Daemon Slayer

In the story of Buddha's enlightenment, Mara sends his three daughter's to tempt Buddha away from achieving enlightenment. They were:

• Taṇhā (Craving), 
• Arati (Aversion/Discontentment) and, 
• Raga (Attachment/Desire/Greed/Passion). 

Of course, like any good superhero, Buddha defeats the three daemon daughters and goes on to save the world.

Buddha resisting daemons

It's a good story. If it wasn't so theologically burdened, Buddhism would pretty much be the Indian version of Stoicism. Even the Four Noble Truths sound like the teachings of a Greek Atheist Stoic:

1. To live is to experience suffering.
2. The cause of suffering is craving/desire born of delusions about the true source of happiness.
3. Freedom from suffering will come through enlightenment, when we are free from desire and from the delusions that cause those desires.
4. The way to enlightenment is the eightfold path.

Buddha reaches enlightenment in the story above because he conquers desire (the daughters) and thus frees himself from suffering. The Greek Stoics would have endorsed the first 3 truths wholeheartedly (n.b. I'll be doing a more thorough post on Stoicism in the future). Their goal was to reach Tranquility (ataraxia), in which their happiness no longer depended on things external to themselves. 

So what's the point? 

All of us want to be happy - many of us struggle. 

Sure, we may be happyish - but I'll bet many of us still worry. About money, about how we look, about our health or about the direction our life has taken. Are we in the right job, with the right partner? Many of us are also plagued by a constant desire for new things: new cars, new clothes, new phones.

Doesn't tranquility sound better than that? It did to me, which is why I began taking aim at the daemons in my life. I've looked for minor daemons that have control over me, but which I have the power to control. (Daemons like worrying about my family are harder to control.) 

These minor daemons are things like: caffeine, alcohol, and mental distractors.

Caffeine: There's nothing wrong with caffeine per se, and it's main sources, coffee and tea, are probably good for you in moderation. Nevertheless, caffeine is still a daemon that needs to be slain.

Once you're addicted to coffee, you are a-completely-ddic-totally-ted. 

Miss your morning coffee - drowsiness and bad mood. 

No caffeine for a day, that's a migraine and the feeling that your life force has been drained by an energy vampire.

Not being reliant on caffeine would mean regaining that control over yourself. It would mean your morning mental state doesn't depend on something external to you. After all, do you think there be there will be any coffee after the nuclear holocaust? No, because the zombies will have drunk it all. Best prepare now, and start weaning yourself from the caffeine.

Over the past 2 weeks, I've gradually reduced my caffeine intake from ~600mg (or 4 cups of coffee) to ~280mg (less than 2 cups of coffee). A daily log has helped me track my progress and has induced some self-competitiveness- I always want to beat the previous day's amount.

In the next 2 weeks, I'll crush the caffeine daemon for good.

Alcohol: I'm not going to preach about alcohol here - I love British ales. For a while after I moved to the UK, I thought the only thing this country had going for it was the ale. The great British pastime of regularly exceeding the weekly advised limit of 21 units became my pastime. Hangovers were exceedingly rare, I was rarely very drunk. Nevertheless, it had become too easy a habit, a habit that seemed to interfere with and replace other, better habits I wished I had.

It had become a crutch. A balm for a hard day, a source of amusement among friends, a source of friendliness among strangers, and sometimes, simply an easy way to kill a few hours when other options seemed too difficult.

In other words, a daemon - a doubly duplicitous one because it made other daemons so much harder to battle.

Suffice it to say, that the last 5 weeks alcohol-free have been eye-opening. My productivity has doubled, my energy has doubled, my willpower has increased and I've just been spending my time better overall.

Alcohol daemon: SLAIN

Mental Distractors: This is a relatively minor daemon in my life, and so was an easy kill. We don't have a TV at home, or an xbox, or pc games, nor do I spend hours on WhatsApp. The same goes for Twitter, and Reddit, and Buzzfeed, or Youtube... you get the point.

The only real mental distraction in my life was the news. I used to check news sites several times a day as well as religiously read the Economist every week.

Then I realised that I was devoting valuable mental resources to things beyond my control, and that generally provoked useless worries. 

"Girl, 6, found dead in woods." 

Great, now my day is ruined - knowing this doesn't help me in any way; it doesn't make me more 'informed' about the world. I can't do anything to fix it.
No, it's something beyond my circle of control and therefore shouldn't be a part of my circle of concern.

source: Mr Money Mustache

I realised that the more my circle of concern corresponded to my circle of control (the less I worried about things I couldn't control), the happier I'd be. Essentially this meant not visiting news sites anymore, and skipping a few articles in the Economist. This has probably freed 3-4 hours a week as well as reduced the amount of background noise in my life.

Mental Distractors Daemon: SLAIN

You could probably draw up a similar list of daemons to slay in your own life. Big Weapons help - that will be subject of a future post.