Buddhist Suffering & The Constructivist Philosophy of Knowledge

Buddhism and human psychology seem to be linked more than one would think. Some of the themes in psychology tie themselves into Buddhism and there may be more crossover than appears at first glance.

My first exposure to the link between psychology and Buddhism was in Thoughts without a Thinker in this book, he links Buddhism to a Freudian view of psychology while I have a greater understanding of Buddhist ideas and concepts through the lens of constructivism.

Constructivism is a pill philosophy learning which was mainly brought on by Jean Piaget’s ideas of cognitive development. It is the idea that humans construct knowledge based on internal ideas and experiences rather than just passively learning it. It is the idea that knowledge & facts are not merely static instead we build knowledge into structures that change and adapt over time when new information is represented. Knowledge is not something that represents objective facts as they are, objective reality is far too complex to be understood in its entirety by us limited creatures, even something as firmly grounded in “objective truth” such as scientific facts can change and morph over time as new information is discovered. Due to the inherent complexity of reality of things our knowledge is constantly under external interference with the environment. The word is far too complex for us to be able to understand it all and in our attempts, to do so our knowledge is constantly under criticism by external factors. The first link between this philosophy and a core tenant of Buddhism presents itself here.

Life is suffering.

Craving

Due to the changing complexity of the world around us, there is a constant updating and morphing of our knowledge structures as our mind attempts to incorporate new and existing information together as it constructs its worldview. In this constant renewal of knowledge, we are constantly exposed to the fact that what we currently know isn’t enough or is wrong. In Buddhism, the use of the word dukkah is often translated as suffering but can also represent a state of dissatisfaction. We are constantly in this state as we contend with nature and reality and its tendency to expose our understanding as lacking or slightly inaccurate. The cause of dukkah is revealed in the Buddha’s Second Noble Truth. The Buddha states that thirst (desire/craving) is the root of all suffering. Thirst for what exactly? The root of all thirst is said to be found in the 3 poisons.

The Three Poisons

The 3 poisons are inherent flaws in every being. Greed (sensual attachment), Hatred (aversion), and Delusion (confusion). These 3 poisons are represented as a rooster a snake and a pig these animals are depicted biting at one another tails to form a circle. The 3 poisons are cyclical with any one feeding into the other two. I will tackle delusion as the first as it seems to provide a nice starting point for showing their cyclical nature.

Delusion refers to the delusion we have about reality. The knowledge structures that we already have, this idea that we are deluded in our understanding of the true nature of all things. As stated before everything is much more complex than we can understand so our human experience is very simplified and it is simplified most likely by the fact that we have emotions. If we think about it emotions serve as one of the most fundamental simplifications of the world around us. Drawing us towards and away from things of interest or danger. I spoke in another post about how emotions define our perception and what we direct our attention to consequently, the way we experience reality is simplified through this lens of emotion, which we can see more prominently in children who haven’t had the time, biological ability, physical experience, and social guidance to build up their structures of knowledge. Children are often more impulsive than adults and they possess a world view in which things tend to be black and white. It is therefore in our nature to act on our perception of the world as if it were the true objective reality. This is delusion in its purest form it spreads itself to every corner of our being and experience.

The poison of delusion can bring forth the other two. Our delusion brings about suffering due to the mismatch between our simplified knowledge of reality and the reality itself. Due to this feeling and pain caused by delusion, we begin to grow attached to things. We attach ourselves to our understanding and experience and desperately hold on to it because if it crumbles and falters we begin to realise things that we thought were previously true are not and this experience causes pain. If we stand on our knowledge as solid ground and then the ground crumbles from underneath us, it is only natural that we descend into the infinite unknown. There could be anything that lies between what we thought we knew and what is true. Imagine you lost your job, this causes many people anxiety because the job isn’t just a job it provides money and money gets you shelter, food, and warmth when we are presented with the possibility of losing all of this we become stressed, anxious, and upset. The most fundamental things we take to be firm and solid are now threatened and when reality begins to break down, the foundation we stand on and our fundamental understanding of the world is brought into question. This aversion to the pain and suffering felt is the driving factor behind greed which brings us nicely back around to the first principle of hatred

Hatred is our aversion to experiencing this loss of understanding which propels our attachment of our ideas or our greed for solid ground as we try to force the world around us into our limited worldview, which as a result further fuels delusion and the cycle continues.

The Three Marks

We move through the Buddhist wheel of life through this constant death and rebirth of our internal structures used to understand the world. The cycle of samsara can be seen as the Buddhist equivalent of our knowledge constantly being under criticism and changing. This cycle is what causes us suffering and it is further propelled by the 3 poisons. The Buddha further went on and proposed 3 characteristics that can be said to describe the true nature of reality. These 3 characteristics are known as the 3 marks of existence and are anicca, dukkah, and anatta. These state that things are impermanent (annica), life is suffering (dukkah) and that there is no soul (anatta). Acceptance of the true nature of these marks is what leads to the end of suffering. Impermanence means that everything is ever-changing the world around us changes. Suffering or dissatisfaction is the feeling we have as a result of this ever-changing nature. No soul means that there is no permanent or encapsulating essence of anything, so that it may be simplified and understood.

I prefer to think of the cessation of suffering as acceptance. Suffering is one of the marks of existence, it is a part of being. When we accept the nature of reality we invite a state of flexibility in which our minds are adaptable and our attachment to our internal structures melts away paving the path for constant evolution.