Craving appears and disappears; suffering comes and goes. Both stem from consciousness. They’re stories we tell ourselves to explain who we are, what’s happening and what we want. They aren’t objectively real, but neither is anything else that we can name.
By JL Pendall
There’s no hope in Buddhism (but there is).
By that I mean that there isn’t a matching Pali or Sanskrit term that perfectly mirrors “hope.” Since hope is a type of desire (tanha), it tends to get lumped in with unskillful traits like greed, lust, and jealousy. Even if I hope for everyone to have food, that’s still a worldly desire coming from my belief in separate selves and an attachment to existence and my beliefs.
There’s no hope in nirvana. It’s wishless and detached from worldly opinions and goals. You could find a check for a million dollars, and then get scammed out of every cent, and react to them in the same way. All achievements are impermanent. Utopia is impossible.
Thankfully, that’s not all there is to Buddhism. Hope can also be chanda, saddha and bodhicitta.
Chanda is wholesome intent. It’s “May,” as in, “May all beings be at peace,” and, “May I avoid harming others.” Chanda is mindfully aimed at selfless, ethical, utilitarian goals.
Saddha is usually translated as faith or trust. It’s mainly about having hope in the Path, but it can extend to all living beings. It’s necessity. “It has to be this way,” “This is all part of it,” “It’s all leading to enlightenment. You have hope that things will work out as they should for everyone, and that each hiccup along the Path is part of practice.
Bodhicitta is the intense hope that all beings will be enlightened. Many say that Bodhicitta is really enlightenment in itself. This type of hope brings us closer together by helping us to set aside our fears and longings. It replaces all other hopes, gathering the mind and elevating our everyday actions from mundane to sacred.
So, in typical fashion, Buddhism redirects us toward selfless and immaterial goals.
“I hope my political party wins,” isn’t Buddhist hope. “I hope that whomever wins will be wise and enlightened,” is Buddhist hope.
That doesn’t mean that all Buddhists sit idly by as the world burns. They’re guided by the Dharma, and it guides them to donating to causes, protecting the vulnerable, and resisting systematic injustice. Many monks protested the Vietnam War. They did it without picking a political ideology. They sided with peace and with those who were suffering. They resisted out of hope that all sides would be free of hatred, greed and ignorance.
Things can get more diverse if we approach hope from a Mahayana perspective.
A Mahayanist could agree with everything I just said, and yet also still hope for worldly things. That’s because emptiness (Sunyata) is universal. Samsara and nirvana are equally empty. There’s no objective craving and loss, so no objective end to them. No suffering. No ignorance. No enlightenment.
At the same time, there is. Craving appears and disappears; suffering comes and goes. Both stem from consciousness. They’re stories we tell ourselves to explain who we are, what’s happening and what we want. They aren’t objectively real, but neither is anything else that we can name. All that we can see, hear, think and feel are particular mental representations of a universal, holistic reality. Even though they aren’t actually real, they are practically real. This lets the Mahayanist transcend the imaginary divide between Buddhas and ordinary people.
They can hope for everyone to have food while also being aware that food, hunger, hope, and all beings are empty. That’s Bodhicitta fully actualized.
I don’t know where I stand anymore, and I don’t think that I really need to figure it out. Hope isn’t goal-oriented for me. It’s a feeling I get when I remember that everything changes, and I’m here to witness and partake in perpetual change. What’s true today will eventually be false. Any identity I claim will one day split at the seams, and all my visions for myself and the world will crumble to ruins before laying the first brick.
That’s a good thing. It’s good because there’s nothing worse than getting what you want and then realizing that it’s not enough. My hope is for moments, for us to find temporary refuges along the storm where we can meet, share and grow before moving on to the next outpost. The storm and the refuge are both the Dharma.
We needn’t let go of everything. Just what we can’t carry.
Can you carry the world’s suffering? Can you hold all of the hate and despair without being crushed by it? Can you carry the mundane despair of domestic life? Does it give your days purpose and provide refuge? If so, carry it, and find peace in the fact that you chose to carry it. Then it’s no longer a burden or a shackle. It isn’t tanha or attachment. It’s your practice.
And it will change.
Photo: Pixabay
Editor: Dana Gornall
The Tattooed Buddha is looking for articles on Hope for the month of November. Would you like to be a part of it? Send us your words to: editor@thetattooedbuddha.com. See submission guidelines here.
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