The Good, The Bad, and The Boring

One of the main reasons I'm attracted to the Buddhist way of thinking and acting is that it seems so attainable to the common man.  And there's no God, per se, no one telling you what to do and what not to do and if you don't do it or you do it, depending on the rule for that particular behavior, you're going to get a lot of really good stuff or look out for the Lake of Fire and this is an everlasting Lake of Fire - I don't think anyone would be excited about a brief dip in the Lake of Fire let alone burning there forever and ever and ever.  And I'm not sure that there are very many experts in Buddhism.  There isn't this pastoral class that has to learn everything found in the texts of dubious provenance and then tell you when you're following the rules or you aren't following the rules.  I mean .  .  . c'mon . . . does anyone really believe that books that are two or three thousand years old, that have been passed along orally or transcribed by the few people who could read and write and undoubtedly had agendas of their own from time to time and even if they didn't it seems plausible they'd make a mistake from time to time and who would know because no one else could read or write that these books are word for word from the books that were found in burning bushes or given to pilgrims living on locusts in the desert?

Here's this:  "No matter how hard you pursue pleasure and success, there are times when you fail.  No matter how fast you flee, there are times when pain catches up with you.  And in between those times, life is so boring you could scream.  We have built walls all around ourselves and are trapped in the prison of our own likes and dislikes.  We suffer.  Suffering is a big word in Buddhist thought.  'The essence of life is suffering,' said the Buddha.  Take any moment when you feel really fulfilled and examine it closely.  Down under the joy, you will find that subtle, all-pervasive undercurrent of tension, that no matter how great this moment is, it is going to end.  No matter how much you just gained, you are either going to lose some of it or spend the rest of your days  guarding what you have got and scheming how to get more."

People have a tendency to divide their experiences into three categories: Good, Bad, and Boring.  We chase the Good, we run from the Bad, and we tolerate - barely - the Boring.  There's not much there that sounds good to me.  Bleak is the word that comes to mind.

But wait . . . "There's a completely different way to look at the universe.  It is a level of functioning where the mind does not try to freeze time, where we do not grasp onto our experience as it flows by, where we do not try to block things out and ignore them.  It is a level of experience beyond good and bad, beyond pleasure and pain.  It is a lovely way to perceive the world, and it is a learnable skill.  It is not easy, but it can be learned."