The Four Noble Truths: The Path Out Of Pain

The way that it’s expressed in the ancient tradition is one understands suffering, one understands the arising of suffering, one understands the ceasing of suffering and the fourth statement is that this is the practice leading to the ceasing of suffering. This interpretation is a deep insight into impermanence. This is the practice that leads to the end of suffering. So, because of the challenges of letting go deeply and experiencing this freedom from suffering, there is a path.

Transcript

This talk is the final talk in a series that we've been doing on the Four Noble Truths. And in the past three weeks we've explored the first three and this fourth builds on them. And the way that it's expressed in the ancient tradition is that one understands suffering, One understands the arising of suffering, One understands the ceasing of suffering and the fourth statement is that this is the practice leading to the ceasing of suffering, The practice that leads out of suffering. And as I've been pointing to, The practice is really the practice of seeing the arising and the ceasing. It's the clarity of just seeing things and leaving them alone, Just seeing them come and go without our involvement. We're free of it and it's free of us. And this is the practice that we do over and over again. We keep opening more and more. And as we continue, At some point these practices get deep enough that the letting go happens sometimes in a deep way. And so these four liberating insights, We understand them but we understand them on the level that we are living in them. We're living with the arising and the passing in a deep way. This truth of impermanence. So this is a slightly different understanding of the Noble Truths. The most common interpretation of the Four Noble Truths is that there is suffering in the world and that there is a cause and craving is the cause. And so we're letting go of craving and the interpretation I just shared, It's a slightly deeper insight into impermanence. This is the practice that leads to the end of suffering, Understanding of craving arises and passes. Suffering arises and ceases. And the end of suffering involves letting go. It involves putting down the craving, The attachment. But as we know, It's not so easy to do. These attachments that we have can be very, Very deep. And some of them are deeply subconscious. We can't even see some of the ways that we're attached. Sometimes our suffering is just a big mass of suffering. We don't see any causes or conditions for it. We're just feeling lousy and bad and we can't point to anything. So because the challenge of letting go deeply and experiencing freedom is difficult, There is this path. There's this set of practices that a person can do that sort of sets up the conditions to begin first clearing the field and helping the mind develop its capacity to simply see deeper and deeper into what is going on. That's how we really come to this place of liberation is seeing. And this path is represented in these Four Noble Truths as this eightfold path. So the practice for the end of suffering are these eight practices that we engage in and we engage with them and then they begin changing how we are. These practices allow us to live with more contentment regardless of the conditions that are presenting in our life. So this eightfold path is like a prescription of what to do and it's also presented as a description of what liberated people are like. That once a person becomes really free of attachment and clinging and sees the arising and passing their life and how they live their life is a description. It's described by this eightfold path without actively doing it. So with this in mind we can start to ask the question, You know, What am I doing that's leading me to more suffering or more pain? Or does what I'm doing bring me freedom from pain and dissatisfaction? Does what I'm doing end suffering? Is this perspective that I have into my situations or the perspective I'm using now support? Is it supportive to moving toward the end of suffering? Is this understanding, This practice that I'm doing, This activity that I'm doing, This mindset that I'm bringing, Does it help? Just not for the short term but also for the long term. And that's a really important point because some people are just looking for relief and relief is not the same as release. Relief is temporary. It's just kind of getting back into comfort. There can even be an escape from really looking at things in our life, You know, But the task of ending suffering requires us to look deeply and really be present. Even with great difficulty there's this sense of welcoming and if we're too quick to avoid suffering and to avoid pain and to avoid those people and those difficulties in our lives then we're not really working for the long term end of suffering. So we have to really learn to be present with what's arising. This path is very pragmatic. Most people can feel it as a way of responding. You know it's not much different than if you had a thorn in your foot and you pull it out. That's pragmatic. You know you feel the pain of the thorn, You pull out the thorn and there might be a little bit of pain at first as you pull it out but for the long term well-being it's good to pull it out so it doesn't dig in deeper. And the Buddha he talked about a thorn in our heart and that what he discovered with his waking up was that there's this thorn and that thorn can be pulled out. And on this Buddhist path the Buddha teaches a lot about the tremendous value of being very very still and quiet. Cultivating a very clear mind resting in this peaceful mind and allowing the stream the river of life just to flow. So seeing the inconstancy of experience how it's constantly flowing and moving arising and passing and it's beyond our concepts and ideas the causes and even the conditions but this is happening at a very primal level of experience. Any kind of suffering we have any kind of pain we have involves in some way some attempt to try to stop it to lock and hold on to or resist this flow of experience that's going on. So to experience that flow and then to let go more deeply to come to that quiet state of mind where impermanence can be that powerful of an impact we have to get quiet and time in practice is all it takes. And as we know that takes a little bit of effort. We all have this capacity for freedom from suffering from the pain that we contribute to and to the forces inside of our own heart and our own mind of holding on and resisting the forces of wanting and not wanting resentment all those kinds of things that we have. And we have this capacity for peace also for ease at its essence the Buddha taught it's as like a little seed and that seed needs to be nourished and watered. That's what we do together and if that seed is nourished and watered and given the right fertilized conditions it grows. And this idea that what's in us is there already it's ready to grow and unfold when we come together in this way. It's what we're doing. We're nourishing and fertilizing the seed. It points to a very powerful and positive view of our human nature our potential. So there's something really good and wholesome about what we're doing here in this process of liberating the heart and mind. And so part of it is to learn how to create a fertile ground and this Sangha this community is that how to water it how to make room for this plant to grow. So this perspective on the Four Noble Truths that I've offered these couple of weeks is for your reflection and consideration. One understands the arising of suffering one understands the ceasing of suffering. And the fourth statement there is a path there's a practice that leads to the ceasing of suffering. And we'll continue to unpack the path in these weeks to come.