Papanca and the Path to the End of Conflict 2

The act of assuming an identity on either level requires looking for food— both physical and mental (SN 12:64)—for if you don’t find food for that identity, you can’t maintain it. In fact, the need to subsist on food is the one thing that characterizes all beings (AN 10:27). This fact is so central to the Buddha’s teachings that it’s the first item in the catechism memorized by novice monks and nuns. It’s also the fact that shows why the mental labels of objectification lead to conflict. As a being looking for food, you need a world to provide you with that food. Without a world to provide you with food, your identity as a being couldn’t last.

From this observation about what it means to be a being, the Buddhist notion of “becoming”—a sense of identity in a particular world of experience— derives. Your sense of who you are has to inhabit a world that can provide for the desires around which you’re defined. This applies both on the external, physical level and on the internal, psychological level. This is why the views and questions of objectification cover not only who you are, but also where you are, where you’ve come from, and where you’re going.

This reflection by Ajaan Geoff is from the book, Beyond all Directions, p. 91.