Contemplation on the Four Noble Truths.
The first teaching delivered by the Buddha at Deer Park in Sarnath,
India.
Suffering is to be known,
The cause of suffering to be abandoned,
Liberation is to be realized,
And the path to liberation to be cultivated.
The first truth is suffering.
This is an opportunity for us to face the harsh reality of the human predicament.
The Buddha declared that there were three types of suffering.
Ordinary suffering,
Of birth,
Old age,
Sickness,
And death,
Of being separated from loved ones,
And having to be with difficult ones.
All of this is suffering.
The second type of suffering is the suffering of change,
That everything is impermanent,
And that even our experience of happiness comes to an end.
Every moment of satisfaction we've experienced is fleeting and leads to despair.
This is the truth of the suffering of change.
Finally there is the suffering of conditioning,
That intrinsic to our very being,
We have a stress trigger,
A fight-flight response,
That has kept us alive,
Ensured our survival,
But also kept us threatened,
Stressed,
And fatigued.
Our automatic biology is a form of suffering in itself.
Until we transcend our own biology through conscious living,
We will suffer.
The second truth is the cause of suffering.
Reflect for a moment that nothing is random,
That our own experience of suffering and happiness is conditioned by our own mind,
Body,
And actions.
In particular,
There are three causes of suffering.
There is attachment and obsessive clinging.
There is aversion and repulsion.
And finally there is misperception,
Or the non-seeing clearly of our true nature.
When you attach to a person or object,
What is occurring is an obsessive exaggeration of the positive qualities that you see,
An attachment or clinging to the object of your desire.
When you are angry or repulsed,
What is occurring is an exaggeration of the negative qualities that you fear,
And a pushing away of the object or person of your repulsion.
Our lives are dominated by wanting and averting,
Chasing and fleeing,
All grounded in the primary cause of misperception.
Not seeing clearly our own nature and the true nature of reality,
Our own selfless flow of change and interconnectivity,
And the relative nature of reality,
Its interdependence and co-emergence.
The third noble truth is the truth of liberation,
That complete freedom from suffering is possible and that as human beings our optimal potential is for happiness.
The Buddha's discovery is that once he realized his selfless interconnectivity and the nature of reality,
What he discovered was sheer bliss,
Sheer joy,
And that every living being had the potential for this awakening.
Liberation is not bought or sold,
It is not bestowed upon you by any other being,
It is the product of a clear and stable mind,
Knowing its true nature,
And an open and vast heart,
Connecting with all living beings.
The fourth noble truth is the path to liberation.
The Buddha taught that there were three educations on the path to liberation,
The education in morality and ethics,
The education in mental training and concentration,
The education in wisdom or clear seeing.
Ethics is ruled by the principle of avoiding harm to self and other.
Mental training is ruled by the principle of calming and stabilizing the mind through meditative disciplines.
Wisdom is ruled by the principle of seeing clearly one's selfless nature and the interconnectivity of all things.
A life based on ethics,
Mental training,
And the wisdom that knows reality is a life that leads to liberation.
The four noble truths,
Buddha's psychology of happiness,
Suffering is to be known,
The cause to be abandoned,
Health and happiness to be achieved,
And the medicine to be taken.
Thank you.
