Buddhism

In the video we watched in class, the monk Thich Nhat Hanh said regarding this concept that “Our suffering comes from our wrong perceptions…when you remove wrong perceptions, you remove the suffering…ideas like being and non-being, birth and death, coming and going are wrong ideas…ultimate reality is free from birth, from death, from coming and going, from being and non-being.” Our concept of individuality, according to the Buddhist tradition, is a wrong perception that only contributes to our suffering. If we want to eliminate this suffering, then we have to eliminate the wrong perceptions, or views, in our lives. Once we are able to accomplish this, then we are able to see how everything is connected to everything else; how there is no separation, no individualization, everything, in essence, just is. While this idea may seem like removing oneself from the picture, so to speak, and this leading to removing one’s values and aspirations from the picture as well,this is not necessarily the case. If we are acting in accordance with the Buddhist tradition we are not removing ourselves entirely from the picture, but rather, we are getting rid of the concept of ourselves as individuals, as separate entities from the world and from those things that surround us in our daily lives. Our values and aspirations still come across through the ways that we choose to act; however, we must choose to be cognizant of the fact that these ideas should not be merely limited to ourselves, but should be able to be applied universally.