Pain, Independence, and the Discovery of Consciousness

IV

 

Pain, Independence, and the Discovery of Consciousness

Manifest existence is association with the force of conditionality.
The inherent circumstance of manifest existence is change, temporariness,
limitation, struggle with opposites, search for happiness, motivation toward
release, and attachment to what is neither ultimate nor necessary.

As a consequence of all of this, the manifest being tends
toward bewilderment, stress, obsessive craving, frustration, anger, sorrow,
fear, depression, disease, pain, unhappiness, inertia, and death.

In the midst of all of this, the mind tends to develop
the psychology of the problem. Manifest existence tends to be conceived
as a problem to be overcome. And thus the language of religious or spiritual
consideration tends to be associated with this problem-consciousness, and
religious or spiritual practice tends, therefore, to develop as a strategy
for overcoming and ultimately eliminating pain, suffering, change, and
even manifest existence itself.

 

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