Buddhist Basics: The Second Noble Truth

The second Noble Truth expresses Buddha’s teaching that the suffering we experience in life isn’t “just how things are”; it’s caused by our misunderstanding the world around us, which leads us to try to grasp onto pleasant circumstances and push away what we don’t like.

The Four Noble Truths lay out the basic beliefs of Buddhism: that unenlightened life will never be fully satisfactory, that we keep suffering because we keep grasping at things and situations outside ourselves.

Please note: This audio is ripped from a video.

Transcript

Hello fellow meditator,

And welcome to this teaching on the Four Noble Truths,

The foundational teachings of Buddhism.

If you'd like to enroll in my free email course on the Four Noble Truths,

Please visit my teacher page here on the app and click the link to my website.

It'll take you to a page where you can register for that course and other free resources.

Welcome to this video on the Second Noble Truth.

This is the truth of the cause of Dukkha,

Which is sometimes translated as suffering,

But I prefer unsatisfactoriness.

And it's great news,

Actually,

That there is a cause.

Suffering doesn't just happen randomly out of nowhere.

And I want to illustrate the cause of suffering with a story from my own life,

Which is about the first time that I got stung by a yellow jacket.

But before I tell you that story,

I just want to make sure that you know I have a mini course on the Four Noble Truths.

It is free.

You can grab it now.

You will find a link to that course in the information box.

And it's got more resources to kind of help take all this information from your head down to your heart,

Out into your life,

And hopefully help you live a better and happier life.

Okay,

Now let's talk about that time that I got stung by a yellow jacket.

And I want to preface this by saying that basically up until this time of my life,

Which was probably like,

I don't know,

Four or five years ago,

I really had never been stung by any insects.

And I also tried not to kill any insects because if they weren't stinging me,

Why would I kill them?

But at the time I'm talking about,

I had a cabin in the woods outside of Houston,

A couple hours out of town.

I would go there for retreat just to get outside of town to do some work out there.

It was a great place to go.

But there were yellow jackets that lived like under the eaves of the front porch.

And for the first couple of years I had that place,

They weren't too bad.

But then one summer for whatever reason,

They just got out of hand,

There was a ton of yellow jacket nests.

And every time I went out that front door,

I was kind of concerned that I might get stung because their nests were right there.

They had their babies,

They had their eggs,

They were very protective.

So anyway,

One day I decided I just can't do this anymore.

I'm going to kill them all.

This is a horrible decision.

As a Buddhist,

I don't want to kill things,

Especially if they're not actively harming me.

It seemed like they were kind of maybe about to actively harm me.

So anyway,

I took an action based out of fear,

Based out of,

You know,

A desire to avoid what I would call suffering,

Getting stung by a yellow jacket.

And I was also having mental suffering just thinking they were probably about to sting me.

So I got this bug spray,

I sprayed all of them,

And then I ran inside and I felt horrible about it.

But what's done was done.

And it seemed to work.

I seem to have gotten pretty much all of them.

And then the next day,

I was out there hanging in my hammock,

Relaxing,

Having killed everyone else who was there.

And I just out of nowhere got stung by a yellow jacket.

So this is,

I think,

A pretty clear illustration of what causes suffering.

So first of all,

I had a sense of myself as distinct from the yellow jackets.

I had also a sense of threat that they were going to harm me in some way.

And in order to prevent them harming me instead,

I harmed them.

And I can't really blame them for taking revenge on me,

At least the one that survived and stinging me because I killed their entire family.

So it's a really simple example.

It's kind of a dumb example.

But it shows that actions and consequences are connected and the consequences don't just come out of nowhere.

And I'm sure that everybody has examples you can think of in your own life where you took some kind of action and it came back to bite you sooner or later.

So all of that kind of sets us up to talk about what Buddhists would diagnose or what the Buddha did diagnose as the cause of dukkha,

Which is suffering,

Unease,

All the way up to just unsatisfactoriness,

Just something could be better.

And it's actually really good news that it has a cause because in Buddhism,

And I mentioned this at the end of last video,

In Buddhism,

Anything that has a cause also can be stopped because that means it's not just like a natural part of reality.

And this is something that I want to pause and emphasize.

Buddhism does not say life is suffering.

Buddhism says as long as we are misunderstanding the world around us and the type of beings that we are,

And we take actions that we think are going to make us happy,

Like killing all the yellow jackets,

They hadn't even stung me yet.

I just want to put this out for the record.

They hadn't stung me.

I just killed them all.

And then one of them stung me.

Anyway,

When we take an action based on an inaccurate understanding of ourselves and the world around us,

And that action is based on either grabbing to something or wanting to push something away,

In this case,

Wanting to push away the possibility of getting stung,

That is when we put in motion things that are going to come back and haunt us.

And the positive actions that we take are not going to be a cause for future either suffering or unhappiness,

But the negative actions will be.

And I also just want to repeat and underscore the fact that according to Buddhism,

Suffering is not an inherent part of life.

It has a cause.

That means that we're creating the causes that then result in the condition of unhappiness,

Unsatisfactoriness,

Suffering,

Dukkha.

And the reason that's really important is because in Buddhism,

There is an assumption that the natural like nature of our mind is clear and luminous and radiant.

It is not a mind that is naturally or inherently obstructed by anything.

The Mahayana schools of Buddhism talk about Buddha nature,

That each of us is a Buddha,

And we've just forgotten that somehow.

So I really want to be clear,

And this is going to come up again in the next Noble Truth,

The Truth of Cessation,

I really want to be clear that from a Buddhist perspective,

Dukkha or suffering or unhappiness,

That is like the artificial additive to our lives.

It is not our basic nature.

So one of the really great pieces of news of Buddhism is that there is a cause for suffering,

And the Buddha identifies the cause as basically grabbing onto the sort of like grabby,

Clingy mind based on ignorance,

Based on not understanding the way the world is and the way that we are.

And those three characteristics of phenomena that we don't understand are first of all,

That everything is impermanent.

We are impermanent,

We are constantly changing,

Every cell in our body has been renewed.

I mean,

Unless you're under the age of seven and you're listening to this video for some reason,

Every cell in your body has been renewed from the time that you were born.

So we're constantly changing what we want tomorrow or five years from now or 10 years from now might not be the same thing that we want now.

Everyone else around us is constantly changing.

The world is changing.

The sun comes up,

The sun goes down.

Technically the sun doesn't go anywhere,

The earth rotates.

Anyway,

Our world that we experience is constantly changing.

Also based on that fact,

You cannot specify like a self that doesn't change.

So it's an easy and convenient way to talk about ourselves to say,

Hi,

I'm Claire.

But that doesn't define me.

And from a Buddhist perspective,

I have however many gajillions of previous lives that I've lived and unless I become enlightened in this lifetime,

I'm going to have all these gajillions of future lives also to live.

So which one of those is me?

I have all the karma from all these previous lives.

Like the things I think I love in this lifetime,

How much of that is just karma carrying over from previous lives?

Maybe I love dark chocolate 500 lifetimes ago somewhere where they grow chocolate.

I don't know.

So a lot of what we think of as ourselves really arises from other conditions.

And then finally based on that,

There's the truth of dukkha,

Of unsatisfactoriness,

That we're never going to get all the pieces in just exactly the right order.

And then we're going to have it set.

Like our lives are just going to be perfect from then on out because that's not how it works because see above,

Impermanence and lack of an inherently existent self.

And you might hear that and think like,

Wow,

That's so depressing.

Like I don't even exist.

I'm never going to find happiness.

Like this is terrible.

Why does anybody follow this religion?

But that is not what this is about at all.

Like we obviously exist.

We just don't exist in the way that we think we do.

And this is why the Buddhist path is so great because it actually gives us guidance on how to get from being mistaken about the world to understanding it much more clearly.

And even within one lifetime,

We can really see the transformation in how happy,

How content we are as we bring our actions and our understanding of things into line more and more with reality.

And that brings us to a really foundational concept in the Buddhist tradition.

It's the foundation of Buddhist ethics.

It's what we have to understand if we want to cut the root of dukkha,

If we want to just stop the causes of suffering altogether.

And that is first of all,

Karma.

Now traditionally people would think of karma and previous lives like this,

Like they're very much woven together.

So we're coming into this lifetime with karma that we created,

That we set in motion in a previous lifetime.

If you don't believe in previous lives,

That's fine.

You can even think about karma in terms of yourself in this lifetime,

But also your parents,

Your ancestors,

The society around you,

Just everything that's been set in motion for you to have the situation that you were born into in this lifetime,

For you to have the preferences that you have,

For you to have the assumptions about the world that you have.

So there's a lot that goes into setting us up in this lifetime.

And you can think of all of that as sort of like the deep history of karma.

But when we talk about karma in terms of the path,

We really can't change anything in the past.

But what we can do is to understand how karma works so that in the future we can be setting ourselves up for happiness instead of suffering.

Let's start with a basic definition of karma.

The word is Sanskrit and it literally just means action.

But the Buddhist meaning of this word is something more like action that you take with intention,

Action that is volitional.

So we take action based on our understanding of the world and what we want out of it.

And for most of us,

Unless we are fully awakened,

Our understanding is not super accurate.

So the actions that we take are not likely to be ones that get us the results that we are looking for.

I killed a bunch of yellow jackets hoping to avoid getting stung by yellow jackets and it caused the outcome of me getting stung by a yellow jacket.

So Buddhism would say that this was a negative karmic action.

I acted out of a motivation of fear and the tradition would say hatred,

You know,

Trying to destroy something else so that it couldn't harm me.

And the outcome of negative karmic acts is suffering.

And in this case,

I got stung by a yellow jacket.

So true.

I'm going to slide with the Buddhist tradition on this one.

And that exact cycle of wanting something,

Going for it,

Going for it maybe in the wrong way,

Having some kind of negative karmic retribution come to us and then from there making a whole other set of choices that are potentially also problematic.

That is how this cycle of existence that Buddhism talks about,

They call it samsara,

The cycle of birth and death and rebirth,

But you can think about it in one lifetime as just our cycle of repetitive action.

Like it is that negative karma in particular that drives this whole cycle.

So that's like the engine behind dukkha.

This is what produces dukkha,

Keeps it going,

Keeps us stuck in this cyclic existence.

And if you're familiar with the wheel of existence,

You can see it's circular and there are beings who are rising up to the higher realms of existence,

Falling down to the lower realms of existence.

But in the very center are animals that represent what are called the three poisons of ignorance,

Craving and hatred.

And they're kind of powering the turning of this wheel of suffering.

So that's negative karma.

It's action taken with a sort of self-interest and it has a bad outcome for ourselves and others.

It's not an action that is coming from a place of altruism or a place of cherishing others or a place of wisdom even.

It's coming from a place of self-centeredness.

But fortunately there are two other kinds of karma also.

So there's positive karma.

And in that case,

There's a ton of different examples that we can think of.

But one of the examples that my teachers and client and Harvey Aronson at Dawn Mountain like to use is the example of somebody donating money to a hospital or to medical research.

And if you donate that money with this sense of like,

Maybe it's only $5,

But you're rejoicing in the idea that this is in some way going to contribute to scientific discoveries so that people with cancer or some horrible illness will have a better outcome,

Maybe a longer life or a better treatment with fewer side effects.

That's the idea of that and you rejoicing in that idea.

It creates this positive emotion and you're actually putting something behind that wish.

It's not just,

Oh,

May people be free from illness.

You're actually doing something to help people be free from illness,

Even if it's a very small thing.

So that's an example of positive karma.

So this is an action taken not with a selfish motivation,

But really with a motivation that's based on maybe wisdom.

So a recognition that we're all interconnected.

I'm making this offering.

The person who benefits from it could be me.

It could be someone I love,

Someone I care about.

It could be someone I've never met,

But they deserve to be happy just as much as I do.

It could be a compassionate motivation.

You know,

We're really touched by the suffering of others and we want them to be free from it.

So that positive karma brings happiness.

It brings a relief from dukkha or from suffering or unhappiness later in our lives to ourselves,

To others.

But if it's something that we did,

The idea is sooner or later benefit from that will come back to us.

And again,

If you don't believe in future lifetimes,

You might think of it in terms of that benefit maybe rippling out forward in society.

Maybe it's not me specifically who receives the benefit of that action.

Maybe it's someone else,

But it kind of,

It has a life of its own.

It moves forward into the community.

And there's actually a third kind of karma as well.

And this is just neutral karma.

So these are actions that we take,

But we really don't have a strong sense of grasping at something,

Wanting to get rid of something,

Having an altruistic motivation.

These are just the kinds of things that fly under our radar.

Maybe the things that we do on autopilot.

And there's not a strong positive or negative outcome for us when we put that kind of karma into motion.

And I've mentioned that traditionally people think of karma in terms of these like really long time spans,

Like multiple lifetimes.

Something good I do in this lifetime,

I might not personally receive the karma of that for 500 lifetimes yet to come.

But there is a sense that sooner or later it does return to us.

So here's my challenge to you when it comes to karma and this idea,

Because we don't have to think of those like really broad expansive timeframes.

We can just think of it in terms of even one day.

The basic idea of karma is we're putting something in motion and then it comes back to us.

But you can also think of it in terms of like momentum.

So what we feed is what tends to grow and develop in our minds and in our habits and in our lives.

So my challenge to you would be to just notice what you're feeding in your mind with your thoughts,

Maybe what you're supporting by saying it out loud or talking about yourself or someone else in a certain way.

Just notice what you're putting out there and then notice whether it's something you want to be feeding or not.

And if you don't want to be feeding it and you make an intentional effort not to feed that when it comes up,

What happens?

Does it create a better day for you?

Does it create a better week or month?

So that's just an experiment that you can do in your own life to check out this idea of karma.

And if you hear this idea that karma is action taken with volition,

Taken with intention,

You might think like,

Oh,

I'm doing that basically all day,

Every day.

So I'm always creating karma.

If karma is what is driving Dukkha,

Unsatisfactoryness,

What is driving this cyclic existence where we keep trying the same thing over and over again and it just never quite works for us,

Is there any way out?

How could we possibly stop?

And for an answer,

I will direct you to the video on the third noble truth,

Which is all about the end of Dukkha.

So please go check that out.

If you haven't already registered for the free mini course on the four noble truths,

Go find that link,

Go grab that course.

It has more resources than I can really put into a video to help you take it into your daily life.

Reviews

Thank you Claire for the clarity around Buddhist “suffering” and kharma. It comes at a point in my journey when I can really benefit from greater understanding. Namasté