Buddhist Belief — Second Noble Truth
“Turn your mind away from things which are not permanent.”~~~ Buddha
We finished the last article by talking about attachment. In the early stages of living a lifestyle based on Buddhist Belief , it may be a bit of overwhelm to lose our attachment to everything all at once. It might be best if we rid ourselves of the unhealthy things in our life — things like smoking, lousy relationships, drugs and alcohol. Focus more on the things you should keep or add to your life like healthier food choices, meditation, nourishing your good relationships and your spiritual life. Keep doing this and you’ll find, over time, your need to remain attached to things will gradually move more and more towards the positive, and the negative things will diminish.
Before we move on with the Second Noble Truth I’d like to mention something one of the readers asked. This person wanted to know how someone who is a Christian can live a Buddhist lifestyle? First of all, living a lifestyle based on Buddhist Belief is not about changing your religion. I do call myself a Buddhist, but I don’t consider using the teachings of the Buddha to show me a better way to live my life, as a religion. I also don’t see anything in the basic teachings of Buddha in these articles contradicting the teachings of the various religions. Is it possible that others may not agree with me? Absolutely! I have no problem with that. This is not about worshiping Buddha. What this is about is applying the teachings of a person who lived 2500 years ago and applying them to our lives. I think most people are dealing with different things in their lives. There are all sorts of different realities going on in each of our lives. The same differences will apply to how people reading this blog will interpret what’s being written. As I’ve quoted in another blog recently:
“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with another person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them out, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keeping what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”~~~ Dinah Mulock Craik from A Life for a Life, 1959
Let’s spend a moment on what we wrote about attachment. What would be worthy of attachment? Suppose you’d like to be attached to God? You should go for that. Be attached to God. We need to rid ourselves of things like clinging, being demanding, resistance, greed, and being rigid. These things are just not helpful. Being generous with yourself and others, practicing tolerance, equanimity and balance in your life — these are good things.
Okay — got carried away there, so let’s get on with the plan for this article — the Second Noble Truth.
You’ll remember from previous posts, the first of the Four Noble Truths says life is pretty darn dissatisfying. All the created and conditioned things are just a bit less than we wished — they’re not quite as reliable as we’d like and are ultimately not what we expected. Many Buddhist teachers call the First Noble Truth, suffering. Personally, I prefer the word dissatisfying.
Just being aware that life is dissatisfying won’t make it any less so. We need to know why that’s the case and this is where the Second Noble Truth comes into play. What is the cause of all this dissatisfaction?
The really cool part of this is once we realize the truth about “why”, we come to understand the things themselves don’t suffer or become dissatisfied — it’s us that feels the pain! We suffer because of our clinging, our attachments, our greed, our constant desires, our need for more and more. Many Buddhist teachers just call it craving. We want more and more of the things and experiences in our life so we’ll be happy. We get them and soon these things lose their shiny exteriors and we become less satisfied with them and we begin to suffer. When suffering kicks in, we crave finding ways to replace them and the cycle starts over again.
It isn’t the “things” we need to get out of our lives — it’s our attachment to them. Attachments fall into three different categories. The first is our craving for pleasurable experiences, getting what we want. The second sort of attachment is getting rid of the things in our life we don’t want. The first is all about desire, and the second part is more about anger and aggression. It’s the craving for something to be other than what it is.
The third aspect of the Second Noble Truth is the craving or desire to be someone other than who we are. The ultimate ego-trip — the degree of dissatisfaction in wanting to become “somebody”. No matter who we become — no matter how we may see ourselves — no matter what we may achieve — no matter what material possessions we may accumulate — it, or they, won’t last forever. Yet, we knock ourselves out chasing after these aspects of attachment. If we identify with our body — or if we identify with our mind — or if we identify with our concept of who we think we are — and since these types of attachments or identification won’t last forever, (and deep down we know it), ultimate satisfaction never happens! We never quite get what we thought we would. Our inherent wisdom is always there telling us that this just is not going to last — and therein lies the reason why we suffer.
We’ll pick this up again in our next post when we continue our discussion of the Second Noble Truth and Buddhist Belief.
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I’ve been showing you a series of short 10-minute videos produced by the BBC called “The Life of Buddha.” Last time was Part Three. This time we’ll show you Part Four. I hope you enjoy it. If, for some reason, the video doesn’t play when you press the play button below, here’s a link to take you directly to it :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8q-uSYujMI
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Always remember ….
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”~~~ Buddha
Shanti … (A sanscrit word meaning, “Let there be Peace. Peace, beautiful Peace. Peace within, Peace without. Peace in this world. Peace for all beings.”)
“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”~~~ Buddha
Have a peaceful day!! —
Ron Rink
http://www.theleaderinside.com
http://www.wecould2.com
http://www.buddhistbelief.com
Tags: Buddha, Buddhism, Buddhist, Buddhist Belief, First Noble Truth, Four Noble Truths, Second Noble Truth