Understanding fulfilment 

 

 

The New Oxford Dictionary describes the meaning of the word ‘fulfilment’ as: 

 

1.               Satisfaction (from Latin satis ‘enough’ + facere ‘make’) or happiness gained as a result of fully developing one’s abilities or character.  

2.               The achievement (i.e. as completion or realization) of something desired, promised or predicted.

3.               The carrying out of a task, duty or role as required, pledged or expected; 

4.               Satisfying or meeting of a requirement, condition, or need.

 

If the order of the four descriptions is reversed and each one fragmented into its parts and the primary elements highlighted, then the basic principles of pilgrimage and its ending (i.e. fulfilment) emerge.

 

1.     The carrying out (i.e. to completion) of

1.     a (i.e. any) task,

2.     or a duty

3.     or a role

1.  as required or expected.

 

2.     Satisfying or meeting of

1.     a (i.e. any) requirement,

2.     a condition,

3.     a or need.

 

3.     The achievement (i.e. as completion or realization) of

1.     some (read: any) thing desired,  

2.     some thing promised

3.     some thing predicted.

 

4.     Satisfaction or happiness gained as a result of

1.     fully developing one’s abilities

2.     fully developing one’s character

 

Being filled full of satisfaction or happiness (sometimes pumped up to the intensity of rapturous joy), in other words, getting high on the reward, and whose actual function – in self-regulating systems – is that of the carrot, is achieved by fulfilling a need,* whereby the process (i.e. effort/work, often experienced as ordeal) of fulfilling a need with some thing describes the pilgrimage proper.

 

That was the easy, the user-friendly bit.

 

* … Obviously, eliminating the factors that generate need is also an option. This was the Buddhist way. The Buddha realised that neither the content nor the intensity of need satisfaction can (both in principle and in practice) last, hence are fundamentally unsatisfactory (Pali: dukkha). He concluded that only the removal of need could offer permanent satisfaction (i.e. fulfilment). To wit: the goal of eliminating the unpleasant affects of unsatisfied need, namely suffering, was to prevent the arising of need. This, he reasoned could only happen if the driver of need, namely the urge to life (and rebirth) is extinguished (in nirvana).

 

To uncover the uneasy, i.e. unfriendly architecture and design of the above (surface structure)                                   

 

Dig here for fine detail