Imagine being born a prince or a princess.
And growing up with parents who wanted to make your life perfect.
Imagine what that might look like… imagine what essentially unlimited resources (being king and queen) could do… imagine what they might do to make sure you never knew a moment of suffering and had every need and desire met…
Imagine them building up a wall around your castle so that you never saw suffering or met people of different classes… imagine indulging in the best foods daily… receiving every gift you even slightly wanted… having servants cater to your every need and demand…
…Imagine what that might teach you about the world.
I’ll tell you what it’ll teach you: not much.
Not only is the above the story of Buddha… but it’s the story countless parents play in their head of what they want for their children—whom are the most precious things in the world to them.
…And protecting them, caring for them, and creating a “perfect” little world for them to live in is an instinctual part of a parent’s nature.
But the more the world skews towards “perfect”—in the sense of every desire being met and no suffering—the less it actually teaches us about the world, isn’t it?
Because life is imperfect. The world is imperfect. Humans are imperfect.
Suffering is everywhere. Needs aren’t something given—they’re earned. Desires aren’t meant to always be fulfilled.
THAT is the nature of things.
And the more you intermingle with the “imperfect” world… the more flawed humans you interact with… the more suffering you see through to the other side…
The more you’ll learn about life for real.