In this four-part series, a Christian seminary professor and scholar of Buddhism explains how the Buddha’s teaching has made him a keener observer of the human condition, particularly the aging process. The four posts of this blog series move through (1) the author’s academic study of Buddhism and love of basketball, (2) the story of Prince Siddhartha becoming the Buddha, (3) the Buddha’s teaching, and (4) what the author has learned from the Buddha about the human condition.
Post #4: Ready to Let Go
In the first post of this blog series, I noted what professional athlete Kobe Bryant said of his obsessive love for basketball: “I’m ready to let you go.” I also wrote, “It took Kobe Bryant many years to realize that obsessive clinging to something we can’t keep within our grasp causes us suffering or existential stress, so we must let it go.” The third post of this blog series alerted us to the Noble Truths implied in that sentence. Kobe Bryant was not a Buddhist adherent. My sense is that he qualified as what Thomas Tweed calls a Buddhist sympathizer who incorporated mindfulness into his personal and professional life. As he grew older, he became a keener observer of the human condition.
Kobe Bryant Dunk, pencil by Afroafrican, Alexandra Walt. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/134693505@N04/19510219329/in/photostream/.
I too have become a keener observer of the human condition as I grow older, with the help of the Buddha’s teaching. Applying the parable of the Four Passing Sights, Damien Keown suggests, “If the Buddha were alive today he would see the four signs all around: every elderly person, every hospital, and every funeral would bespeak the brevity and fragility of life, while every church and religious minister would be testimony to the belief that a religious solution to these problems can be found.” I have witnessed the dukkha of human life in more hospital rooms and funeral parlors than I ever wanted to visit. Recently I looked in the mirror and saw an elderly person. And I have deeply pondered the way to liberation from the dire realities of the human condition.
Basketball is life, I’ve heard it said, though I suspect the saying usually does not penetrate very deeply into the existential reality of life. I’ve learned more about life than basketball, but basketball is one of the most frustratingly apt symbols of what I’ve learned. “Aging is stressful,” said the Buddha. “Not getting what is wanted is stressful.” Not hitting my bread-and-butter fifteen-foot jump shot because my legs are tired stresses me. My mind telling my body to do something that I used to be able to do on the court, and my body saying, “You must be kidding,” stresses me. I am clinging to something that is slipping out of my grasp, and I can’t do anything to stop the slippage.
But I can do something about the stress, the dukkha. All I must do is let go, stop clinging to what I once was, and I will open up to what I am now. And I will not be stressed about what is inevitably coming down the line—defeat by Father Time, the only unbeaten competitor in sports.
The Buddha’s Second Noble Truth says that my taṇhā, my unquenchable “thirst,” my unsatisfiable “craving,” my unfulfillable “desire” tethers me to saṃsāra. I don’t need to believe in saṃsāra to gain wisdom from the Second Noble Truth or from other aspects of the Buddha’s teaching. Intellectually, it is a no-brainer to admit that I cause a great deal of my existential stress, if not all of it. Living out of that understanding—well, that’s a different story. Ask me the next time I miss a fifteen-foot jump shot. Look in on me when my body will no longer allow me to take the court, to make sure I’m alright in mind and spirit. It has been said that athletes die twice, the first time when their playing days come to an end. If I make it through that “death,” let’s see how well I face the real thing.
The cause of the Buddha’s own death has generated some interesting scholarly debate. A metalworker named Cunda served him a meal of sukara-maddava, which has something to do with pigs. The debate is whether it was pig meat (I concur with this view) or something that pigs eat. In any case, after the meal, “a dire sickness fell upon him, even dysentery, and he suffered sharp and deadly pains.” It turned out to be the Buddha’s last meal.
Out of compassion, the Buddha called his beloved disciple Ananda to his side and instructed him to stave off any remorse Cunda might have. He wanted Cunda to know that two meals in his life exceeded all others: the meal he ate before he became enlightened and the meal Cunda served him before he would enter fully into Nirvana through death. Tell him, “By his deed the worthy Cunda has accumulated merit which makes for long life, beauty, well being, glory, heavenly rebirth, and sovereignty.” (Mahaparinibbana Sutta, transl. Sister Vajira and Francis Story)
I joke that I don’t eat pork because two religions prohibit it (Judaism and Islam) and the founder of a third died from it. All joking aside, if someone contributes to my impending death someday, I hope I will exhibit such compassion toward them.
Contributed by Paul David Numrich. Numrich is Professor in the Snowden Chair for the Study of Religion and Interreligious Relations, Methodist Theological School in Ohio. His publications include Old Wisdom in the New World: Americanization in Two Immigrant Theravada Buddhist Temples (University of Tennessee Press, 1996), Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs in America: A Short History (co-author, Oxford University Press, 2008), and North American Buddhists in Social Context (editor and contributor, Brill and the Association for the Sociology of Religion, 2008).