Touch ID or Enter Passcode. Thirty one unread. Junk… junk… junk… Mark as read. Sumi Kim—gotta respond to that. Mark as unread. Shit, that application. Add to task list: “Send in application ASAP” Color code purple. Already did that—delete. Already did that—delete. Still haven’t done that—move to today’s task list. Check tomorrow’s schedule. Class… class.. I can use those thirty minutes to send my application. New Event: “write application” Color code purple. Froco meeting. Posture check: shoulders are scrunched up, roll back and relax. Where was I? Froco meeting… nothing after that. Breathe.

When Siddhartha Gautama left the palace grounds for the first time, he saw a leper. Disturbed and confused at what he saw, he went to sit under the bodhi tree until he understood. “The first noble truth,” he said, “is that suffering exists.” The word suffering is a translation of the Pali word dhukka. Dhu is a prefix meaning bad, and kha is a hole, specifically an axle hole. Dhukka—a bad axle hole.

Dhukka is a metaphor. It’s the experience of riding in an ox-cart with the axle misaligned—the shakes and bumps that come relentlessly with each turn of the wheel. The translation of dukkha into suffering makes a lot of sense when talking about leprosy. It comes off a bit hyperbolic when describing a bumpy ox-cart ride. A better translation could be stress.

10:29 am. 240 words. Two hours until I leave for retreat. 2 hours, 300 more words, 150 words an hour. I’m hungry. Claire’s opened at 8:00. The dining hall opens at 11:00. It’s loud in the dining hall. I can’t write my paper in the dining hall. Coffee: $2.50, egg and cheese sandwich: $5.50. Too many carbs. I had pancakes last night. Yogurt cup: $3.80. Too expensive. Just coffee.

The cartwheel is samsara. It is always turning. New Text Message. It is the stuff that makes up life, or the water as David Foster Wallace put it. It is cyclical and pervasive and mundane. New Groupme Notification. We are trapped in samsara by our cravings—for success, for love, for pancakes. Assignment 1 Graded. The stronger the cravings, the bumpier the ride. That’s the second noble truth.

The good news is in the third noble truth: we have an out. 14 Unread Emails. By ceasing our cravings and reclaiming independence from our own desires, we are liberated from the cycle of samsara. The fourth and final noble truth lays out how: through right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Reminder: “Retreat” today at 12:30pm. It is only by following this eight-fold path that we can attain nirvana and eject ourselves from the cart, once and for all.

Save. Export to PDF. Check today’s task list: “Write F&ES 750 paper” Delete.