..續本文上一頁aches its apparent opposite, the craving for annihilation (vibhava-tanha). It is ancient knowledge: the affinity of Eros and Thanatos, of passionate love and death.

　　Craving for annihilation, for non-being, may be likened to the flooding of the river of inpidualized life. The waters revolt against the banks, the restricting boundaries of inpiduality. Suffering under their frustrating limitations, they seek to burst through all dams in quest of the great ocean, longing to be one with it, to submerge painful separateness in an imagined Oneness. It is the enticing melody of "Unbewusst — hoechste Lust!" ("To be unconscious — oh highest lust!", Richard Wagner), the "descent to the mother goddess," the cult of the night.

　　On a simpler level, the craving for annihilation is the outcome of sheer despair, the reverse of worldly enchantment. Worn out by the vicissitudes of life, one longs for a sleep without awakening, to obliterate oneself as a protest against a world that does not grant one”s wishes. As an irrational revenge, one wants to destroy oneself or others. In some cases, fanatical creeds of violence and destruction stem from this very source.[10]

　　Finally, in its rationalized form, this craving appears as the view or theory of annihilation (uccheda-ditthi), expressed in various types of materialist philosophies throughout the history of human thought.

　　Craving for continued existence (bhava-tanha) is the unceasing, restless flow of the river of life towards goals hoped for, but never attained. It is fed by our persistent hope that happiness will come tomorrow, or in a heaven or golden age of our belief. Even when all our toil gives little or no present satisfaction and happiness, we console ourselves with the thought that we work for our children or our nation or mankind; and each generation repeats that deferred hope.

　　As a longing for life eternal, desired and imagined in many forms, this craving for existence appears in many religions and philosophies. In Buddhist texts, it is called "the eternalist view" (sassata-ditthi). Craving for existence is the driving force that keeps the Wheel of Life in rotation. If viewed by an unclouded eye, this wheel is seen as a treadmill kept in motion by those who have condemned themselves to that servitude. It is a contraption "where you are perpetually climbing, but can never rise an inch" (Walter Scott). The beings who rotate in it are again and again victimized by their illusion that the stepping-board before their eyes is the cherished goal, the desired end of their toil. They do not know that within a turning wheel there is no final goal or destination; and that the end of the world with its suffering cannot be reached by walking on a treadmill. It can be attained only by stopping the driving forces within us — craving and ignorance. Yet those beings who have committed themselves to that wheel still believe that, within this truly vicious circle, they do "get on in life," and hopefully speak of progress and evolution.

　　This is the sober and sobering view of existence and the craving for its continuation. But if there were not also a tempting aspect, beings would not cling to life and crave for it to go on. We need not dwell here on those tempting aspects high or low, as there have been, and still are, many eulogists of life and its beauties. Hence we shall speak here only of some of the more subtle forms of allurement which the craving for existence takes.

　　Among its numerous forms, craving for existence may appear as a longing for variety. This longing frequently makes people seek for happiness somewhere else than in the here and now, and in some form other than the one they actually possess. The mirage of a "happiness elsewhere" becomes a bait that moves further away the close…

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