Eight Worldly Winds II

At our last meeting, a question came up related to the Christian concept of original sin. This topic comes up quite often in Rhode Island groups, as there are many who grew up Catholic and we have many who often describe themselves as “lapsed, former, or recovering.” (Their words, not mine.)

Thanks to one of the members of our group for a response, bringing in the concept of Original Innocence, our condition prior to Original Sin, and the concept of Sin as a “turning away” from God’s being.

The Buddhist understanding is that we all possess an inherent goodness, an essential quality of our true nature. However, our habitual patterns of thinking and reacting “turn us away” from our essential being, our spacious, aware, and compassionate nature.

In the Lokavipatti Sutta of the Buddhist Scriptures, the Buddha talks about the Eight Worldly Winds that blow us around and create our suffering. There are 4 pairs of conditional experiences where we are either trying to cling to one of the conditions or trying to reject or push one of the others away. This clinging and suppressing, seeking and rejecting is the basic cause of our suffering.

See if you can recognize, from your own experience, your desire to hold on to one of the following pairs and reject the other, with thanks to Buddhist teacher, Judy Lief for the comments.

1 & 2: Happiness vs. Suffering [Pleasure vs. Pain]

Once we have happiness, fear arises, for we are afraid to lose it. When suffering arises, no amount of wishful thinking makes it go away. The more we hope for it to be otherwise, the more pain we feel.

3 & 4: Fame vs. Insignificance [Success vs. Failure]

We are obsessed with fame and afraid of our own insignificance. When it dawns on us how hard we need to work to be seen as someone special, our fear of insignificance is only magnified.

5 & 6: Praise vs. Blame

We need to be pumped up constantly or we begin to have doubts about our worth. When we are not searching for praise, we are busy trying to cover up our mistakes so we don’t get caught.

7 & 8: Gain vs. Loss

Just as we are about to congratulate ourselves on our success, the bottom falls out. Over and over, things are hopeful one moment and the next they are not, and in either case we are anxious.

These eight conditions form the hills and valleys of the roller coaster of our suffering lives. Getting caught in this cycle is the ‘turning away’ from our true nature, that is always present.