The devil in Faust
lives in everyone's mind.
A man
has mastered philosophy, law, medicine, and theology.
He is a professor,
a doctor,
the most learned man in the eyes of his students.
But late one night,
sitting in his study,
surrounded by walls of books,
he said one thing:
"This is my world.
This is a prison."
Among all the books on those walls,
not one could answer the real question in his heart.
What question?
He couldn't put it into words.
He only knew that
the more knowledge he gained,
the heavier that question became,
so heavy that he wanted to drink poison.
At that very moment,
the devil arrived.
The devil said,
"Give me your soul,
and I will let you experience what books never can:
the pleasure of life,
the thrill of power,
the ultimate beauty."
"There is only one condition:
If one day
you say to a single moment,
'Linger on now,
thou art so fair,'
at that moment,
your soul shall be mine."
This is Goethe's 'Faust,' which took sixty years to write.
Hello,
everyone.
I am Wang Lijie.
This is the series: 'Deconstructing Classics through Buddhism.'
Previously, we explored the seeds and seasons of 'Flowers in the Mirror,'
conceptual attachment in 'Dream of the Red Chamber,'
the restless mind-monkey of 'Journey to the West,'
emotional obsession in 'The Peony Pavilion,'
the five stages of morality in 'Su Shu,'
the fork of Samatha and Vipassana in 'Meditations,'
and the incompleteness of 'Gödel, Escher, Bach.'
Today, we reach one of the peaks of Western literature.
We will deconstruct a masterpiece whose name most people know,
but few have read in its entirety:
'Faust.'
Goethe began its conception in his twenties
and didn't finish until the year before he died at eighty-two.
Over 12,000 lines of poetry,
spanning sixty years.
It is no exaggeration to say
this is a man using his entire life
to answer a single question:
'What is the purpose of being alive?'
Today, re-examining this story through the lens of Buddhism,
we find three chilling realizations.
First,
Faust's suffering
does not stem from ignorance.
On the contrary, it's because he knows too much.
Look at his opening monologue.
Philosophy, law, medicine, theology—
he has studied all four major disciplines.
Still not enough,
he turned to magic and the occult.
And the result?
He said something startling:
"We can know nothing."
Note,
he isn't saying he failed to learn practical things.
He is saying
that all this knowledge combined
cannot bring him in touch with reality.
In Buddhism, there is a precise name for this.
It is called the "obstruction of the known."
Strictly speaking,
In Yogachara, this refers to the dualistic cognitive structure of subject and object;
I corrected and detailed this in a previous episode.
But it has a more colloquial, everyday meaning,
which is the level I'm focusing on today.
It doesn't mean you don't know anything;
on the contrary,
it means you know too much.
So much that your knowledge becomes a wall,
blocking the truth out.
Have you ever met someone like this?
They seem to know everything;
they can talk about any topic,
and quote theories with ease.
But when you talk to them,
you feel something is missing.
What is it?
The ability to face something directly.
They are always using concepts to explain concepts,
using theories to support theories.
Like someone standing in a house of mirrors,
surrounded by reflections,
but unable to see their true self.
Many fans tell me,
"You share so much every day,
explaining concept after concept;
you might be one of those people—knowing too much
but lacking actual realization."
I think they have a point.
Moreover,
Ananda, the Buddha's attendant,
was foremost in hearing the teachings.
He was by the Buddha's side for twenty-five years,
heard the most sutras, and had the best memory,
yet he only attained Arhatship the night before the First Council.
Of course,
the reasons for Ananda's late enlightenment are complex,
traditionally attributed more to his emotional attachments.
It wasn't just a matter of "knowing too much."
But the fact that the most learned person wasn't the first to awaken
is worth reflecting on.
Faust is that person.
I might be, too.
In Buddhism,
the "obstruction of afflictions" is coarse—
greed, anger, ignorance, pride, and doubt.
You can feel these.
But the "obstruction of the known" is subtle,
so subtle you mistake it for wisdom itself.
You think that wall is a window,
that you're seeing the world through it.
But you don't realize
everything you see
is just a projection on that wall.
Faust's emptiness after mastering four major disciplines
wasn't the emptiness of ignorance;
it was the emptiness of surplus knowledge.
Like someone who has tasted every dish on earth
and suddenly finds they can no longer taste anything.
It's not the food's fault;
it's that their sense of taste is overwhelmed.
As we've mentioned many times on this channel,
the brain is a prediction engine,
a local carbon-based model.
It trains and infers simultaneously.
It doesn't passively receive the world;
it actively uses existing models to predict it.
The more knowledge you have,
the thicker the model becomes.
Predictions may become more precise,
and you feel like you understand everything.
But the problem is,
do you understand the world itself,
or just your own model?
Faust is a man trapped by his own model.
His model is powerful enough to predict everything,
except for one thing:
authentic experience.
Because experience cannot be reached through prediction.
Experience is what remains
after you let go of prediction.
That's the first layer.
The second thing is even more interesting.
Mephistopheles, the devil who makes the deal with Faust,
Mephistopheles,
didn't come from hell.
He was always in Faust's mind.
Goethe wrote an introduction for him
that provides the key to the whole play.
He said,
"I am part of that power
which always wills evil
and always produces good."
Then he said another thing:
"I am the spirit that always denies."
"Always denies."
Did you notice the weight of those two words?
Not occasional denial,
not conditional denial,
but always.
This means,
no matter what you achieve,
he will whisper in your ear,
"Not enough."
"Still not enough."
You reach an achievement,
and he says,
"So what?"
You experience a wonderful romance,
and he says,
"It will end."
You stand on a peak and see the whole world,
and he says,
"You will die eventually."
In Buddhism,
this is 'Manas consciousness.'
What is Manas consciousness?
We've discussed it many times on this channel.
It's the background program that's always running in your mind.
It has only one core function:
it labels every experience.
"This is mine."
"This relates to me."
"This isn't enough."
"I want more."
Mephistopheles didn't inject Faust
with anything that didn't already exist in him.
He just externalized
that voice of eternal dissatisfaction in Faust's heart,
turning it into a character for dialogue.
This is where Goethe's genius lies.
He didn't write an evil force invading from outside;
he wrote a mirror.
Think about it.
What did Mephistopheles take Faust to experience?
Wine, lust, power, Helen of Troy—the peerless beauty of ancient Greece,
and even the grand project of reclaiming land from the sea.
Every single time,
Faust was left unsatisfied after the experience.
Why?
Not because the experiences weren't good enough,
but because Mephistopheles—
that internal voice of constant denial—
simply would not allow him to be satisfied.
Manas consciousness has a very cunning trait:
it denies bad experiences, and,
it also denies good ones.
You enjoy a wonderful meal,
and it says,
"What about the next one?"
You make a good friend,
and it says,
"What if they leave you?"
You do a good deed,
and it says,
"Did anyone see that?"
It isn't protecting you;
it's draining you dry.
It makes you live forever in the next goal,
never able to settle in the here and now.
And the wager between Faust and Mephisto
targets exactly this vulnerability.
Mephisto says,
'If you ever say to any moment,
"Stay, linger a while,
you are so beautiful,"
then your soul shall be mine.'
On the surface,
this is the devil betting Faust will be captured by pleasure.
But if you think about it the other way,
do you see a deeper paradox?
The reason Faust can never say those words
is not because he hasn't met a beautiful moment,
but because the Mephisto in his mind,
that Manas consciousness,
never allows him to stop at any moment.
Have you ever had this experience in your life?
You finally get the thing you dreamed of—
a house, a position, a relationship,
whatever it may be.
The second you have it,
the joy only lasts for a moment,
and then that voice inside immediately says,
'What is the next goal?'
That voice
is the Mephisto within you.
What does Buddhism call this?
The mechanism of 'greed' or 'craving.'
Greed isn't just about wanting something;
it's always wanting the *next* thing.
The essence of greed isn't possession,
it's the inability to settle.
Your hand is always reaching forward,
never quite grasping it.
Not because the goal is too far,
but because the act of reaching itself
has become a habit.
That's the second layer.
Before we discuss the third layer,
I want to talk about someone:
Gretchen.
Gretchen is the first woman Faust meets with Mephisto's help.
A simple, kind, and pious young girl.
Did Faust love her?
I think he did.
But the way he loved her
exposed another mode of how Manas operates.
Faust used jewels and magic from Mephisto to attract Gretchen.
The two fell madly in love.
But in this relationship,
to open the door for Faust,
Gretchen gave her mother a sleeping potion;
the mother never woke up.
Her brother fought Faust to defend the family's honor,
but was ambushed by Mephisto
and died.
Gretchen became pregnant with Faust's child.
Faust ran away.
In despair, Gretchen drowned her own child,
was imprisoned,
and awaited execution.
Faust returned,
wanting to save her,
but Gretchen refused.
She chose to stay in prison
to face judgment.
Do you see it?
In his pursuit of 'experience,'
Faust treated a whole human being as a mere stop along the itinerary.
He didn't hurt her on purpose,
but his Manas made it impossible to truly stay with one person.
What he needed wasn't to love someone,
but to experience the *feeling* of being in love.
Once the feeling was spent,
he left.
The ruins left behind
all belonged to someone else.
This is the cruelest part of attachment.
It doesn't just harm you,
it drags those around you into your chain of karma.
You think you're just pursuing your own life,
but wherever your pursuit leads,
you leave behind people crushed by your obsession.
How would Buddhism view
Gretchen's tragedy?
She is the bearer of collective karma in Faust's chain.
The cause Faust sowed was a greedy attachment to experience;
Gretchen is the bitterest fruit grown from that seed.
Yet her choice to stay in prison and face judgment
is actually the closest moment to awakening in the play.
She stops running,
stops using any means to fight fate.
She halts.
She faces it.
Alright.
Now for the third level,
the deepest level,
and the most controversial part of Faust.
At the end of Part Two,
Faust is very old.
He is reclaiming land from the sea,
hoping to build a free land for a free people.
He imagines this future scene,
free people standing on a free soil.
At this vision, he finally says the words:
"Linger a while,
thou art so fair."
Then he falls dead.
Per their agreement,
his soul should belong to Mephistopheles.
But Goethe wrote an unexpected ending.
Angels descend from heaven,
and while Mephisto is distracted,
they snatch Faust's soul away
and take it to heaven.
What was the angels' justification?
Goethe wrote a line at the very end:
"He who strives on and on,
him we can redeem."
For 200 years, this has been hailed as the anthem of the human spirit.
Ceaseless pursuit,
the will to always move forward;
this is seen as the dignity of being human.
But if you view this line through Buddhist eyes,
you see something very subtle.
Isn't "ceaseless pursuit"
the perfect operating mode of the Manas-vijnana?
Think about it.
Mephisto's wager was:
"If you ever stop,
your soul belongs to me."
Faust did eventually stop;
he spoke those words to that imagined moment.
By the terms of the bet,
he lost.
His soul should belong to the devil.
But Goethe didn't accept this outcome.
He used the angels to force a reversal,
arguing that because Faust strove all his life,
he deserved to be saved.
In other words,
Goethe used a lifetime's balance
to override the wager of a single moment.
This handling is intriguing in itself,
but Buddhism asks an even more uncomfortable question:
Isn't "ceaseless striving" as a reason for salvation
simply the most dignified cloak the Manas-vijnana wears?
Someone driven by "not enough, I want more,"
versus someone who "strives ceaselessly"—
from the outside, what's the difference?
If you are always pursuing,
when are you ever living in the present?
If your freedom is defined as never stopping,
then how are you different from a machine
set to never turn off?
Stoic philosophy says
freedom lies in discerning what is within your control
and what is not.
We broke this down in the episode on Meditations.
Buddhism goes even more fundamental.
Freedom isn't about eternal pursuit;
it's the ability to find stillness in any given moment,
and then voluntarily choosing whether to continue.
What is the difference?
It lies in whether that choice is free
or if it was forced.
Goethe's Faust
is pushed forward by a certain force.
That force is called diligence,
unwillingness to settle,
and a thirst for life.
Buddhism does not deny diligence;
it is one of the Eightfold Paths.
But Buddhism says
diligence is a knife;
it depends on what you use it to cut.
If your diligence is an escape from present dissatisfaction,
then you are just running more elegantly.
No matter how far you run,
the Mephistopheles on your shoulder
will be wherever you are.
But if your diligence arises from a place of stillness;
if you can stop first,
and remain undriven in any given moment,
before choosing to move forward,
that is a completely different matter.
That is not an escape;
it is a departure.
Goethe stopped there.
He gave Faust an external salvation;
the angels came
and took his soul away.
But Buddhism would say
no one is coming from the outside to save you.
It's not an angel that saves you,
but your own realization that Mephistopheles is no one else
but the voice of your own Manas-vijnana.
When you stop fighting it,
and simply observe it,
it becomes quiet.
Why shouldn't you fight it?
Because fighting is its favorite game.
The more you struggle against it,
the stronger it becomes.
If you say, "I must not be greedy,"
this "must not" is itself a form of greed.
If you say, "I want to overcome desire,"
this urge to overcome is itself a desire.
This is Faust's deepest tragedy.
He spent a lifetime struggling with the devil,
never realizing
that the struggle itself
was the devil's greatest victory.
You see,
Goethe and Buddha saw the same thing:
an insatiable voice within the human heart.
But they prescribed completely different remedies.
Goethe's solution was
to let that voice push you to run,
to achieve great deeds,
and to answer restlessness with constant creation and action.
And then you are saved.
In many ways, Western civilization
is built upon this very belief.
Progress, innovation, conquering nature, and expansion
are all driven by this never-ending diligence.
Buddha's solution was
to turn around,
look at that voice,
and see clearly what it is.
Neither fighting it
nor obeying it.
You just watch it,
and then you realize
it is not you;
it is just a program.
Once you see it as just a program,
its control over you vanishes.
You don't need to be saved,
because you were never trapped to begin with.
It's not a cage that's trapping you,
it's the belief that the cage exists.
Goethe points to outward-expanding greatness;
Buddha points to inward-abiding freedom.
Which one is better?
I really don't know.
Perhaps these two paths aren't mutually exclusive.
Maybe you need to run outward like Faust first,
before you are willing to look inward.
Perhaps Faust's sixty-year journey
is a path that must be completed to be let go.
Didn't Buddha himself live as a prince for 29 years,
enjoying all worldly splendors,
before choosing to leave it all behind?
Who's to say getting lost isn't another way of arriving?
But I know one thing:
The next time that voice in your head says,
"Not enough,"
"Give me more,"
"Try a little harder,"
you can at least stop for three seconds
and look at it.
Is that you?
Or is it just a habit you've kept for too long?
The answer to this question
might be more important than reading a hundred books.
Goethe spent sixty years writing about a man
making a deal with the voices in his head,
betting on whether he would ever say to a moment,
"Enough."
He said it.
And then Goethe says,
he won.
What do you think?
Did Faust win or lose in the end?
Was his soul truly saved,
or was it just taken over by a higher form of obsession?
Let me know your answer in the comments.
This is Wang Lijie.
See you next time.