Letting Go, Suffering, & The Four Noble Truths

A short 14-minute dharma talk covering how letting go, suffering, and understanding our pain in this human incarnation play a role in and through the Four Noble Truths. This talk is based around the ideas presented within the Buddhist Psychological literature and are shown through the basic teachings of the Buddha. If you are struggling on the Buddhist path and wish to reflect on your pain and suffer, pause for a moment and listen here.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to today's talk.

My name is Silas Day and in this short Dharma talk We will be looking into suffering and letting go This talk has been inspired by my recent deeper dive into the world of Buddhist psychology.

I Think that anyone in their right mind looking around the world would see that there's plenty of suffering going on But this suffering doesn't have to be blatant Much of the suffering of the world is quiet Much of it is felt alone So many people feel like they're adrift traveling in an unsteady boat from the shore of the alone to the alone Suffering the whole way without a light to guide them or a map to shore When we first begin to know Buddhism and Buddhist teachings We are introduced to it We are introduced to its starting point which to some can seem rather Neolistic,

But when properly understood can help us That is the inescapable truth that existence entails suffering The inescapable fact that no matter what we will face dissatisfaction The unavoidable and fundamental experience that in this incarnation We will be fraught with unhappiness Sadness and its whole myriad of similar things This does not mean we won't experience happiness,

Of course This doesn't mean we won't know joy Just that we are burdened with the fact that we will experience their negatives This is called the first noble truth the truth of suffering Yet how difficult it can be to swallow that pill And how much harder it might be to teach it if it did not come from a place of compassion No matter how difficult the first step to understanding our suffering and dissatisfaction is embracing it and not seeing it as an enemy But as an aspect of our existence which must eat at the table of our life Just as our happiness and love do In the Buddhist teachings on compassion and maps of human psychology Understanding suffering and its ends are the key to unlocking our innate freedom from it In fact one could say the whole history of Buddhism is One built on discovering the swiftest and most effective way to do this In many ways the whole purpose of the Buddhist teaching through awakening through its ethics Through its philosophy its teaching practice And myriad lessons is to allow you to experience And myriad lessons is to allow you to discover that freedom And joy are freely given And are directly at your feet at all times And at all places That it is possible even in the face of suffering to touch the heart essence of joy of freedom Forgiveness and limitless compassion One of my favorite phrases from Buddhism is that as the compassion Of the bodhisattvas are infinite So is the suffering of the world What is quite interesting about the Four Noble Truths is that in a way The Buddha was playing the position of a doctor He was pointing out the symptoms of a sickness The cause of it The chance that we might be healed and His advice and treatment of it Each step of the diagnosis being one of the Four Noble Truths Now Our part to play in this healing process is varied moment by moment Sometimes we play the part of a friend Sometimes we must play the part of a healer to ourselves or to others If given the opportunity Sometimes we are trying our best to figure out a solution to a terrible ailment that troubles someone We are the first to feel our own suffering and sometimes we are the first to witness the suffering of another Sometimes we are given the gift of being there for someone when a fire of pain begins It is a gift because we are given a chance to lessen its blaze in the best way we can Even if we find ourselves To be the one who caused it Whatever form our own or others suffering comes in whether it be from conflict with another Fear of what is to come Depression from what has come to pass Stress from a life too full Illness divorces unfulfilled existence or lost love We must be able to step back and willingly Take upon its truth Its truth of suffering and not make it out to be a mild nuisance But encompass it with the whole heart of our compassion and wisdom This isn't always easy to do Sometimes it's the hardest part of the process It's not always easy to do sometimes it's the hardest thing to do in the moment it arises It can be even more difficult if we are the ones that are suffering dissatisfaction or pain We are our greatest critic But also can be our greatest friend and ally Buddhist psychology marks a real difference between pain and suffering Those rascally buddhists are always ones to make detailed distinctions,

But I appreciate them so much for it In it pain is an unavoidable aspect of the natural and conditioned world As long as we dwell within conditioned existence Pain will be an aspect which we experience Even buddha after his enlightenment experienced the pain of the conditioned world Pain is physical It's biological It is social and woven into the fabric of conditioned existence Just as waking and sleeping are It is as natural As hot and cold It is as natural as happiness and sadness It is as inevitable as hardness and softness In this human incarnation we are a part of interact with and experience the ever Persistent ebb and flow of the human condition We experience the doldrums of boredom the whole spectrum of pain The material joy of gain and the ever-present experience of loss Whether it be a loss felt immensely or the loss of one moment to the next Everything we encounter in the world is the same It contains the praise blame Failures successes and echoes of the past into this infinite present Arising and passing Coming and going Here and now Just this endless present experience Suffering differs from pain in a fundamental way Suffering is caused by our reaction to the inevitable pain of life It is not pain itself but a reaction to the world around us In some ways it is the echoes of the mind through and into Synthate Reality Like a computer being fed information and spitting out reactions But luckily we can change the source code of our being Our personal suffering can include anxiety depression fear confusion grief Anger and a whole set of things which I am sure you are quite familiar with But suffering is not only personal Our collective suffering grows from each of our suffering It grows from the malice that we all hold From the suffering we inflict upon others and the coldness with which we can turn our backs upon the world This individual and collective suffering The first noble truth Is what we are called upon to understand and transform Not only within our own being but to try our best to make the world at least not a worse place We may not be able to make the world a better place each day But the least we can do is not make it any worse And to build our own world better The second noble truth describes the cause of suffering and the means of suffering Grasping and desire which is itself a kind of grasping Grasping the buddha explained gives birth to all of our aversion and delusion From our grasping aversion and delusion is the birth of all the things which cause suffering in the world No matter the name they are given they can be traced back to one of these three roots The third noble truth offers us a way out It offers us a chance and a path It gives us a way out It offers us a chance and a path It gives us a noble quest to the end of suffering Unlike pain suffering is not inevitable Freedom from suffering is possible When we let go of our reactions Our fear and grasping and react to them with wisdom Compassion understanding and concentration Reacting not against them but with them in this very moment of awareness This freedom called nirvana Breathing out This is the third noble truth The fourth noble truth is the path to the end of suffering The path is called the middle way It invites us to find peace wherever we are here and now By neither grasping nor resisting life we can find wakefulness and freedom in the midst of our joys and sorrows Following the middle path we establish integrity We learn to quiet the mind We learn to see with wisdom The four noble truths insist that we face our pain The pain in our body The pain in our mind and the pain which the world presents and feels They teach us to stop running away To stop turning an eye from it To stop suppressing it and bottling it up Only by courageously opening to the sorrow of this world Only by courageously opening to the sorrow of this human incarnation As it is can we find our freedom This is the demand placed on all of those who wish to find awakening This is the demand and the burden of those who walk the path to nirvana The four noble truths are a complete and systematic set of psychological principles And teachings that we can use to end the causes of suffering Through their understanding we can realize that freedom We can realize that lightness We can realize that life doesn't have to be lived in suffering and dissatisfaction And that we can work every day to discover the wisdom Insight compassion and joy found in each and every moment And within the eyes of each and every person Now the middle way is far more than just these things But it opens our minds and our hearts to the chance of healing To letting go of and understanding the true heart of our suffering I hope that this little talk today has helped you in some way I know it's a bit of a rant and I know that it may not be what you expected But I thought it might help you,

Whoever you are,

In some small way I am Silas Day and thank you for listening today wherever you are Wherever you find yourself in your practice And whatever you are going through I wish you the best of luck

Reviews

Excellent, concise description. Very good teaching. Thank you.

It wasn’t a rant at all, but a path to understanding which I appreciate.🪷

This is another step on my path to learning more about the 4 noble truths. Thank you 🙏🏼

Perfect. Thank you very much 🙏

Beautifully presented talk on the Four Noble Truths.
Thank you 🙏🏻 ❤️🌿

Amazing. I have listened to these concepts for years, but today I heard them. Peace to everyone who reads this.

Excellent description of the four noble truths; presented in a calm, measured way, allowing us to take in and ponder these most fundamental of Buddhist teachings.

Thank you for your comforting words
🙏🙏🙏

You slice right through to the heart of things. “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, You just might find, you get what you need”. R. Stones.

I very much enjoyed your rendition of the four Noble truths. It brought to me, more understanding and will help me on my journey to self awareness. Namaste 🙏

I very much enjoy and benefit from Silas’ talks. Thank you, Silas.🦉🌲🌅

I’m saving this – what a great reminder that pain is inevitable but suffering is optional

This brought some appreciated perspective.

Thank you Silas 🙏🏻❤️

I found this talk very interesting and informative. Thank you very much

Very beautiful to listen to and the pace of the talk was just right. I will listen to it again. Thank you. Joanne Kini

I will be listening to more! Many thanks 🙏🏾

Suffering. I walk into and out of that garden . It is so nice to walk out. ☮️💟🕉

Not a rant at all☺️. Exactly what I needed this morning. Thank you.🙏🏼

Awesome vey moving and insightful thank you 🙏🏻