SUMMARY
Attachment is a consequence of repetitions

Buddhism and Wheels
The First Truth tells us what Dukkha is. These days Dukkha is commonly understood as 'suffering'.

In Buddha's time the word Dukkha was used to describe when a wheel was not turning smoothly on its axle. In those days the wheels squeaked and wobbled, and the hub needed constant maintenance in order to run smoothly.

Dukkha describes how our existence is not running smoothly. The hub of the ancient wooden spoked wheel symbolises almost perfectly, how life wobbles, and sometimes starts grinding or gets twisted and blocked.

Modern suggestions for the interpretation of Dukkha are : suffering, anxiety, distress, unsatisfactory, frustration, unease, or stress, - but none of these have the sense of repetition and self perpetuating motion as witnessed in the wheel: - not running smoothly, not turning well.

Buddhism and Repetitions
The Second Truth discusses the cause of Dukkha. Our life is influenced by pleasure and wanting. This is the prime cause of Suffering or 'things not running smoothly'.

My understanding of Buddhism then differs from the normal view.

The normal view is that pleasure and wanting lead to attachment, and due to impermanence and change, attatchment leads to suffering.

I believe Buddha's new central idea (or one of them), was that pleasure and wanting lead primarily to repetitions. Simply: if something is pleasurable, we want to repeat it. Repetitions involve us in a timeline, they are not conducive to being now. And, once the repetitions start, once the wheels start turning; then they turn with their own karmic momentum.

Attachments, especially extreme attachments like clinging, are just one of the consequences of the repetitions.

This idea occurred to me while considering how suffering, and all the other exaggerated terms like 'clinging' and 'craving'; made Buddha's message more concrete and dramatic, but they diminished its universal application.

I believe Buddha's message was a universal one, and applied to all the little wants and problems we have, like the times we end up in the kitchen and forget what we came for ... not only and exclusively the most extreme and manifest forms of addiction (craving and clinging) and suffering.

I had been considering the phrase: the origin of Dukkha is "that craving which gives rise to fresh rebirth"(2). I realised the simple everyday sense of this is : the origin of Dukkha is 'that wanting which leads to another repetition'.

It may well be that an extreme form of wanting like craving leads to extreme forms of repetition like rebirth; but it is blatantly obvious that wanting leads to repetition, and this is a basic universal truth.

The Middle Way
The Middle Way is a way between the two extremes of sensual indulgence and sensory withdrawal.

Broadband sensing fulfills these criteria perfectly.

I believe that broadband sensing is the practical teaching of the middle way. There are many psychological and philosophical attitudes which this could be combined with.

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