dopamine doctrine

The fundamental premise of Buddhism is the deceptive nature of suffering. The Pali word used for this is "dukkha," which is a little different than any single word direct English translation. I don't know anything about Pali, but that's what I've read. It seems to be a subtle difference. This difference though, mirrors the very lesson the word is used to teach. "Suffering" is considered a more objective state; we can all see when something is suffering, assuming we have some basic empathy and awareness. 

Dukkha points to a deeper truth; of course suffering is not an objective state. It is not the product of our experiences, but of how we process those experiences. Thus, the belief that we can work towards processing our experiences differently, such that they no longer cause suffering.

Buddhism generally teaches that it can take many lifetimes of devout practice to thoroughly achieve such a feat. What they mean by a lifetime, when they don't believe in a self though, makes it a little complicated. Suffice to say, it supposedly takes lots of time and dedication, as the Fourth Noble Truth is incredibly elusive.

The cause of dukkha is "tanha;" wanting, craving, needing. We don't need anything. We don't even need to exist. It's logical, but I struggle with the notion that giving up tanha would be a good thing. This point is often resisted in Buddhism for the same reason. Put another way, it feels good to want things. That's how dopamine works. When we're suffering, it can also feel like wanting our situation to improve is the only hope we have that it will. To sit in the proverbial burning building saying, "this is fine," you really need to believe that it is.

It's interesting that dopamine is not produced when good things happen to us, so much as when we think that good things might. Dukkha is caused by tanha, but so is dopamine. Dopamine is the carrot on a stick evolved to keep us going in a world full of suffering. Recreational drugs often hit dopamine, because dopamine itself is an addiction we can't shake.

Unless we can.. but why would we want to? Maybe when it really comes down to it, I choose the blue pill. The comforting illusion. The idea that things might get better is all that makes anything seem worthwhile at all. Maybe someday I will get something I want, right? It can feel like a lifeline, not something to let go of.

Buddhism teaches that this dynamic can be hacked, if all we want is to end the suffering of others, unbiased in any way; the suffering of all beings. If we can become entirely selfless in our tanha, it ceases to cause dukkha. This is nirvana. Harmful things will still happen to us and around us, but we can be indifferent to that. Life is suffering. It just is.

Without the impulse to help others, this just becomes nihilism. Life is suffering and nothing matters? What the fuck am I even doing here then? If you enjoy the craving, there's that and not much else. The distilled paradigm of addiction, desperately squeezing what enjoyment we can from our dopamine receptors as we circle the drain, ever closer to oblivion. Just don't think about it.

I'm not comfortable with any approach to life which involves not thinking about it. Enjoyment is meaningless when we don't even know what's going on. Enjoyment is meaningless, but it's a chemical reaction in the brain that feels a lot like we've suddenly got it all figured out. This feeling, this is what life's all about? A chemical reaction in the brain that has nothing to do with understanding anything.

I don't understand how we're supposed to live without it, though. Dopamine is intrinsic to the reward center, and when that goes awry, it becomes depression. It renders people unable to help anyone with much of anything and more selfish than ever. To shut down the reward center would lead only to greater suffering, as far as I can tell. 

I don't understand how altruism is supposed to bridge that gap. Keep the reward pathways thriving entirely by caring for others? I guess that takes lifetimes of practice, too. Practice, if I've got this right, which would require a well functioning self-centered reward system in the meantime. It would require wanting things for ourselves, enjoying things, believing life might get better. We need dopamine to do anything.