Growing up, many of us get enrolled in schools where they enforce different sets of rules, such as getting to class on certain times, not disrespecting teachers, or not watching porn on school-provided chromebooks. Some rules are not enforced explicitly but are kind of implied. Like nobody told me I can’t shove a kid in a girl's bathroom, but we developed a spidey sense when doing things that might get us into trouble. The rules here are mainly about creating a coherent community by having a set core belief system. And just like how each ant works with a set of rules for the thriving colony, these community rules help the community work together for goals greater than self.
As life goes on, we have curated an incredible spidey sense that can “read the room.” And even without anyone setting explicit rules, it can be felt when one is not cooperating with the implicit rule sets. However, as the community you exist in becomes bigger and more impersonal, this spidey sense that served us in the past becomes a burden. The community that you are part of consists largely of people that you have never met or people that you don’t share the same values with. It turns out, being a model citizen that follows all the spidey senses prevents one from being the keeper of their own flame. In other words, the spidey sense will at best only make you the best player in a random game set by others. This doesn’t sound too bad if we assume that the games being played are worthwhile. But oftentimes these games are pointless at best and outright harmful at worst. Being a model citizen often leads one to end up at the bottom of the hole with no way out. And the worst of all is the fact that one is often celebrated by society in the bottom of the hole, making it rewarding to stay there. It’s like a party being thrown by naked mole rats, everything is dark and dirty and everyone there is ugly and weird-looking, but they are all too blind to see.
My mom was watching a Japanese television show where celebrities were talking about the houses they recently bought. Showing off all the rooms of the house and their accessibility to the city. What got me the most was when they unironically talked about the loans for the houses ranging from 20 years, 30 years, and some for 90 years. The vibe of the TV show was celebrating the success indicated by purchasing a house for their families. And these loans that came with these purchases were seen as a nuisance. To me, all I saw in this show were all these people signing contracts that bind them to one location and to work for the rest of their life to keep paying for their voluntary bondage. Furthermore, to afford these houses, some of the locations took over an hour commute to get to work. Which shaves off more time off of spending time with their kids or having their own hobbies. I suspect that the only reward they get from this is the approval of their peers, who are all striving to get to this milestone of purchasing a better house than their peers. And this is how partying with naked mole rats in the dark hole manifests. It is always by playing a game following rules and desiring certain things to win the approval of fellow gamemates. In short, desire and social status are the recipe and the entrance fee into the hole party.
This is the danger of the hole, it is the fact that people stuck in the same hole will look up to you when you play by the rules and succeed. But it doesn’t end there, the status gained from the success leads you to dig deeper as there is always going to be someone with bigger houses. And god forbid, if you were to lose the house, how can you ever show your face to your peers. You thought they were your peers, but now you are doomed, drowning in beers and your tears. And before you know it, you won’t just be partying with the rats, you become the rat.
Like so, there is no end to the rat race. When confronted with a question, does this really matter? Is this what I am here on the Earth for? A typical naked mole rat will keep a blind eye and sniff around and conclude, well what else am I supposed to do? What they don’t realize is that a queen mole rat in the colony releases pheromones that make others infertile. These rats literally become slaves to the colony working day in and day out expanding the colony with no chance to leave their own offspring. So one's life gets spent digging the hole deeper and deeper and before you know it, your life is over and you have spent all your life like an infertile blind little naked mole rat. At least a fish in a small pond isn’t so weird-looking, a naked mole rat deep in the hole looks like a radioactive penis with sharp teeth.
You might be thinking, "Phew, thank god I am not partying with the naked mole rats, I am breathing fresh air every day in a nakedmoleratless world." I challenge you to think again, remember, naked mole rats are blind, they all think they are seeing the bigger picture. The holes are so abundant and indistinct you might not see it coming. Even if some holes are so obvious to you, others might sneak up on you. You might be in a hole inside of another hole. You might even be inside the vaginal hole of a preexisting naked mole rat ready to give birth, leaving the vaginal hole only to be born inside a deep hole.
This is what I think of when I think of Samsara, a Buddhist concept of being stuck in the cycle of birth and death(well, I don’t think of naked mole rat’s vagina, but you get the point). It’s so hard to escape Samsara because that’s all you know, and leaving the hole is venturing into the unknown and makes you feel so vulnerable and scared. At the end of the day, you are a mere blind little rat that is also naked. The wind on the bare skin sends chills down the spine. The sound of birds will make you shrink in fear, like thinking about financial freedom while having sex.
To illustrate the point that holes can be more subtle than Japanese celebrities buying mediocre homes with 90-year loans, let me paint a picture of the elusive nature of the hole. Bob is a very philosophical and spiritual person who others praise him for his open-mindedness. Bob knows the nature of the holes and tries to live consciously watching every step of the way. He knows that Instagram and social media alike thicken the status game that is played in the hole. He knows watching porn is just a manifestation of desire that leads to digging a deeper hole. Even though he gets distracted at times, like when he looks up yoga on YouTube to practice yoga but gets lost in the YouTube shorts video where hot girls are stretching with barely any clothes on sending prana to Bob’s sacral chakra(that’s a topic for another day), he learns from his mistakes. Every chance he gets, he helps people in need and tries to spread positive energy. He is a humble man that keeps watchful eyes out for desires and social games that creep up on him. Bob too, however, is a dweller of the underworld, without him realizing it.
Where did he go wrong? Well, he seeks to understand, he seeks to be a better person, he seeks to help others in need, he seeks to reach enlightenment. All good things, some might say, but remember, desire is an indication of the hole. His desire for spiritual growth puts him in a hole with holemates like a hot Indian meditating naked mole rat, self-sufficient Jesus-seeking mole rats, and overly philosophical self-improvement mole rats. It’s a hell of a party, they heat up the hole and make it into a sauna and sometimes close up the top and turn it into a hotbox. But he can never live in the ultimate truth while being in the hole. And we are faced with a dilemma. How can one escape the hole if the desire to escape the hole gets you in deeper or in another hole?
This is the condition of our living I suppose. Buddha also proposed something similar, the life we all live is “suffering”(in a hole with naked mole rats). And that suffering is caused by desire. These are the first two noble truths out of the four. Now that is a hard pill to swallow. Our whole life has been a hole life. Our experiences, the goods, the bads, the beauties, the uglies, have all been a mere imagination of a blind rat.
But here is the good news, as you might have guessed, the four noble truths don't end with just two. And without getting into the weeds of Buddhism, the third truth is that there is a way out. Okay, but I thought any desire for a way out just takes me further from the way out. And I believe this is the interesting part of this crazy crazy world we live in. Any “higher” thing in this world seems to operate in a paradox. To not desire to escape the hole is the best way to escape the hole. To not desire enlightenment is the path of enlightenment. And this can be said about things more concrete and close to us. You often find things that you are looking for when you are not looking for them. You might find your soulmate when you are least expecting. I think all of this has something to do with a lack of desire leading us in the right direction.
Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, once said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool”. Knowing this nature of desire, you might try to not desire something because you desire something. This seems foolish but I believe is the first thing that happens when trying to embody this paradox. Like thinking, “okay I really want to escape the hole, so let's try not to escape the hole so that I can escape it.” This tendency is so hard to kick, because oftentimes spiritually minded people are ambitious. They often walk the paths to seek spiritual growth. They often meditate so that they can feel at peace and loving. They often learn the sutras so that they can understand the nature of the universe. But this form of spirituality is actually fueled with desire and I believe is fruitless.
But then why go through hardship if you have no gain? I mean, why plant an apple tree if they won’t bear any fruits? Why meditate all day when it does absolutely nothing for you? At this point, there is usually someone, perhaps with a Jamaican accent, that would say something along the lines of “well yeah, bro, it's about the journey, not the destination.” Maybe this is true, planting fruitless trees is not about the fruit but is about enjoying the act of planting. But greed might manifest in a way of seeking pleasure in the journey. So I believe it's more about nothing, not the journey nor the destination.
Maybe the way out of the hole is not to desire being out, not desire the act of climbing out, and not desire not desiring. But what will this look like? Critics may point out that if you have no desire, you will do nothing and provide nothing for society. Or just die because you have no desire to eat or drink. To that I ask, does wind have desire? If not, why does it blow the leaves? Does the sun have desire? If not, why does it continue to shine, providing energy for our lives?
If Buddha really kicked his desire, why did he get up from the Bodhi tree to spread his findings? Perhaps lack of desire does not mean lack of action. I am certainly not qualified to know what it's like to live with no desire. Every day, every moment, I feel like I am acting out life motivated by desires, eating food, working out, doing drugs, sleeping, loving, and the list goes on. I am a full-time resident in a hole, I’m blind and confused, but at times, I feel the warmth of the sun shining on my naked skin through the narrow gap on the top, feeling a glimpse of what is out there.
To end with a little story, I remember when I was working at a farm, I found a joint sitting on a rock next to a pond. As I was pondering whose it was and if I could smoke it, the owner of the joint shouted from afar, “Don’t smoke the joint! … … Unless you want to ;)” To me this sums up pretty well what it looks like to not desire not desiring. So I say, don’t party with naked mole rats… … Unless you want to.