Purification and Fulfilment - Four Formulas

James Clark Maxwell described the whole of electromagnetic theory in terms of for fundamental field equations.

I somewhat jokingly also have a set of 4 equations that describe the issue of human happiness and human suffering in terms of the body start the first with the first one here suffering equals discomfort multiplied by resistance.

So what I mean by discomfort in this case is physical or emotional uncomfortable sensations. So one form of discomfort would be pain, but tiredness is a form of discomfort, too hot, to cold hunger things like that. Those are all forms of physical discomfort, then body sensations, such as those associated with anger fear sadness shame impatients those would be.

Emotional uncomfortable flavors in the body, so physical or emotional uncomfortable flavors in the body. I called Generically referred to as discomfort.

Resistance means and any interference with the natural flow of those sensations. That means any fighting with their arising or any holding on preventing them from passing in their natural pattern so any interference with the natural expansion and contraction of body sensation is resistance. So when you have physical or emotional.

And or emotional discomfort in your body, the degree to which you fight with that by pushing and pulling is the resistance. Now we tend to think of resistance as a mental thing based on our attitudes well actually that's rather small part of the resistance. That's part of it, but most of the resistance is in the body circuits themselves at a very deep primordial level when the body begins to make a sensation it also.

Will begin to interfere with its own product?

Fortunately, through meditation practice, we can train the body out of the habit of resisting interfering with its own sensations. The intensity of the discomfort multiplied by the degree of interference with its natural flow.

Measures the perceived suffering that you get from that. That's the first formula suffering equals discomfort multiplied by resistance now. This is a linear approximation of something that's probably a much more complex mathematical model. But this will give sort of rough approximation of what goes on.

There's both good news and bad news in this formula, the good news is that if you have a lot of intensity of discomfort.

But you reduce the resistance to a small amount. Then you're perceived suffering will go down. Even if you have huge discomfort. In fact, the best news of all is it is theoretically possible with sufficient training or just buy.

The evolution that comes through living to reduce resistance to 0 in which case even with huge discomforts. The perceived suffering would be 0 because no matter how large this is if this is zero. Anything multiplied by zero is 0, so that's the good news. What's the bad news in this formula, the bad news is that you can have very small discomforts physical or emotional?

Uncomfortable sensations in the body that are wispy hardly even noticeable, perhaps could even be so mild that there below the threshold of awareness. But if their subject to huge subliminal resistance interference impedance you will have the impression of huge suffering.

That's the bad news and a lot of the distortions that take place in human behavior are due to rather tiny emotional type sensations. Some of them below the threshold of awareness that are filling the body and subject to huge resistance, therefore cause a huge perception of suffering.

And distort our behaviors in the object if world, so that's formula number one.

The sort of flip side of that is purification equals discomfort multiplied by equanimity equanimity is the opposite of resistance equanimity could be said at least 2 a linear approximation to be the reciprocal of resistance so as the resistance goes down the equanimity goes up as equanimity goes up the discomfort.

Turns into

Not only a Freedom from suffering or a reduction of suffering, but a positive flavor of purification, which leads to fulfillment so it is actually possible to have a fulfilling empowering experience of physical and even emotional discomfort in the body.

If you bring enough equanimity to it, you'll actually get a taste of purification, which turns into a kind of taste of fulfillment something meaningful and useful is happening to the depths of ones being because of how you're experiencing a physical pain or even an emotional discomfort in the moment with high equanimity so.

Discomfort here.

The opposite of discomfort pleasure.

Frustration equals pleasure multiplied by resistance if you push and pull on the natural flow of pleasure resist its arising resist. It's passing, then it doesn't give you fulfillment. It gives you a sense of frustration. This is the Imelda Marcos phenomenon? How many shoes will fulfill you if you can't get fulfillment from one the answer is no amount will do it.

Because you don't know how to turn pleasure into fulfillment. That's this last equation fulfillment equals pleasure multiplied by equanimity. The good news here is that with very small pleasures.

Tiny little pleasures actually an enormous equanimity enormous noninterference you can derive enormous fulfillment so the bad news is this formula, which leads to Imelda Marcos people with huge pleasures in their life that can't get any satisfaction.

Their frustrated that's because they don't know they have not trained their pleasure circuits out of the impedance so that's the bad news. The really good news here. Even with relatively small amounts of pleasure, physical or emotional a human being can derive enormous fulfillment.

If they train their pleasure circuits into equanimity and that fulfillment actually brings the same flavor of purification that you get here. So you can purify consciousness in two ways by experiencing discomfort with equanimity.

Or by experiencing pleasure with equanimity.