Thanks to Reddit's r/buddhism for this one. I find that thinking mathematically by plotting these eight experiences and emotions below along the temporal graph that is each day is a helpful way to squelch the ego, to boost creativity and compassion, and to be myself and in the moment more frequently. Visualizing change as waves, troughs, peaks or valleys is a remarkable method of reflection and self-optimization.Calculation is not always cold. Wise living doesn't always live in the stanzas of verse or in the subtle suggestions of prose. Measurements are important too. Economics is not only the study of money, but that of trends and of systems. What is the state of my self's economy? Can I represent it outside of emotional response?
I imagine a Buddha out there somewhere -- maybe on a mountaintop or maybe behind a desk -- who is so in-tune with these eight categories that they begin to melt away, to fade into the routine of aware experience.
And so the poem goes:
Gain/loss,
status/disgrace,
censure/praise,
pleasure/pain:
these conditions among human beings
are inconstant,
impermanent,
subject to change.
Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don't charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.
His welcoming
& rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
Knowing the dustless, sorrowless state,
he discerns rightly,
has gone, beyond becoming,
to the Further Shore.
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