Dukkha came to exist through the process of evolution, since dissatisfaction & suffering of various kinds provide motivations for beings to act in ways that lead to increased probability of survival of the species. To put it another way, the human existential problem arises through evolution, which created increasingly intelligent beings until eventually individuals could imagine the future & recognize their own mortality. Thus, when Gotama says “All life is dukkha” in the first ennobling truth of his teachings, he is describing this reality in a way even someone who doesn’t know about evolution can understand. Other aspects of the teachings inherently recognize other products of evolution, such as feelings that encourage certain behaviors toward others who carry similar genes (see ethics), & tendencies toward unwholesome habits (see sense pleasure, views). Through evolution, bodily sensations (vedanā) enforce habits, or unconscious programming—our underlying tendencies. This is a key mechanism of what Gotama would call kamma. Escaping these automatic reactions is one of the major tasks of liberation from dukkha. Evolution is important to my understanding of Gotama’s teaching because it harmonizes with the idea that nothing mysterious or outside of nature is required to understand the origin & escape from dukkha. While describing the origin of the human problem in scientific terms was not important in Gotama’s time, the development of sophisticated science & technology now requires it, if only to prevent Gotama’s teaching from being rejected as superstition & empty ritual.
dukkha • ethics • habits • hedonic • sense pleasure • vedana