a provocateur and critic of conventional society. But he is also soft-spoken, compassionate, effective, and solidly traditional in his presentation of Buddhism. And that is precisely what makes him a real revolutionary, because what is more radical than the teachings of the Buddha, which tell us that pretty much the whole way we see reality is wrong. Here Levine takes on our very instinct to survive.
don’t sleep on reality; it’s time to wipe the dust from our eyes
Here we are, human beings, living with the consequences of having been born. I assume that most of you know the basic truths of existence, but I would like to offer an overview anyway, as a reminder to some and as a revelation to others.
We are born into a mind/body/heart process ruled by a psychological/biological/emotional survival instinct that is out of harmony with reality. The normal condition of human beings is a sleeplike state of nonwisdom. The evolutionary process of human beings is dictated by a natural desire to live and to pursue happiness. But our survival instinct, which is controlled by the mind/body, keeps alive an unrealistic hope for a life that is always pleasurable and never painful. Our bodies naturally crave pleasure, which we think equals happiness, safety, and survival. Conversely, we hate pain, which we think equals unhappiness and death. We are constantly ruled by this survival instinct, meeting each pain with aversion and each pleasure with attachment. Does this sound familiar so far?
The problems here are numerous. Our natural lust for pleasure and hatred of pain help us survive for as long as circumstances and the body’s impermanence allow. In that sense we are dependent on our base cravings to survive. They are not the enemy; they are a necessary function of life. But that’s all they are: as we know all too well, a life lived chasing pleasure and running from pain leads only to more and more suffering and confusion. Our survival instinct does not grant us happiness, only temporary survival. A life based on craving and aversion is a miserable existence at best; at times it becomes downright unbearable.
INSTINCT VERSUS IMPERMANENCE
The reason that our survival instinct sometimes leads us into misery is that it runs up against the truth of impermanence. We are born into a mind/body process that is constantly changing and a world that is constantly changing. Everything is impermanent—every pleasure, every pain, every body. But our survival instinct craves permanence and control. The body wants pleasure to stay forever and pain to go away forever. This is the very cause of attachment and aversion. The fact of impermanence leads to a generalized dissatisfaction. We are constantly struggling with loss: grieving the cessation of each experience and trying in vain to create stability out of transience. And yet happiness and stability are not our birthright. Loss and grief come as unavoidable consequences of birth.
When we attach to impermanent objects—sensations, thoughts, feelings, people, places, things—we are always left with the stress and grief of loss, because everything around us is always changing; it is always being pulled beyond our reach. Our grasping, our fighting against impermanence, results in loss and the suffering that comes with trying to hold on to the constantly changing reality. It’s rather like trying to play tug-of-war with a much stronger opponent: when we begin to lose, as we always will, we can choose to let go or to hold on and receive the “rope burns” of attachment. The survival instinct tells us to hold on; the Buddha urges us to let go.
Our survival instinct gives us bad advice not just with attachment but also with aversion. When we meet unpleasant experiences with aversion, as our instinct tells us to do, we are causing them to last longer than they need to. All unpleasant thoughts, feelings, and sensations are impermanent; trying to push them away is futile and results in stress, anger, and suffering. It’s as if with our aversion we created a dam in the flow of experience. Rather than letting impermanence do its job, we block the passing of the pain. We do this in a variety of ways—through suppression, avoidance, ignoring, self-medicating, or hardening the heart and closing down to life. Again, as a survival instinct aversion is necessary—we have to hate pain to survive—but it doesn’t leave us with much freedom or happiness. When it comes to aversion, the survival-based life is a life of fear and loathing. Our instincts tell us to hate pain and try to get rid of it; the Buddha urges us to meet pain with mercy and compassion.
Now, I am not suggesting that we just accept every painful experience that life presents us or that we should never try to avoid pain or seek pleasure. Not at all. What I’m saying is that there is a lot of unpleasantness in life that is simply unavoidable. Our instinct fails to acknowledge that fact and tries to avoid all unpleasantness. That is impossible, but by all means avoid what you can. Likewise, enjoy pleasure as often as it is appropriate. As we practice meditation and live an ethical life, it will become more and more clear when it is time to accept the pains or enjoy the pleasures and when it is wise to refrain or avoid. The Buddha teaches us that it is possible to live a balanced life—that is, a life that enjoys pleasure without clinging to it and that meets unavoidable pain with tenderness and care. I call this nonattached appreciation and compassionate response-ability.
We can all concede, at the thought level, that everything is impermanent; there is always going to be some level of difficulty and dissatisfaction in life. However, the mind/body tends to take this all very personally. This is because the evolved human condition has resulted in a brain that creates a self. The sense of being a permanent, fixed identity—a self—is a construction of the mind/body. Each one of us is a constantly evolving and unfolding process, not a fixed identity. This aspect of reality—that is, our own changing nature—seems to be at odds with the human survival instinct, so the mind creates a fixed identity that takes everything personally and clings to the notion of “I,” “me,” and “mine.” But this solution is based on ignorance and a lack of investigation. Believing in a permanent self is like believing in a permanent rainbow. We all know that rainbows are temporary optical illusions based on the factors of sunlight, moisture, and heat. The environment creates each rainbow like the mind creates a self. Both creations are relatively real, in that we can genuinely experience them temporarily; but just as the factors that created the illusion (whether rainbow or self) arose, so will they also pass. There is no permanent self; there is no permanent rainbow. It is not true to say that there is no self at all or that everything is empty or illusory, but it is true that everything is constantly changing and that there is no solid, permanent, unchanging self within the process that is life. Everything and everyone is an unfolding process. Meditation can help us see that more fluid aspect of being.
Those of us who seek guidance through the practices of Buddhism are not trying to escape the human condition or the pleasures and pains of the human mind/body. Our job is to live an embodied and fully human life. What the meditative life offers—what the Buddha encourages—is a path to transforming our relationship to ourselves and the world.
Mindfulness is one of the keys. By bringing wise attention to the present-time experiences of being, we begin to respond more skillfully to each moment. We begin to see that resistance is futile and that our only hope is to respond to the truth of life with greater acceptance and compassion. The Buddha offers us a very practical guide for being wise and compassionate people. He teaches a humanistic psychosocial shift in consciousness and action. We are asked to embrace life as it is and to respond wisely to the reality we encounter. Buddhism should never be seen as an escapist or life-denying approach to living. It is simply a better way to live—a way that maximizes happiness and minimizes suffering.