fixation

Interesting and seemingly very powerful perspective on the cessation of suffering. Most refs on this page are from this twitter thread:

Shinzen Young explains here why he thinks 'fixation' is the right way to frame the necessary cause for suffering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6ElQ9y5qQ0

He uses the analogy of fluid flow, where there's a phase change between the laminar and turbulent regimes, measured by the Reynolds number - the "ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces". Slightly decreasing the fluid's viscosity, i.e., its tendency to 'catch' on itself, can shift the entire regime of the flow.

Other interpretations of taṇhā, like 'desire' or 'clinging', would seem to have larger implications that people resist: do you have to give up desire for your spouse? 'Fixation' is a more surgical description of what's required.

Once heard someone ask a teacher about this on retreat: “there are many pursuits I don’t want to let go of.” Teacher replied with a @ShinzenYoung phrase I think about a lot:

“The only thing we are ever called to let go of is our present moment sensory experience.”

Put differently: everything that Buddhism wants us to give up happens at extremely short timescales.

It's not clear to me how reassuring this should be. It's a bit like saying, "sure, you can still have skyscrapers, it's just that they need to be made entirely out of air; you can't use any steel". At best this would require a substantial effort to rebuild what seemed like perfectly good already-existing structures; at worst, you notice that it's hard to build functional skyscrapers purely out of air?