I really like the Buddhist take, the three poisons. Greed, hatred, and ignorance.
There are a lot of different ways to state each one, but damn if those don’t sound like the RGB components of the varied spectrum of shit we have going on in the world.
In this context, greed refers to excessive attachment: “I want [thing], so when I can’t have [thing], I suffer.”
Hatred refers to excessive resistance: “I don’t want [thing], so when I must have [thing], I suffer.”
Ignorance refers to delusion, specifically about the origin of suffering and the means to its end. “I’m suffering because I can’t have the things that I want, and I must have the things that I don’t want.” When really the true reason we suffer is because we’re attached to the things we can’t have, and we resist the things we must have.
In a broader sense, the “delusion” part is about the nature of reality itself. We expect permanence when everything is actually transient. I eat an ice cream cone, and then it’s gone. I enjoy the weather, and the next day it rains. I have a friend, and then we part ways. I have a house, but without constant repairs, it decays. All loved ones will someday die. I too will some day die, and this body will decompose and become dirt. In a word, life is entropy.
So if we think the means to escape suffering is to seek pleasure and avoid pain, we’ll be doomed to suffer forever. The true means to overcome suffering is to transcend pleasure and pain, to maintain equanimity throughout the cycles of samara: to feel transient pleasure without becoming attached to it, and to feel transient pain without resisting it. Only then can we overcome suffering.
The seven sins can all be boiled down to just greed.
Lust: greed for sex/love
Sloth: greed for relaxation
Envy: greed for other people’s things
Wrath: greed for violence
Gluttony: greed for sustenance
Pride: greed for affirmation
Greed: greed for money (though avarice is a better word)
I really like the Buddhist take, the three poisons. Greed, hatred, and ignorance.
There are a lot of different ways to state each one, but damn if those don’t sound like the RGB components of the varied spectrum of shit we have going on in the world.
In this context, greed refers to excessive attachment: “I want [thing], so when I can’t have [thing], I suffer.”
Hatred refers to excessive resistance: “I don’t want [thing], so when I must have [thing], I suffer.”
Ignorance refers to delusion, specifically about the origin of suffering and the means to its end. “I’m suffering because I can’t have the things that I want, and I must have the things that I don’t want.” When really the true reason we suffer is because we’re attached to the things we can’t have, and we resist the things we must have.
In a broader sense, the “delusion” part is about the nature of reality itself. We expect permanence when everything is actually transient. I eat an ice cream cone, and then it’s gone. I enjoy the weather, and the next day it rains. I have a friend, and then we part ways. I have a house, but without constant repairs, it decays. All loved ones will someday die. I too will some day die, and this body will decompose and become dirt. In a word, life is entropy.
So if we think the means to escape suffering is to seek pleasure and avoid pain, we’ll be doomed to suffer forever. The true means to overcome suffering is to transcend pleasure and pain, to maintain equanimity throughout the cycles of samara: to feel transient pleasure without becoming attached to it, and to feel transient pain without resisting it. Only then can we overcome suffering.