With an understanding of the basic model of paticca samuppada, we now will apply it to the issues explored in Chapter I concerning the development of our global consumer culture. Using paticca samuppada not only offers another critical tool for looking at consumer culture, but it also entails a methodology for leading out of it. Paticca samuppada is part of an integrated system of critique and practical problem solving. By using it here we can form a bridge between our critique and our discovery of solutions and a greater mode of living beyond consumer culture.

1. IGNORANCE (avijja)
Generally, we take our sense of "self" as a given. In modern society, we can play around with it by getting a new hairstyle or quitting alcohol, but we tend to see it as this core foundation on which we experience life. Not-self challenges this idea by showing (graphically in the case of paticca samuppada) that what we consider this core foundation of "self" or soul, our conventional selves, is a very volatile system constructed by causes and conditions. By showing the infinite malleability of the construction in Not-self, Buddhism instructs us to challenge the depths of our conditioned selves and to not take anything for granted (such as our sense of "self") as being set in stone. This can be an extremely frightening idea and practice since we have spent so much time building this "self" to protect and entertain us. Without it, it seems we are without a shelter in the storm. Yet on the other hand, it is the most liberative idea and practice since it frees us from the bird cage in which we have constructed and limited ourselves.

This essential truth of Buddhism is key to our consumer culture, because our consumer culture is so rooted in the material. The fetishization of the material conditions us to more deeply objectify the "self" as a concrete form. This positing of a concrete "self" also implies an Ignorance of Impermanence (anicca). Consumerism is rooted in what the Buddha saw as the Ignorance of extreme realism (atthikavada) and eternalism (sassatavada) in which people see things and others as separate, real, fixed and enduring.1 The consumerist energy towards acquiring goods (and images) as a means towards defining and fulfilling one's "self" is just this kind of extreme realism and eternalism. The susceptibility of any consumer good to breakdown (Impermanence) reveals the inability to provide lasting satisfaction (Dukkha) and the fallacy of trying to fill up a transient "self" with transient things (Not-self) .

MENTAL STEWING
2. CONCOCTING (sankhara)
3. CONSCIOUSNESS (vinnana)
4. MIND-BODY (namarupa)
5. SENSE EXPERIENCE (salayatana)

This Ignorance conditions a mental stewing which frames reality in terms of materiality. Events and processes which properly would be viewed as unstable and constantly arising and falling tend to get seen in terms of static forms interacting in a linear causality. This concocts Consciousness in which the fluid aspects and interactions between forms are broken down into parts, separated, and placed into static containers (e.g. the multiple dependent causes and conditions of a human are compartmentalized into a single individual; a behavior or way of interacting is objectified in a fashion). The next step is critical in the development of consumer mentality, the arising of duality where now there is a consumer (subject) to consume through feeling, perceiving, thinking and cognizing consumable forms (object). This subject-object construct merges with the senses to concoct Sense Experience. Sight Experience will open the doors to all the bright lights and dazzling images of shopping malls, media entertainment, and so forth. Sound Experience will enable attachment to walkmans and boom boxes. Taste Experience will open up the world of Coke and MacDonald's, junk foods, and exotic tastes from abroad. Smell Experience will open the doors to the world of colognes, perfumes, after shaves, gourmet foods, and so on. Touch Experience will open up the world of imported silks, cosmetics for the skin and hair, luxury cars, and so on. And most critically, Mental Experience derived through the senses will open the world of consumer identity constructions like fame and style.

6. FULL CONTACT (phassa)
From this mass of Mental Stewing, Full Contact is conditioned. The foundation of Ignorance comes into the conscious mind here when physical forms, personalities, and institutions are perceived as stable (nicca), concrete (atta) and often pleasing (sukha & supa). Watching TV, now truly a worldwide phenomenon, is perhaps the purest form of making contact and concocting consumer Full Contact. When we watch TV, images of events and people touch us concocting Full Contact mostly through the ear, eye and mind Sense Experience. The speed of advertising and hi-tech media technology are fundamental here. The development of extremely fast image presentation almost always outstrips the speed of the mind to be conscious and aware and then to process the meanings and implications of this contact. As such, almost all forms of contact will push into Full Contact. Aside from that which concocts into pleasant or painful Feeling, the speed and violence of consumer contact will wobble the mind into neither-pleasant-nor-painful Feeling and delusion. Full Contact is a place where mindful awareness could prevent the further concocting of Dukkha. Yet the hi-tech bombardment of consumer culture makes this possibility increasingly less likely.

7. FEELING (vedana)
This Full Contact overload will condition Feeling. When watching TV, there are lots of pleasant and painful Feelings to be concocted. Perceptions (sanna) are heightened and deepened, such as what special effects make a music video great or a horror movie really frightening. In consumer culture, though, neither-pleasant-nor-painful Feeling is perhaps the most prevalent.

When we watch TV, the hi-tech bombardment of images at Full Contact dull the mind to react to what is only most pleasurable or most painful. As more and more images fail to meet these heightened expectations, it increasingly appears that there is nothing of interest to watch. In the United States, there is a new phrase called "channel surfing" in which one switches through all the channels (sometimes up to 100 with cable television) in a short space of time usually ending with the conclusion that,"Nothing's on." When trying to choose a program from a mass of different programs, the mind wobbles amidst how to find the one we are looking for. There are moments of positive Feeling when an interesting image flashes by and also negative Feeling. Yet in the speed of the "surfing" process, the majority of the images are not processed and end up creating a neither-positive-nor-painful Feeling, leading to a more general numbness towards what is not strikingly positive or negative. This kind of process also happens when we have to make contact with goods at a store or shopping mall. Trying to find the one thing we want among the myriad of stores and name brands forces the mind to block out vast amounts of reality unrelated to our search yet conspicuously trying to grab our attention.

In this way, people in consumer societies spend a lot of time in numbness, blocking out possible negative Feelings while wading through mildly positive ones in the search for peak positive ones. Vast amounts of reality go unprocessed (e.g. the TV is left on without watching, the music in the department store goes unnoticed). What is neither enticing nor threatening is zoned away and the mind develops an inability to pay to attention, focus on or feel what is not increasingly positive or negative. The ever increasing intensity of consumer images deepens the mind's already dualistic nature. Developing from the unconscious perception of subject-object duality, the dynamic of positive-negative Feeling is concocted. As the mind searches for ever increasing peak positive Feeling and in turn experiences deeper troughs of negative Feeling, the ability to focus on subtleties and gray areas devolves as larger chunks of reality go unprocessed in the wobble of neither-pleasant-nor-painful Feeling.

8. CRAVING (tanha)
As we continue to flip through the channels on the TV, we finally find something that attracts us. On the TV there are numerous images to concoct Craving, and especially Sense Craving. This Sense Craving often happens when we come in contact with advertising which hawks sensual forms (kama) as the center of its presentations. There's something for everyone here: shampoos and designer clothes for sister, sports shoes and scantily clothed girls for brother, cars and beer for Dad, detergents and exotic vacations for Mom. The underlying message behind all these consumer goods concocts Craving for Being in the positive identifications made with the people used to advertise the goods like models, sports stars and celebrities. The TV, however, offers deeper images of Craving for Being in the dramas, situational comedies, and news programs. A good story can be informative to the mind and stimulating to the imagination, but the majority of television dramas paint overly dramatic lives filled with constant positive and/or negative Feeling. These Feelings concoct Craving for Being in the exciting and fulfilling lives of romance and adventure dramas while concocting Craving for Non-Being in horror and crime stories. By showing lives and situations where consumer goods are used and experienced, these programs also deepen the Sense Craving concocted by advertising .
Here the mind becomes conditioned into this ping-pong of negative and positive comparisons. The reality of life when there is no action is not presented and the comparisons one makes, often subconsciously, with their own life creates a sense of lack. Our lives seem boring, and daily life has little meaning when held up to the constant action of these programs. On this level, identity is becoming hardened through separation and difference, i.e. what one has or doesn't have in comparison with others. The more one watches TV, the more our actual lives become one big neither-pleasant-nor-painful Feeling, neither very exciting nor horribly tragic, and the more we Crave for the forms and states of being which excite us on television. This only deepens the temporal and spatial gap between lives on TV that are observed and Craved and our actual lives that are lived with less and less awareness. Through the powerful advertising and programming images of TV, the mind becomes increasingly alienated from its actual spatial and temporal existence. On this level, identity becomes fluid. This is not in a healthy way by seeing through the illusion of forms and "self" while maintaining a sense of social norm. Rather, it is neurotic in the way the illusion deepens through the breakdown of distinction between fantasy and the reality of social norm.

9. CLINGING (upadana)
From this kind of Craving, concocts a deepening duality in Clinging with the emergence of an "I". This "I" concocts all sorts of objects (sensual, attitudinal, behavioral) to further define itself.

Our Craving for sensual objects intensifies on this level as the "self" begins to more directly relate to them. "With their new financing plan, we could get a new pick-up truck this year."; "Hawaii....I really need a break!"; "I really need to get a shampoo which doesn't damage my hair!" (Sense Clinging)
Our views about these goods, their deeper meanings and the lives of those in programs become hardened objects for the "self" to grasp at. "Those new home video cameras have become really popular. Maybe we should get one too."; "Jill says Bali is better than Hawaii and that show proves it. I don't care if it costs more."; "Why does Tom Cruise's co-star always have blonde hair? Maybe I should change colors?"; "Boy, I'll never go to Africa after seeing that news report on Angola. What a backward place!" (Attitude Clinging)

From such hardened views, hardened methods arise. "Jim said we can get a financing plan for the video camera too. Let's see, pay off the car, insurance, mortgage, credit cards. I think we can do it."; "If we leave the kids behind, we can definitely afford two weeks in Bali."; "Those girls got those Esprit outfits and tans abroad by being escorts for business men. Sounds horrible, but maybe....."2; "Just goes to show you our free market democracy is simply the best." (Behavioral Clinging)

To again emphasize, buying a video camera on installment, taking a private trip to Bali, getting a job for some extra money, championing democracy and the freedom to honestly pursue business are not problems in themselves. The problem arises with a "self" that objectifies them into absolute ends which verify the existence of "self". As such, questions don't get asked like "How many people are caught in debt from over consumption?"; "How many families have become atomized due to personal consumptive agendas?"; "How many of those well dressed tan girls are from broken families?"; "How many Americans suffer deeply like Africans from poverty and violence?". When attached to these views and methods, these questions don't get asked and instead help build foundations for national debt, family disintegration, the sacrifice of personal dignity, and paternalistic nationalism. (Self Clinging)

MATURATION OF THE "SELF"
10. EXISTENCE (bhava)
11. BIRTH (jati)

As the mind has now concocted a set of mental objects (sensual, attitudinal, behavioral) to cling to, it further embellishes the realization of these desires. The obsessing, dwelling, planning and visualizing become deeper and mature identifications with environments and situations take place. "Jim has a Sony camera. I really like their equipment too."; "Jill has been on two trips this year already. I deserve this trip"; "With the latest outfit, I could make good connections with those girls"; "We are so lucky to be American!" These identifications harden attitudes towards desires, block out very important parts of reality and deepen comparison, lack, and alienation. Held up to consumer fashions, the whole family gets lost in their own world of attachments. Dad wants the material trappings of a successful life. Mom wants the rewards of such a life that other wives get. Sister has to get on the inside track of fashion and beauty. Within their minds, their present lives cannot match the images on TV which bring out selective views of reality. As a family unit, as they become more engrossed into their own "self" projects, they become more oblivious to the feelings and lives of the others. Through the hi-tech images of the TV, our family has concocted these "consumer" selves. Their exciting and entertaining new ideas for a video camera, a trip to Bali, a fast money making venture, and an assurance of their environment form self-perpetuating energies which concoct onwards yet only deepen the lack they feel inside.

12. AGING & DYING (jaramarana)
Impermanence rears its ugly head again as the program ends and the advertisements change. Very quickly their excitement gives way to boredom with the present moment. Dad flips through the channels again to no avail,"Nothing's on." Mom trudges back to the kitchen to make dinner and sister returns to her room with all her out-of-fashion clothes. Another great day in America spent in front of the television. From such boredom, fear can concoct. Dad fears that recent layoffs and his debt may cause a sudden financial crisis in the family. Mom fears that if she doesn't get a good break from all her burdens, she may go back to drinking. Sister fears that her body will not mature the way she wants. In an increasingly violent and economically unstable society, there is a lot to fear. In the uncertainty of their lives, they experience Not-self as the inability to create and maintain desired "self". From boredom and fear, depression and despair may further concoct. Dad feels down about his failing efforts to achieve the economic success he had envisioned 15 years ago. Mom feels empty in a life of tedium with no concrete rewards. Sister feels despair over the life ahead of her. The real depression here is how the family slides along year after year in front of the television soaking in Dukkha with the images of what kind of life they should have instead applying themselves to the creative construction of their own lives.

THE STRUCTURES OF CONSUMERISM

I would like to extend some of the implications expressed in the above analysis which has used paticca samuppada within personal mental observation. Such an extension into the larger realm of action and structures is not without basis in the Buddha's direct teachings. In the Mahanidana Sutta (The Great Discourse on Origination), the Buddha himself departs from his standard explanation of the cycle and offers this rendition:

Listen Ananda, through these conditions depending on feeling there is craving, with craving as condition there is searching; with searching as condition there is acquisition; depending on acquisition there is decision making; depending on this decision making there is lustful desire; depending on this lustful desire there is attachment/infatuation; depending on this infatuation there is possessiveness; depending on possessiveness there is stinginess; dependent on stinginess there is safe guarding; and depending on this safe guarding the are the taking up of stick and sword, quarrels, disputes, arguments, strife, abuse, lying.3

As we noted in the first section, it is generally considered that when the mind concocts past Feeling, then Clinging (upadana), Birth (jati) and Dukkha inevitably occur. Thus it is significant to note that the usual sequence of paticca samuppada deviates here at Craving. Once we have gone past Feeling and Craving is concocted, a whole new series of unfortunate events arise. This rendition shows how mental concocting leads to action and how such actions necessarily become social concerns. In such a way, I would like to apply the spirit of the Mahanidana Sutta to examine the larger actions and also structures of consumer society. From Craving to Clinging to the Maturation of the "Self" to Aging & Dying, I would like to present an analysis of what takes place when actions and structures are concocted by such mental processes.

CRAVING (tanha)
From all the Full Contact and Feeling stirred up in consumer society, Craving is concocted. In our consumer societies, Craving for sense forms manifests itself in the Craving for all sorts of consumer goods. These goods include experiential ones in which various senses can indulge. For example, the tourism industry takes the various and often random experiences of travel and packages them into an object of desire. The "vacation" as objectified in group tours and traveler's guides offer predictable and measurable forms of Sense Craving. In such a way, our market system takes advantage of the mind's tendency towards objectification by marketing every possible good and experience into a packaged object or "self" to be bought and consumed.

In Craving for Being & Non-Being, the minds starts making initial identifications. As it comes in contact with sensual forms, it begins to Crave for states where firstly, these sensual forms can be controlled and savored like a week in Hawaii at a nice hotel or more simply spending time shopping. More deeply this Craving for Being is craving for the concreteness (atta), stability (nicca), and freedom and happiness (sukha) that acquiring goods represents. Consumerism is like a globally shared theology. It is the hope and desire of an increasing number of beings to realize the fullness of "self" through consumer goods, experiences and identities. These forms show in concrete, quantifiable terms, freedom, stability and happiness. Craving for Non-Being, as the opposite, is the Craving to get away from states in which one is unstable and bound and so unable to experience Sense Craving.

In this constant mode of positive and negative identifications, the mind begins engaging in comparative and competitive thinking, between what we have and want to have, between what we are and want to be. The Advertising industry plays the essential role in this creation of structural lack. In consumer culture, the famous American phrase "Keeping up with the Jones'" shows how people not only perceive their own enjoyment and deeper well being through measuring their consumer acquisitions against others but also form their identity around this process. If you have a Mercedes and the Jones' have a Ford, you feel satisfied with your possession and life. As we saw in Chapter I, this mentality also exists in vernacular communities under siege. Through the ever grander and expensive staging of events like weddings which put on display modern consumer goods, these cultures participate in the competition for status. This competition creates a structural lack where daily life is magnified against a state of ideal consumptive living depicted in advertising media. This deepens fissures in communities and societies where others become subtle opponents in the ideal consumption test.

What has begun to emerge recently is a deeper stage in the fluidity of identity. Here, the mass of consumer imagery concocted by advertising and media and the concreteness of real life have become blurred. There have been increasing cases of individuals not responding to violent crime because they thought it was the making of a TV show or movie.4 More fundamentally, we are seeing people, especially children, acting out the violence they consume through television, comic books and video games with a lack of distinction between fantasy and reality. As we have noted, Craving (especially Craving for Being) attempts to bridge the "self-other" gap yet merely exacerbates it through the increased development of objects of Craving. This Craving for Being initially manifests itself through a neurotic differentiation and separation in conspicuous consumption. Now, in an attempt to destroy this ever widening gap between the "real self" and the "ideal self", Craving for Being blurs the distinctions between "fantasy" and objects of socially agreed upon "reality". Advertising is taking a lead role in this process which has led to a psychotic destruction of moral and social structures that divide the ocean of mental phenomena from the world of action.5 When the imagination becomes reality, the "self" is able to satisfy its Craving for what seemed unreachable or taboo. Yet the fundamental subject-object duality which helps to form the "self" has still not been addressed, and so the Craving process marches on (as does the creation of alienation, separation, comparison and competition) as the "self" continues to feed off of what it can imagine. Consequently, advertising and media must continually extend the limits of "reality" in order to have an impact on viewers and create Full Contact.

CLINGING (upadana)
From the deepening of objectification, comparison and competition in Craving arises a concrete sense of "I" and "self". This consumer "I" subsequently develops views on all the assorted forms that come into Full Contact.

1) Sense Clinging
From the concoctings of Sense Craving, our "self" deepens its connections to sensual objects. There is a myriad of consumer objects to Cling to like information, technological goods, nature as resources and entertainment, sex, and money. What is essential about the concocting of Sense Clinging is the blurring between "need" and "want". By the time our mind concocts Clinging, consumer products have become not only essentials for daily enjoyment but deeper sources of emotional, mental and spiritual gratification. In this way, consumer goods have truly become "needs" - what we need to validate our existence.

2) Attitude Clinging
Concocting from Craving for Being, the deeper existential Craving for consumer goods and experiences concocts into a myriad number of views, values and attitudes.
-Wealth and poverty arise as quantifiable concepts developed from comparative and competitive consumption.
-More and faster become important values expressing the quantifiable and measurable aspects of the "self".
-Intelligence is seen as the accumulation of factual knowledge in a specialist field.
-Freedom to pursue one's appetites and desires becomes an essential ideology.

The central delusion of this Clinging is that all these views and attitudes get objectified as absolute ends. They lose their contextual and heuristic meanings as the "self" stuffs them into its growing kit of identity markers. For example, why is freedom important? Where does it lead us and how should it be employed to become a better person and to help others? Similarly, actual knowledge helps us to do what? Faster enables what qualitative life improvement? Wealth should be employed towards what end? As clung to attitudes, these ideas all become "good" in themselves. In the development of neither-pleasant-nor-painful Feeling, we saw that such objectification robs our mind of its ability to perceive gray areas, discern emotional states, make decisions based on moral grounds, and reconcile seemingly opposed ideas which coexist, like how can a rich man be unhappy or a poor man not want a television?

3) Behavioral Clinging
Attitudes naturally concoct into behaviors with which to realize them.
-The cultivation of style and image attempt to show a state of wealth and well-being.
-More and faster develop into the need to own faster cars and computers, get a higher salary, take more vacations and never take a slower method of transport.
-Seeking prestigious schooling and high level degrees and amassing information develops from Clinging to knowledge.
-Clinging to the idea of freedom develops into the mentality to avoid as many responsibilities as possible and to seek to gain the most out of a situation while paying the least for it.

This objectifying of methods further hardens the sense of "self" while leading us farther away from deeper meanings and implications. We act more and more like robots simply following what has been pronounced as "good" or "positive". This is where the aping of consumer lifestyles takes place. Where the mind follows the same methods which others have grasped in searching for well being. The aping of the American consumer dream throughout the world is a prime example.

4) Self Clinging
As we have already noted, the real problem is not the idea of wealth and poverty, quantifiable progress, factual knowledge and personal freedom. The problem arises when a "self" emerges to possess them and turn them into stagnant forms which lose their meaning devoid of contexts and balances. When this happens on a national and now global level, these ideas become all encompassing epistemologies which blot out useful contributions from societies which have different ideas. Since the ideas are intimately tied to this sense of personal, national and now human "self", challenging their all encompassing efficacy amounts to attacking the societies which champion them.

MATURATION OF THE "SELF"
EXISTENCE (bhava)
BIRTH (jati)

From the hardening "self" of sense forms, attitudes, and behaviors, the mind develops priorities of needs from "a good pair of running shoes" to "a better job than the one I have now" to "the right kind of relationship" and so on. These "needs" become mental preoccupations which we inhabit for large portions of our day, constantly stewing and mulling over. They become existences, little worlds that we live in.

These needs are conceptualized within terms of style and image. "A good pair of running shoes" is a name brand, probably Nike, "more than $60 at least". "A better job than the one I have now" is at a bigger company with a higher position and better pay. "The right kind of relationship" is someone with an good career, has at least a college degree, and "shares my interests". On a structural level, this has manifested itself in the image and style machines of advertising and media. These machines exacerbate our Clinging to material forms and engender cultural homogenization by convincing us that mass produced products made by machine can enable one to build a unique and different "self"

More and faster has helped us devise this idea for shoes, a better job, and the right kind of relationship even though we already have adequate shoes, a good job, and a promising relationship. More and faster pushes us to abandon and replace what we had even if it is sufficient. From want getting blurred into "need" in Clinging, "need" gets concocted into greed as the mind goes beyond the bounds of sufficiency. On a structural level, these notions have manifested themselves into the ideologies of "progress" and "development" in which industrialization, technological development, the free market and social engineering promise to bring about quality of life all by themselves.

Clinging to knowledge concocts into time researching which shoes to get and comparing prices at different stores. It also makes us susceptible to the kind of advertising which makes things look hi-tech and conceptually sophisticated. Further, it concocts plans to get another degree or to get a better job. It concocts attitudes that the present relationship is not good because "she's not intelligent enough for me". Finally, it concocts into the addiction for information such as compulsive news consumption and over absorption in "statistical indicators". This kind of fetishism about knowledge leads to great wastes of time concerning things which won't really improve our well being. It also stunts our ability to make qualitative and moral decisions which are not in the realm of factual knowledge and information. On a structural level, this has manifested itself into the ideologies of scientism and rationalism so that our educational systems develop the mind only. This leads to a fetishism with expertise and official structures which are "uniquely qualified" to provide answers with statistical analysis. This further concocts debilitating senses of dependence and disempowerment for those not educated in such a way. The mass of mostly indigestible and incomprehensible daily news and information provided by the media perpetuate and reinforce this sense of disempowerment.

Clinging to freedom concocts the thinking that having 20 different kinds of running shoes and 10 different malls to buy them at is quality of life. It further concocts planning about what is the shortest amount of time one can commit to one company before marketing himself to another at a higher position and salary. It also concocts a constant "keeping my eyes open" for a new, better relationship. Fetischized freedom leads us to the delusion that indeed more is better and to avoid commitments and situations which call for duty. The idea of freedom frees the individual to "jump ship" as soon as things become too difficult or unpleasurable. It helps to break down marriages, families and communities and leads towards the unrooted individual. Constantly moving around and uninterested in the commitments of living community life, our alienation deepens as our society becomes filled with a bunch of free, boundless individuals. On a structural level, this manifests in the fetishism of free market capitalist democracy which allows for the greatest freedom with the least responsibility. This sort of system specializes in creating free individuals disembedded from family and community.

What has emerged is consumer man - transient, ungrounded, superficial, vain and greedy. The mind has concocted a "self" which experiences itself in a consumer lifestyle. Physically it is made up of bought goods - TV, car, clothes. It is further constructed around career and relationship which are both seen as possessions in which to gain and experience pleasure. Beyond the knowledge and philosophies it holds as "self", things get fuzzy. There's a blind spot which the "self" knows is there. It is the delusion of this whole concocting spelled out in lack and alienation. Consumer clutter will not allow us to slow down to become really aware of it, however, and certainly the constructed "self" will do its best job of self-preservation to avoid any debilitating awareness.
On a structural level, these identified with environments manifest themselves as media conglomerates, sports teams, and tourist destinations (style, image, wealth); technological development corporations like General Electric and Microsoft and world financial bodies like the World Bank and IMF (faster and more); elite universities and government agencies like the Federal Reserve (knowledge and expertise); and all of the above including political-economic alliances like NAFTA, WTO and APEC (freedom, free market); and all of the above including political-economic alliances like NAFTA, WTO and APEC (freedom, free market). Without an awareness of the inherent values and meanings of these environments and our relationships to them, we latch on to them as parts of ourselves. "My team", "my vacation", "The World Bank must be somewhat OK, their office is in Washington, the capital city of my government." "General Electric makes good toasters and owns NBC which I watch all the time, I didn't know they also made military hardware used in the Gulf War. We won that one anyway."

When we just latch on to things as "me" and "mine" based in erroneous projections of ourselves, we end up not only taking part in systems which we would not ordinarily support but actually helping their construction. The development of the consumer world has given corporations, governments and other powers a tool which takes advantage of our dispositions to concoct "me" and "mine". The distractions and time wasted, the comparisons and competition, the lack and alienation are natural developments of this dependent co-origination which these powers consciously use to further their agendas. Unfortunately, they do not see that they also fall under the natural dynamics of this system, and so our societies and now world are becoming imprisoned in the concoctions of a mega "self" prone now to Aging & Dying.

AGING & DYING (jaramarana)
In our consumer cultures, we experience Aging & Dying on a number of levels:
Boredom evolves out of the dullness of mind from too much dualistic flipping back and forth between positive and negative. Boredom comes when things have been consumed to the point that the "self" seeks something new and tires of what it has. This is clearly manifested in the consumer fads and fashions which with ever increasing speed sweep through our cultures and are gone. Once a form has been acquired and consumed, it is no longer "other" and loses the aura of power that the "other" has in this "self" based dualism. The "self" Craves something because of the power of that other "self" or image. Yet once this "thing" has been consumed to the point that its sensual affects begin to wane, the "self" comes into contact with the fear of loss and more deeply, the fear of Impermanence, Dukkha and Not-self. Consequently, a new thing with power potential must be found.

This sickness of boredom is a key one in that it fuels our modern addiction towards speed. Speed insures that events and forms will move so fast that we will never have to confront for long Aging & Dying which exposes Not-self. "I'm sick of this kind of food," but there's another kind to be eaten. "I'm sick of that song (or that band)" but there's another new one. "I'm sick of this TV show" but there is another new one. Such rapid scrambling for the new form which may hold the secret essence to fulfill one's "self" leads to scrambled thinking and the development of concentration diseases we see in economized societies, especially hyperactive young children. Such a mentality also fuels the "throw away" culture that the modern world has become and thus is at the root of our environmental crisis.

This dullness of mind is also expressed in the consumer hyper-self which is the need to display oneself and the things of the "self" (possessions, image, views, status, etc.) to others. The "self" is constantly looking outward in comparison and competition in order to validate itself. This expresses itself in the need for approval from other selves (people, institutions). With the increasing speed and numbness of consumer culture, self-expression has taken on a feeling of hyper-urgency. Louder and more outrageous individuals and society become in competition to be heard amongst other such "selves". Structurally, these hyper-selves are manifested in our media companies which present higher and higher levels of shock value experience so that they will gain notoriety, popularity and profits from their well-accepted status and "self". News media is a prime example of this. Only the latest shocking stories of death and the glamorous and compelling stories of celebrity, business and politics make the news. In a nutshell, the news is the display of ego or "self" such as politicians, sports stars, business moguls, or murderers who are louder, stronger and more vital than other ordinary selves. They are all monuments to the "self" which has successfully conquered other selves and become more real, for they are known by all and will be remembered. These selves may even transcend death in their ability to be remembered, which is surely the hope of so many, to be remembered after death. Here we can see how the delusion of this dullness and boredom link to the positive, greed state of fame.

Beyond the obvious ego state of greed concocted in consumer society is the state of fear. Fear is clearly seen in most people's need for consumer accumulation expressed as the need for "another one" since what one has isn't enough or in case it breaks. It is easy to see how manufacturers play on this fear by making "Buy 10 get one free" offers or actually making products which don't last as long so that this acquisitive fear will be "proven". This fear further induces our material paranoia for things being stolen, our hyper possessiveness, and a lack of generosity. As we become more possessive, our fear of losing possessions increases, and our time spent defending ourselves and our possessions increases. Such heightened selfishness indicates to others who don't have as much that we do indeed have a lot and merit being robbed, which again leads to "proof" of our fears. As we saw in the Mahanidana Sutta, states of greed (stinginess and safe guarding) lead to states of anger in the taking up of "stick and sword, quarrels, disputes, arguments, strife, abuse, lying." Is it any coincidence that the world's consumer model, the United States, is internally racked with the social violence of people striking out in anger, fear, and despair deprived of the material well being that others are hoarding.

Unfortunately all this experience with Dukkha tends to reinforce consumer patterns rather than lead to their dismissal. For example, there are people who consume even more with a wage cut or job loss. Afraid to show their loss of "self" by not keeping up with the patterns of others in their environment or too fully addicted to the comforts of their life, such people head towards imminent financial crisis, not so much from not having enough money but from being unable to align their consumption with their economic situation. A common way this has become institutionalized in the United States is credit card debt. Individuals are invited by credit card companies to spend beyond their means and pay later in the future (with an increase in interest of course). Surely the future will bring economic growth, which is based in the Baconian myth of continual progress. In the meantime, we must keep our consumption levels on par with others around us so as to not lose our status and our "self" in their eyes. The United States government deficit spending of the 1980s was an even greater institutionalization of this inability of the "self" and the collective "self" to face the reality of Aging & Dying, of the possibility that one has to re-evaluate one's direction in life and find a way more compatible with reality. The more industrialized governments continue to lay importance on consumer spending and to build their economies around consumer industries such as tourism, entertainment and other sensual services, the more we deny the sand that our castles are built of.

As we have seen, the construction of the "self" contains its own undoing as a process which exacerbates what it is trying to cure. The more we fight to preserve our grand illusion of "self" played out in consumer culture, the greater our suffering will be when the whole construction reaches a point of exhaustion and final death. Our project here, however, is to not prophesize the end of the world, but to understand our present problems more deeply so that we can move towards health with the smallest taste of the bitterness of Aging & Dying as possible. The Buddha did not leave us with commandments to "do good or else". He left us with concrete methods in order to investigate the way to be in harmony with our beings and our world. Before we go into that, though, it would be helpful to look at consumer paticca samuppada through a test case.

NOTES:
1 Samyutta Nikaya, Nidanavagga - the Book of Causation (II), Nidanasamyutta - the Connected Discourses on Causation (12), Nutrtiment (II), Kaccanagotta (15) [17]; Digha Nikaya, Brahmajala Sutta : The Supreme Net - What the Teaching Is Not 1 (I.1-46).
2 There is the recent development called "enjo-kosai", young high school girls in urban Japan selling sexual favors to middle aged business men to get money to buy the latest fashionable goods. This is truly a form of silabbatupadana. There is such a great Clinging and Craving to material goods and the images they evoke that deeper meanings such as sexual integrity are sacrificed in the pursuit of them. Similar cases of university girls dancing in sex clubs in Bangkok have also been documented. It is ironic that these examples come from Asia which is considered to have more conservative sexual values and stronger family structures.
3 Digha Nikaya, Mahanidana Sutta : The Great Discourse on Origination, 15:9 (II.58-59).
4 Kalic, Gunduz, "The Death of Reality", Adbusters: The Journal of Mental Environment, Autumn 1997, 29-31.
5 In order to get through to increasingly numb and cynical viewers, advertising continually pushes the barriers of moral and social norms through commericials which use shock as the primary vehicle for selling a product. Grierson, Bruce "Shock's Next Wave", Adbusters: The Journal of Mental Environment, Winter 1998.

Jonathan Watts

Think Sangha Coordinator