I Mind if I Don’t Mind

In Buddhism, striving is considered a cause of suffering so is best avoided. If a society observed this recommendation, its progress would be zero. Should people pursue progress and embrace the suffering allegedly caused thereby? Or should the benefits of progress be weighed against the suffering, in an objective sense? In other words, should the claims of belief be put through the crucible of practice and accepted or rejected based on the test? Or is that just too sensible?

If those early Buddhist scribes and translators had desired to defeat their desire (that is a double bind that Buddhists still grapple with) to transcribe and translate Buddhist scriptures, Buddhism would have been transmitted only orally, which would have created wild inconsistencies from place to place. Also, had the oral transmitters followed the principle of non-desire, then they might have defeated their desire to transmit, resulting in the demise of the tradition.