If the treated choose another activity, like excissive sports or work distract themselves again, how much is won?
If this shortcut works, great.
Drugs are rewarding and that’s why people use them. There are many medications that will dull the senses, numb feelings, and reduce emotions. Drug users don’t seek these out and become dependent on them, though, which is why they’re unscheduled.
Ignoring the rewarding/euphoric effects of these drugs is a red herring.
> If the treated choose another activity, like excissive sports or work distract themselves again, how much is won?
Are you asking if doing a lot of sports or work is better than a lifetime of drug addiction? Because that’s not really a question. Drug dependence can be sustained for a while (“functional addicts”) but the cumulative long-term effects across many domains are undeniably worse than playing a lot of sports or doing a lot of work.
And this is why in Taoism as well as Buddhism, the goal is to lose attachment to all things.
A goal to end all goals. It is as easy as it sounds, do not even try to have no goal.
That's not my understanding of attachment in Eastern religions. It's focused on not being attached to the outcomes of your actions.
It was never born; thus it can never die. Why is it infinite? It has no desires for itself; thus it is present for all beings.
The Master stays behind; that is why she is ahead. She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them. Because she has let go of herself, she is perfectly fulfilled.
"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain."