Preface

Sri Atmananda shows that it’s only by believing that thoughts can refer to real entities that there is suffering. This belief is, in fact, the source of all suffering.

Argument

1. There’s no suffering in just perceiving–in just seeing or in just hearing, for instance. (“The world”)

2. There’s no suffering in just sensing: that’s just tingling, vibrating energy. (“The body”)

3. There’s only the appearance of suffering in a subset of thoughts. For instance, the thought “2+2 = 4” has no suffering in it.

4. Only I-thoughts appear to be the cause of suffering. (“The mind”)

5. Look closely at any I-thought. Do you find reality (sat)–that is, independent existence–in the object referred to?

• For instance: the thought “I am alone.” A careful inspection reveals no referent.
  • It’s like a disembodied voice appearing in a vast, open emptiness or no-thing-ness.
    • That disembodied voice–look closely–doesn’t make contact with a body or with a mind–let alone “my” body or “my” mind.
    • Does the disembodied voice–I mean this arising–make contact with any object?
      • No, it just can’t. It’s jada–meaning: insentient, dumb, or inert.

6. Therefore, properly understood, there are no samskaras, or ego tendencies. There are only thoughts-arising, and each thought-arising only, as it were, touches itself.

7. Since there are no samskaras (or ego tendencies), there is, in the final analysis, no suffering at all.

8. But there aren’t, in fact, even thoughts-arising. There’s only awareness being itself.