So one of the ways of understanding the Four Noble Truths is not from the causes of suffering which we've been talking about,
Not from the conditions that lead to suffering but rather it's the deep insight into the nature of suffering that the nature of suffering is a process of inconstancy of change and coming and going and that somehow just seeing the nature of suffering of pain of stress that it comes and it goes that can be deeply liberating.
It doesn't require us to find the cause of our pain or the conditions of it.
When we've understood that change,
That inconstancy,
That impermanence is the nature of suffering,
That's how it goes,
Then almost quite naturally a very deep letting go of clinging,
Of holding on happens.
Suffering,
Stress is not an inherent part of the human experience.
Change is.
What we can count on is change.
What we can do is let go into change.
So this is another way of understanding the Second Noble Truth that we've been looking at this week and all of the different understandings are great.
So what we're doing is expanding the range of how we use this framework of the Four Noble Truths so that we can apply them to our life in different ways.
So in the ancient text,
The Majjhima Nikaya,
It's written that craving the Second Noble Truth gives rise to dukkha,
The first.
So by understanding and relinquishing desire we become free from suffering.
The path to full freedom is to abandon desire and craving.
This is how it's written.
Now the statement,
It certainly makes me think that desire is the problem,
That letting go of desire is the aim,
But desire,
That's not the problem.
Desire itself is just part of being alive.
Where it becomes complicated or where it becomes suffering is that we get caught in the object of our desires.
We get hitched to it.
The last thing that I want to offer is creating aversion to desire.
There is nothing wrong with desire.
That's why we're here.
We're a product of desire.
We all have desire for connection,
For love and understanding.
All of us.
And we know what happens when people lose their desire.
They jump off bridges and put a gun to their temple and swallow pills.
That's what happens when people lose desire to live.
So part of our exploration is to explore a wise understanding of desire.
The arising of desire is kind of a basic thirst to our existence.
In the Pali language,
The language of the original text,
The word for desire is tanha.
Tanha.
T-A-N-H-A.
And it literally means unquenchable thirst.
That's the literal translation.
So clinging,
Desire,
Has this characteristic of thirst.
So imagine for a moment that you have just exercised all day long in the hot sun and you're parched and desperate for water.
The compulsion,
The drive,
The preoccupation with getting something to drink can be all that you think about in the last miles of your hike.
Just getting that drink.
So the thirst is actually the cause of suffering.
This thirst has a compulsive quality to it.
There's a drivenness,
A compulsion.
If you've ever been addicted to a substance,
You know a little bit of what I'm talking about.
There's an addictive quality,
A drive to consume,
A compulsivity.
That's part of the reason where there's suffering.
Because there's a loss of freedom.
There's tension in it.
There's tension in it.
Got to have it.
Got to get it.
The thirst for it.
So anytime we lose our freedom,
We suffer.
In the Buddhist cosmology,
We've talked about this before,
One of the psychic domains is described as the realm of the hungry ghosts.
And so imagine the hungry ghost figures as they've been depicted in art have these tiny little necks and these huge bellies,
Small little mouths,
Tiny little necks,
Huge bellies,
Like riddled with desire that can never be satisfied.
And we all have some version of this hungry ghost syndrome.
And in our human,
Like it's very human to have desires.
They're natural and wholesome to have desire.
It's actually necessary for us to survive and flourish.
So let's not make desire the problem.
As we practice,
As the meditative mind becomes quieter,
And we're just living more and more in the present moment experience,
What happens,
What can happen,
What you've experienced perhaps,
Is the mind stops the activity of making up stories.
And we're just more and more in the experience of what's happening.
And at some point,
We experience just the coming and going of all of the stories and activities of the mind,
The appearing and the disappearing.
We experience it directly,
The arising and the passing of our thinking,
The arising and the passing of our desires,
The rising and the passing of our aversions.
So the Buddha instructed his monks,
The monks that followed him,
To develop concentration.
He wrote,
And I'm paraphrasing,
That those who have concentration will see things as they are.
They will see their suffering,
The arising of suffering,
The ceasing of suffering,
And the practice of this ceasing of suffering,
The concentration.
And what's interesting about this is that the Buddha said this hundreds of times in the suttas,
Like see for yourself,
Always referring to how all experiences arise and pass.
Nothing in experience is constant.
But we forget,
Right?
All the time we forget.
Impermanence,
The change that is always always happening.
As soon as we get off this call,
We're going to forget about it.
Yet this understanding is known as liberating insight.
Liberating insight,
So important.
The Buddha emphasized over and over again this deep insight into impermanence,
Seeing all things arising and passing.
If we can cultivate this,
Remember this,
It's liberating.
Because when we see things arising and passing in our experience,
Then we have a much clearer sense on how we want to hold it and where we resist.
When we see that even the most conflicting conversations and situations in our life are appearing and they will disappear,
Then there's space.
There isn't anything to hold on to.
It's just arising and passing.
So we can meet it without deep clinging to it.
And we learn this tool in meditation by allowing things.
Everything is allowed to come and go in the mind.
To let it be there and let it be there and let it be there.
And then we take the practice off the cushion and into our life.
It's a practice of deep equanimity to experience this.
This non-reactivity leads to the mind letting go in the deepest possible way,
Even in the most conflicting conversations and situations of our life.
So I invite you to try it.
Thank you for your kind attention this morning.
