The Sunk Costs of Buddhist Practice

One thing you might encounter in Buddhist teaching is a lesson entitled The Ten Distractions. These distractions are experiences you will probably have during your meditation periods that are generally considered pleasurable or valuable, but are not the aim of Buddhism and so are considered "distractions." These distractions are:

1. Illumination that meditation is effective


2. Understanding how your mind works


3. Joy


4. Tranquility


5. Physical pleasure


6. Faith and confidence


7. Energy and vitality


8. Concentration and focus


9. Equanimity


10. Attachment

Only the last one is considered "bad" by Buddhists, because it's the anchor with which the others ensnare you. Once you become attached to any of these states, you're going to fail in your goal of reaching the state of Insight and Enlightenment which is the hallmark of Buddhist teaching.

I have this sneaking suspicion that Buddhism beyond Equanimity is a case of sunk cost, that is, you've spent so much time and energy in meditation, literally exploiting whatever neuroplasticity we have to grow new brain matter dedicated to the task of repeating and realizing the meditative experience, that once you've gotten that far you may as go the whole way, even if at some point you start to lose touch with what it means to be human in the first place. The Buddhist Insight stage seems so off-the-charts compared to the attachments that I have to wonder if it really has value. Who assigns that value? Well, other Buddhists who have spent years chasing it, a self-referential loop of sunk costs.

The Dalai Lama has a well-established place in the popular imagination, but I have to wonder if his grip on all of reality is, well, as strong as mine. His wokeness seems to leap entirely over addressing existing injustices and tackling iniquitous hierarchies into a pithy mass of "If we all thought like me, none of this would be a problem" aphorisms.

It's a common affliction, one that is either pathetic or unbelievably dangerous, depending upon how much power the believer has.

"This movie has a plot. That's kinda weird."

I am perplexed by Alissa Wilkonson's critique of the new Dwayne Johnson vehicle, Skyscraper. She writes:

It’s also another example of what I think of as a “video game” movie. It takes the basic form of a simple video game, in which you play as the hero and are presented with an objective and a set of challenges...

Every challenge is overcome, but then the hero is presented with a new twist or challenge. And just like in a game, elements that will help the hero are seeded early on, placed strategically so that you’ll forget they’re there right before the hero needs them.

I mean, isn't that just literally the definition of plot? Not the plot of Skyscraper, or any particular movie, or any particular video game; I mean, isn't that literally plot itself?

I mean, here's David Mamet:

Drama is the quest of the hero to overcome those things which prevent him or her from achieving a specific, acute goal. A scene starts with the hero having a problem; that is why the hero is here, to try to solve the problem. The hero will fail, thwarted and perhaps given a hint about another path to take. Their failure and resolution propels us to the next scene. All of these attempts taken together constitute THE PLOT.

Wilkinson's "strategically placed" bit is Chekhov's Gun done well.

People are comparing Skyscraper to Die Hard, and with good reason: they're comparable films about a hero rescuing family from both nasty villains and ongoing infrastructure collapse in a small, well-defined space. But isn't that what we want from these films? Wilkonson's critique could be said about Speed, Air Force One, Cliffhanger, Aliens, Lockout, Olympus has Fallen, White House Down and a zillion other films. I mean, there's a reason these movies exist, and it's not because of video games.