Buddha Was a UX Designer: The Four Noble Truths in Jobs-Speak
I was thinking about translation loss from Sanskrit to English, and it got me wondering - what if we translated Buddha's teachings not through academic precision, but through a completely different lens?
So I asked Claude a simple question: "Can you help me translate 'The Four Noble Truths' from Prakrit to simple English. Let's say Steve Jobs was doing the translation"
What came back was... well, see for yourself:
The Four Noble Truths (Jobs Edition)
1. "Life has bugs."
(Dukkha - dissatisfaction/suffering)
Not "suffering" in the dramatic sense, but that persistent feeling that something's off. Like using a product with a terrible interface - it works, but it grates on you.2. "The bug is wanting the wrong things."
(Samudaya - the cause)
We crash because we're running the wrong code. We want permanence in a world of updates. We cling to version 1.0 when life has already moved to 2.0.3. "You can debug this."
(Nirodha - cessation)
This isn't unfixable. It's not a hardware problem, it's software. And software can be rewritten.4. "Here's the patch."
(Magga - the path)
Eight clean functions that work together. Like a well-designed OS - each component simple, but together they create something profound.
And then came the kicker: "Buddha was essentially a UX designer for consciousness - identifying pain points in the human experience and designing an elegant solution."
Why This Works
What fascinates me isn't just the cleverness of the translation. It's how this reframing makes 2,500-year-old wisdom immediately accessible to anyone who's ever:
- Dealt with buggy software
- Understood version updates
- Appreciated good design
Jobs famously said "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." Buddha might have said the same about consciousness.
The Pattern
This isn't about diminishing ancient wisdom or forcing modern metaphors. It's about recognizing that profound truths can be expressed through any era's language. Buddha spoke to farmers using agricultural metaphors. Why not speak to us through our metaphors?
Maybe every generation needs its own translation - not just of words, but of entire conceptual frameworks. What other ancient wisdom could benefit from a fresh lens?
Buddha as UX designer for consciousness. I'll take it.
Want to see the full conversation? Check out the complete exchange here.