This is perhaps the most distinc…
This is perhaps the most distinctive Buddhist teaching, that suffering is the product of ‘the craving of the passions, the craving for existence, the craving fornonexistence.’ It is, however, far from an obvious truth. Certain cases of suffering areplainly due to craving, namely, those that are due to frustrated desires. Desires may be eased by satisfaction or extirpation; and one may allow that if one stopped desiring, itwould amount to preventing all the suffering due to frustration. But this does not provethe general case…. Body, feelings, perception, mentality, and consciousness are separate sets of graspings. There is nothing that -does- the grasping. -We- are the aggregate ofthe graspings, not something, apart from them, that does the grasping. This is an interesting and startling thought.
Danto, Arthur Coleman
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